Shearer's scathing summary of the strikeforce

Shearer on MoTD calling out the front three over the weekend got some tongues wagging over the last few days. Anyone think he was overly harsh on them?

Personally I think he's spot on. Joelinton (although I don't think he's a CF) has to start scoring/creating more for a £40m player, Almiron's work rate is fantastic but end product severely lacking and St Max is a luxury player for me, great technical ability but lazy - and I can't think of another word for it. Personally I'd rather have Ritchie on the wing and St Max coming on for him or Almiron later on and running at a tired defence and then the other winger subbed for atsu-lutley no one.

So what do you think was he overly harsh on the lads, spot on or even a bit soft on them?

 

Wide of the mark on ASM; he's a player with magic, like Ginola and Robert. Part of the problem of English people like Shearer/Bruce is this obsession with "working hard". You build grafters around people like ASM and get him the ball much further up the pitch.

Almiron does miss end product, for sure - against Norwich he had a couple of chances to do something better in the final third and ****ed it up.

Joelinton, however, is ridiculous. He just cannot do anything right. Being outpaced and outmuscled by Grant Hanley is **** all to do with chances. It just highlights he's a dreadful footballer.

 

100% agree with this but it's exactly the reason I think he's a luxury player and we don't have the players to carry him at present. It's not down to the formation either it's the style we are playing. The 5-4-1 easily becomes a 3-4-3 if we just play more attacking and leave the wingers further forwards but sitting on the edge of the box is not what St Max thrives on and then he's running twice as far to get forwards and support the attack. Like I say I'd rather a grafter like Radgey Ritchie bombing around battering people in that position at present than St Max who has a terrible habit of dangling a leg out but not really wanting to make contact with anyone.

 

Until we have a better midfield it's hard to say.

Joelinton needs people to create.
Almiron and ASM are not wingers.

It took Ayoze, Rondon 6 months to click and that was with the help of Almiron and under Rafa.

These guys need time but will probably MIT happen as they have Mr Bruce guiding them

 

tbf none of them are in their correct positions!! im sorry, but that for me means its not their fault.

 

The simplest way to think of it is in Liverpool terms. Mane/Almiron, Firmino/Joelinton, Max/Salah. That's their best positions, I'm not even remotely suggesting they're the same level.

Liverpool don't play 5 at the back. And have an infinitely better squad/manager.

 

Almiron and ASM are competing for the same spot, I'd personally put Almiron in the CAM position, with Ritchie on the right.

Joelinton is useless. I've not even seen the basics from him.

 

4-2-3-1


joelinton is a amr as we saw vs everton.


----------carroll

miggy -- max ---- joe


then a pick em

 

None. He’s simply missing the point.

Joelinton didn’t decide his fee nor did Almiron nor did Maxi. CC is also right about Joelinton and Miggy not being played in their right/best positions. Not sure I agree the same applies to Maxi.

Play Shearer as right winger and he wouldn’t have scored as many. Add that Joelinton and Maxi are playing their first seasons in England and that’s a factor.

Some of the issues could easily be addressed but Joelinton in particular reminds me of Jon Dahl who was useless here but not elsewhere when he was played in the right position.

The over-riding problem is Ashley and his messed up recruitment and player purchase system. Get that right and we would have got the right players playing in the right position scoring more goals than currently happens.

 

max claims his best position to be amc, but as we agree miggy and joe are no good in the positions they are being asked to play .

bruce doesnt seem to like anything going through the middle unless its a long ball, but i see max being more of a threat in there where he can go either way .

 

Not saying they are no good. They still are decent. But as I said if you played Shearer out of position he wouldn’t have been as effective.

 

Joe was a good amr in Germany, but Germans play a higher line of defence, which means that Joe would often find himself running towards a few defenders and then a goalkeeper acting as the last man. In England we play with a compact defence, it's quite interesting to note that Joelintons only premier league goal has came when he was 1v1 on a counter attack against Tottenham, how it often is in Germany. Same as his goal against Rochdale.

He now plays at a club where all our best players are defenders and a goalkeeper, the manager has no choice to play defensive and it is working. We are sitting in a good position with a good points tally, Joelinton would do far better playing on the right if we also changed our entire style of play. To be honest, Joe isn't good enough even at AMR even with the perfect conditions for us to merit dropping more points by conceding more goals. It would be the club pandering to a player because of his price tag, relegated clubs do that.

Max would be good attacking wise at CAM, but I fear his lack of work rate in the middle would leave our shoddy midfield even weaker. Atleast on the left he has Ciaran Clark and Danny Rose watching his arse when they get past him with complete and utter ease. Miggy on the other hand is completely different, Klopp would love him, as soon as he gets the ball taken off him he pelts it back to get it back. I love his work rate, I think Miggy would be fantastic if he applied that same work rate in the middle of the park, as we have seen in a few games.

Ritchie is our best right winger, Miggy would be a fantastic cam, even a fantastic box to box midfielder in all honestly. It's staggering they are not being played in those positions.

 

Btw I don't respect Shearer's opinion on football matters. I've yet to ever see him hit the nail on the head with anything, he is essentially just saying the same old tired British ****, we hear it everywhere. Doesn't matter if they're English, Welsh, Scottish or Irish, it's the same "show desire", "work hard."

Clearly only said because Shearer knows nothing of their positions and where they should be played. Nor does he know anything about their careers prior to coming to Newcastle. He simply looks at a player, says "he didn't track back" or "he didn't score that goal" and says "show desire" or "get some final product." Thanks Alan, they never realised, we'll just order some final product.

Shearer and Keane cannot recognise that they had an unnatural gift with a football, they were unbelievably special talents. During those years were Shearer could barely run anymore cos of his knees I would have loved to have seen his reaction when someone said "Only 10 goals all season? Where's your desire?!"

In fact, Craig Bellamy said it too him and he threatened to assault him.

I've seen this same argument used by the former Man Utd players who essentially give themselves pats on the back because they helped CR7 become one of the best players ever. Why? Because in training, Scholes and Ferdinand used to smash him into the ground during sessions for doing his hair. Yeah, that was it fellas, not because he rocked up to training at 7am, then went home at 8pm, training like a ****ing madman as much as humanly possibly. It's because some ginger lad smashed into the back of him during a training session. British style. Btw, he's 34 now, and he acts the exact same way he did when he was at Man Utd as a lad. They didn't change a ****ing thing.

I guarantee that those veteran players would make this suggestion, next time Max comes into training, they should kick him and tackle him to **** and then say "Next time, you'll track back."

 

This seems a rather hard critique, but I just can't see what Joelinton is actually good at. He can't shoot, offers average heading, can't tackle, has poor mobility and isn't quick.
Bruce can't take the blame for all of that.