The curious case of Cisse

So what actually is the reason behind his big slump in form?
Is it the loss of Demba, different tactics, different personnel, different formations... what?
I'm a patient chap and off the field think he is a wonderful bloke but on it... he simply can't hit a barn door with a banjo.
This has been going on for too long now so I think sadly it's time to wish him well and if possible move him on.
I can't see a team being willing to pay over £5m for him though.

 

Simply put, the worst striker in the league by a country mile.

At the moment, he has no redeeming qualities what so ever. It's abysmal.

 

11 minutes AFTER this thread... this article appeared on newsnow... great minds and all of that...


http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/sport-opinion/john-gibson-papiss-cisses-fall-6315054





Papiss Cisse has gone from golden boy to tarnished idol in alarming fashion.

His miserable season has been compounded by Senegal’s elimination from the World Cup finals by Cheick Tiote’s Ivory Coast.

Cisse played the full 90 minutes of the crucial second leg in Casablanca at the weekend but, as always this miserable season, failed to score and his last opportunity to take part in the finals of a World Cup appear to have passed him by.

Cisse will be 33 the next time the four-yearly jamboree comes around in Russia.

If United boss Alan Pardew, still waiting for Cisse’s first Premier League goal of the season, was hoping his No 9 would return before the Norwich home game flying with both a goal and qualification in his kitbag to increase fragile confidence then his worst fears have been realised.

Cisse’s fall from grace has been startling.

When he first arrived in January of 2012 from German club Freiburg he became the talk of the Premier League with an avalanche of goals.

Thirteen in 14 matches to be exact and each one seemingly better than the last, culminating in a world-class scorcher at Chelsea.

The whole of football was envious about what United had in their midst – but then came the first stutter. Cisse never found it easy in harness with Demba Ba and hated being pushed out wide.

Nothing, though, prepared us for this campaign which significantly started badly when Papiss became embroiled in a row with the club over the Wonga advert on his shirt.

His pre-season was disrupted in terms of training and playing and he has never caught up.

Cisse has not scored a solitary PL goal since the beginning of April when he notched the last-gasp winner against Fulham.

The barren spell has now stretched to 13 matches and he has even been frozen out of the first team despite a lack of creditable strikers to lend goal support to Loic Remy.

Shola Ameobi, whose contract runs out at the end of the season when he could well be let go, has started ahead of Cisse in significant wins against Chelsea and Spurs.

Such has been the alarming collapse of Cisse that one of United’s legendary No 9s SuperMac suggested in the Chron on Saturday he should be sold in the January transfer window and Remy signed permanently.

The trouble is, when Cisse is not scoring goals he contributes little to the team effort.

Football has had plenty of players like that – think of Jimmy Greaves and Michael Owen.

It is a vicious circle because like all strikers Cisse lives for goals and when they are not coming confidence nosedives and when that happens he does not score.

Ironic, isn’t it, that just as Cisse hits rock-bottom another Newcastle striker who is supposed to live in the shadows as a back up player has emerged into wall to wall sunshine.

Shola Ameobi is back in United’s first team and on his way to Rio for the World Cup finals.

However, after 14 years at St James’ Park, the 32-year-old is likely to be handed a free transfer when his contract expires.

Many times it has appeared he would leave the club but now this could really be his last hurrah. Nigeria may have qualified but Shola has still to pray for selection in their squad because he did not even make their subs’ bench at the weekend.

Four Newcastle players ought to be Rio-bound after qualification – Tiote, Ameobi, Fabricio Coloccini and Tim Krul – but their French quartet of Remy, Mathieu Debuchy, Yohan Cabaye and Moussa Sissoko have to sweat on overturning a two-goal deficit against Ukraine in Paris tomorrow night.

If France do not, Cisse might not be the only one returning to base with a long face before the resumption of Premier League hostilities against Norwich at St James’ Park on Saturday.

 

Put simply Cisse thrives on balls in to the box, rebounds off the keeper/woodwork etc.

He's never been and never will be a good football. He's a predator, he's like a Michael Owen or a Gary Lineker. If he isn't scoring then he offers very little else.

Unfortunately for Cisse last year he had litttle to no service. And this season we're very much a counter attacking team. I'd give him the full 90 against both Norwich and WBA. We should have enough of the ball for him to have a few chances and hopefully he could bag a goal or two.

If he failed to perform then I'd look to off load him in January provided replacements were signed. His last start was away at Cardiff (I was there) and his movement was good, he worked quite hard and was unlucky not to score near the end and IMO he was actually unlucky to be dropped from the team for the following game.

He's lost his way but he needs one last show of support to regain his form and natural going scoring instincts and for me there is no better two games then the two coming up. Firstly as they're both very winnable games and secondly because the alternative is Shola so it's almost a no lose situation.

 

Clearly he is not striker of that first half season. I don't think anybody is under the illusion that was natural level. However I also don't believe he is as bad as he is currently showing. There is no doubt strikers are a funny breeed, confidence is massive in a goalscorers game. He is shot to bits a la Torres of the last couple of seasons. The problem is we are not Chelsea and cannot afford to have him so out of form. There is no Ba coming in from Newcastle or Eto etc. Shola is next off the rank.

I've heard many reasons for his dip in form but it is just one of those things. From Pardew plaing him out wide to the way we play and so on. Its probably a combo of all of those things, and he is not really suited to our style of play. More than anything though the team struggled and often a goalscorer will feel the pinch first. It can take them longer to come out of the slump. It has and I'm not convinced he will do. He has had a lot of support from Pards, but it appears to be having little effect. Maybe time for a tougher approach? One way or another we'll have to get more out of him. If he departed I'd have no problem as long he was replaced. Given we already need another striker, that looks expensive to Mike.

 

I took it that defenders were too occupied with Ba and gave Cisse space so he could run onto a ball and lump it at goal.
Now they just keep tighter to him knowing he can't trap a ball if his weekly wage depended on it.
What price Shola is released in July and re-signed on a years deal come September 1st?

------Shola
Remy Cisse Ben-Arfa
----------Cabaye
---Tiote
Haidara Colo Willo Anita
--------Krul

V Norwich?

Shola holding it up, the other three running on?

 

At least we got Super Shola. He is slaying the Itals right now.

 

In Shola we trust.