Sinik has played a total of 365 minutes for us scattered across 13 appearances, all of which in recovery from a long injury lay-off with no pre-season. I think that is less than all the aforementioned players managed? Aside from a horrendous injury record with us, I’m not sure what there is to judge him from. We clearly haven’t seen anything like what he can offer, all we know is he was one of the most highly rated wingers in Turkey. Good enough that Galatasaray tried to buy him off us last January when he went back to Antalya. I’m pretty sure he made it into everyone’s top 3 in his only appearance this season, prior to which the only football he’d played in 6 months was about 20 minutes for the U23’s. He’s clearly got a bit about him, whether he adapts and becomes a good player in England is yet to be seen, but I just can’t see why some are so desperate to write him off.
I made up the rules completely arbitrarily, but it's any foreign player that made than ten appearances but have to had played at least one competitive game for us. The current members are: Tijani Belaid Adriano Basso Martin Pušić Ahmed Fathy Thomas Mayer Ducian Kuciak Norbert Balogh Jordan Flores Honorary Members (who made more than ten appearances but not many more): Omar Elabdellaoui Ondrej Mazuch
Ghilas and Altidore played one game together in a strike partnership against Bolton, played a blinder and then they hardly ever played alongside each other again.
I didn't want to go that far back. We paid money for Ghilas, so I don't count him as that obscure. Stelios Kontos would count though, as would Zaki. And techincally, Ben Arfa, although the only obscure thing about him was the apparent lack of arsedness.
A lot of what you say is precisely what makes me wonder if he's the next in the Belaid, Pusic, etc category. Gets next to no game time through a combination of fitness, and people like Greg Docherty on the wing being preferred to playing him. But when he does get on the pitch, people give him rave reviews on those very limited minutes. If he played more, the bar would be higher, but he doesn't, so there's always that clamour to see him play more. I don't believe that Galatasaray wanted to buy him from us. Never heard that before, and if they did try I think we'd have encouraged him to go. Rosenior wanted him out of the way by all accounts, and it seems likely that the reason he's still here is that he's on a big contract and is hard to shift. To be fair, I don't think lots of people are keen to write him off. It's only really me saying this isn't it? And I don't think I'm keen as such, I just think we've been here before and it never ends with them triumphantly breaking into the team. That said, we paid a fee and an apparently big wage for him so it's not like Belaid and Pusic and friends where they were on short term deals and easily offloaded. Maybe that'll give him a bit more of a chance, but I still think he just has too many players to overtake.
Who was that midfielder we signed on a short-term deal in League 1 under McCann? We got him from Scotland and he ended up going to Northampton when we got promoted back to the Championship.
Has anyone heard any more rumblings about the forward from Real Madrid... and as a side subject, by now I thought we might have heard some rumours about incomings from Roma. Seems all quiet on that front...
