I'm actually somewhat positive on Rodriguez. He didn't get much game time last season and was not match fit, but I thought he had improved on his technique.
Be good to have Long back as we look weak up front...lots of good passing, but little end product. Fonte and Soares are not going to be up to speed when the season opens as they are only back next week. They have the games against Espanyol and Bilbao to test their match fitness, but they will be a few weeks behind the others...that's the price of success.
I watched some of the match on replay and my impression of JRod was that he has lost a lot of his sharpness, that shouldn't be a surprise, but he was caught offside on a lot of occasions, doesn't seem to have a rapport with Charlie yet. There were a few occasions when different players had an opportunity to hit a shot but failed to use it. VVD sent some cracking diagonal passes to Cuco, but again the opportunity fizzled out through indecision, I am sure this can be ironed out with practice and we still are missing some vital cogs, so it is impossible to say whether we are in good shape yet, but time is rushing by, not making it easy to recruit if we are lacking in any departments. I still think the priority is to get a Centre Forward that can hold the ball up and score goals.
His hold up play was often top class. Did you watch the Euros? Were you at Man Utd Home and Away? Stoke away? Any of the last dozen games of the season at all....Superb hold up play.
All the pundits considered his hold-up play to be top class. Graziano could be inconsistent, I'll say that, and It was usually down to that knee injury that flared up occasionally. Awful niggly things, knees can be. He had it right to the end of his Saints career. Probably still has it.
He was definitely inconsistent and his annoying little flicks often failed (but sometimes they worked!) but I think it was his finishing generally more than his hold-up play was first rate. What? He absolutely dominated Blind and cushioned everything beautifully....
We definitely need a new talent upfront. Strike force have looked woefully inadequate in preseason so far.
Often? No, it wasn't. More often he'd either flick it on in a champagne style pass that would make the crowd go "oooh" or allow the CB to nick in front of him to play it away. He was clumsy with the ball at his feet and back to goal, often misplacing the pass or lay-off and often because he refused the simply but effective easy ball. When he played simply he looked so much better. Occasionally he did hold it up well I agree, but that was occasionally. Man Utd at home first half he did. Second half he wondered around not interested despite his late goal. Swansea at home he did. Yes, I watched the Euros and I said in each of those group games that this was a different Pelle. Conte must have got that out of him because he just didn't do that consistently for Saints. He won lots of headers, but don't let that be confused as hold up play. I'm not digging him there because not his fault if ball in the air, but when on the ground he didn't hold it up. He could lay a ball off beautifully with his chest sometimes too. Very good at that, but to say he was a good "hold-up" player is simply incorrect in my opinion. Ps. For the last dozen or so games, were you watching? If you saw superb hold up play it must have been someone else.... The games I was at, he'd lost his place in a lot of them to Shane Long.
True, I think having somebody up with him really helped in. We did try pairing him and Long a couple of times without huge success althoguh I think it was Everton at home last year where they absolutely blitzed them. Also concede your point about the last dozen games - think it was Long's hold-up play that wowed me!
