Maybe I went a bit OTT with my original statement but if it wasn't for his ability in the air he'd be a very average PL forward IMO. As it is he's a decent one.
Fair play to him as I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he didn’t specifically work in the gym on his vertical jump. As it seems disproportionately high for someone his height And more players should do that kind of thing . Arguably, especially the taller ones. The two tallest players we have ever had have been unexpectedly bad in the air for their height I saw some kind of line from an interview that has apparently been done with Woodward about his time at Saints suggesting he had ideas of lifting Crouch and other nonsense. But there is a tiny amount of something in that logic. If Crouch and Vestergaard could jump like DCL...
Seems strange to criticise the jumping of a player who has scored the most Prem goals with his head (53) If he’d have jumped higher he’d have scored the most with his chin maybe?
No - he’d have scored even more with his head ... But it kind of goes to show what stats can sometimes do. I had a season ticket when crouch played and a bit before. If you asked me who was better in the air him or Beattie is isn’t even a question. But the stats prove that wrong. It is down to perception - and to me despite those numbers he wasn’t good *enough* in the air for what I would expect of his height. Regardless of being number 1 on that list But my particular focus was meant to be on Vestergaard here who would score more and not get beaten in air. He went through a brief patch of scoring a few goals and then it dried up. But that could equally be due to poor attacking heading technique
There's some very vocal Blackburn fans at the services we've stopped at! Better not start an Adam Armstrong chant.
Any early goal is always good but if we managed to get one here then the Everton crowd might quickly turn on Rafa. I don’t think they want him there anyway
Everton don’t often lose the first match of the season and we don’t often win the first. Add to that our record at Goodison, this is possibly the best start to a season we could have asked for, as it will only go on record as one defeat rather than the two defeats it would be, in other seasons, if we met them later in the season, having already lost the first game to A N Other. HAVING SAID THAT, now is as good a time to reverse the trend as any. Really want us to start turning pressure into goals rather than let teams off the hook as we did so often last (every?) season.
I would like Adam Armstrong to score with his first touch from 40 yards after 30 seconds. Then we'll take it from there.
