"I don't know what they did at Swansea but for me it just seemed like he had some momentum from a good season in the championship, like a lot of players and teams do but soon got found out." Well we didn't have him in the Championship and Rodgers bought him following promotion. We bought him from Watford where he was top scorer in the Championship. In our first Prem season he got 14 goals which is a decent return but he was playing in a side that passed it about and teed things up for him. Laudrup came in and spotted he had some issues off the field, including alleged drinking problems and very young girlfriends (yes, very young) and offloaded to an unsuspecting Martin O'Neill at the Mackems. He's been rubbish ever since. Odds on he'll score against us. As for being 'found out' I'm not sure if you're referring to him or us. After Graham left we ended up having a more successful season last time than in our first. Top half of the table and a Cup win. Things have tended to work out alright for us in that respect.
No need to be touchy, I'm obviously referring to him. A lot of players (and teams) get promoted to the PL, either with their own team or after the transfer market and they carry some momentum and start well but eventually they fade away if they don't have the necessary quality. I've always said that by the way. Graham needs sitters. Most of them at Swansea were 1 on 1's with the keeper or tap ins. He has to do too much to create chances for himself with us and seems to give up quickly.
I've said time and time again I like his (Graham's) work ethic, he does a lot of great things, but the simple fact remains we need goals and he isn't scoring any. In the same way I liked McLean, people still pointed out to me that a forwards job is to score goals, which McLean didn't do either. The problem in the Premier League is you get far less chances, therefore the conversion rate needs to be much better. With the additional issue of having a 25 man squad, we have too many forwards that simply aren't contributing.
Not touchy at all, it's just that I wasn't sure. Now I've re-read the post I can see it. I agree with your last point. He rarely scores worldies. These days he rarely scores. This is going to bite me on the ass isn't it.
Graham was taking a hammering after the Chelsea game and to be honest better strikers will struggle against them especially when you spend most of the game defending. Norwich game in which he spent most of the game upfront by himself as we only had 10 players. Man city pretty much the same as Chelsea although he actually did ok. Sometimes I think RVP would struggle to score in our team based on our lack of creativity
Agree, he isn't good enough at this level. You could see that towards the end of last season (injury or not)
Last season we were in the Championship where Gedo scored virtually a goal a game in 6 games before suffering a crippling foot injury which sidelined him for 6 months or more. He came back playing for Egypt and scored a great goal against Ghana, the best team in Africa. How can you say he isn't good enough at this level when he's played barely 30 minutes and nearly scored the game clincher at Spurs, while defending Graham who has done absolutely nothing despite numerous chances. Bizarre!!!
Nearly scored a goal against spurs! Graham's nearly scored a few aswell, surley you carnt rate someone by what they've nearly done and what he's done in Africa? If he was that good someone would have taken out of Egypt before we did
That probably won't matter. Though it's rumoured Michu may be back. Can't see him being match fit myself.
I can't remember editing that post but when I do it's usually because someone's made a mistake with the quote coding making it appear as though someone wrote something which they didn't, but were actually quoting. Don't know if that's what this or what. I wouldn't have edited that for any other reason really.
Given there's two versions of your post quoted on this thread I'm going to guess you edited your own post and then edited the one that you saw Chazz had quoted it in. Just after it says Graham is behind Sagbo but Sagbo will get injured there's one version that says we need Graham for the moment, and one that says we'll need him then.
Players don't move out of Egypt half as easily as from other African countries. In Gedo's case, there was interest from EPL clubs after the ACON in 2010 but he didn't have the required percentage of participation with the national team then, as he had just debuted with Egypt at that tournament. He signed for Al-Ahly pretty quickly after that. Being Egypt's #1 club & constantly competing in Africa and regularly at Club World Cups, Ahly always hold on to their players pretty bad. In fact, it's pretty much a certainty that Gedo wouldn't have been allowed two consecutive loans to Hull this year if the financial situation here wasn't so messed up.
How about out of match form & match confidence ? He's been out for five months. Coming back from that to a 14 minutes EPL debut (actually, a debut in any European top flight league for him) isn't a guarantee he'll have instant impact, especially since he didn't really get service during those 14 mins he played. So the following game (Liverpool) he doesn't come on. Then he makes his 2nd EPL appearence with Hull 0-2 down to the league leaders, playing away, 17 minutes to go. Can't hold up a couple of high balls he should have done much better with for sure, but does make a nice run with the ball at one point. In the end, no impact... The following game, he's out of the 18 !! I don't think that can help the confidence much. I don't mean by this that he's being treated unfairly because that's just the nature of squads and lineups, it's just competitive. All I'm saying is if Gedo doesn't show you guys enough positive signs yet, it's not that surprising to be honest. That is until he gets one or two proper chances. You know... the kind that some other striker in the team keeps getting right now as a result of existing.
