Adel was our main man last year but giving the ball to one player is a bit much! Obviously it requires more than one flair player to win you the Championship so easily. All our team were heroes last season especially during the 20 odd game unbeaten run. The difference this season is that Dyer remains one of your main players whereas Adel is just one of a number of good players at the Club, many of whom are earning far great wages than him. If he leaves in January, I will not be disappointed. He has done his job for us and got us to the premier league - it is up to other players now to keep us there. We cannot rely on taarabt in a 4-4-2 formation and I am unsure whether teams like ours who are desperately trying to finish 17th or possibly higher can accommodate these kinds of players in the Premiership.
Agreed. He'll always steal the show in the Championship but unless he pulls his head out of his arse he'll never make it in the PL. He could probably hack top level in France, Holland or something like that, but I just don't think he's got it in him to work hard enough. Warnock deserves praise for getting you promoted, but it was a big gamble! Building a team around one player (if you want, I can dig for an article I read where Taarabt explained Warnock's bargaining - 'I'll make you the star of the team, captain, build the team around you etc etc'- pretty eyebrow raising stuff... I know I wouldn't like that as a pro playing for the same team [says something about the level of professionalism elsewhere in the squad]) is very dangerous because you can alienate the other players. But, it worked! Just a shame he doesn't seem to care what people think of him to the point where he wants to prove people wrong!
To be fair i think you have a fair point about us building the team around Adel last year , and to be fair it worked and got us promoted , that would not have happended without him last year. This year is different though and NW is no longer reliant on our maverick , no goals , no assists that i'm aware of and we have 12 points on the board. We now have a decent team without adel firing , he may still come good , then what a great position we could be in. I'd have to ask the same question of Sinclair with you guys , awesome last year but has he really raised his game this year or is he another player that won't cut the prem?
I think the Sinclair thing is different. We very much focus on playing as a team, and then if you put stand out players into that system, they'll shine. The level of our players one on one with any team in this division, apart from maybe Norwich, is, if you go by the "size of reputation", much lower. Leon Britton, for example, ended up on the bench at Sheffield United (who were relegated) but has starred in the Premiership because he knows our system so well. I said a couple of times last year, if I was Buck I wouldn't take Taarabt if you paid me. I'd rather have a balanced, settled team working for each other any day over a style which, at times, seemed a bit "give it to him and see what happens". Either way, as we've said, it's had to be different this season, and I hope you do well... even if you do have Joey Barton in your team! Here is a blog with some extracts from the interview in the Evening Standard I was on about, where Adel was saying how Warnock wanted to build a team around him. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulfletcher/2011/03/adel_taarabt.html Also, here's a picture of Adel at a bus stop while his team mates were in the process of finishing their game against Fulham! please log in to view this image
Have a horrible feeling that you could be right and if so I feel that Warnock would partly be to blame.
Bloody egos in football players! Taraabt made a right tit of himself with that pen. He was like a little kid. Pathetic. I'd be cheesed off if one of our lot did that because it gives an impression of disunity within the team.
How is Routledge doing? I think that most Jacks would say ok, but nothing special, many of us were not that impressed with his signing, and he seems to be confined to coming on as sub for the last 15 minutes of our games recently, he's taking the position off Steven Dobbie, and many of us feel that while dobbie might not have the quick feet of Routledge, Dobbie does have an end product, and will get you goals, but he's been side lined by Rodgers, since Routledge has been here, and many of us are not happy at that, it doesn't help when he's a fans favourite either!........................ please log in to view this image
"Taarabt's too good for you, Taarabt's too good for you". Sorry...just had to stick up for him with all this criticism!!
Yes, it was the Taraabt show against us for sure. Great defending from Monk! Invited the shot then turned his back on it. What is it with him away from home?
