Hoppers, dont know if that was in response to my comment but if so, I was in no way suggesting that I think Murphy has been poor, just that sometimes we revert to the automatic tactic of hitting him and if we had someone else on the pitch of a similar physique it may give us another option to consider.
Maybe at the start! By the end it was: Alan Lee - OLD! Never gets near to the go-oal It's a shame he wasn't sold It's unbelievable He left me reeling
Was a response but in no way having a go, just stating my opinion. V Boro with Anderson on the right & Tunnie on the left I thought we looked good, Murphy won most things in the air that led to our dominance 2nd half. V Yeovil we were not so effective, 1, most players only had an average night & 2, Edwards is clearly suffering from having no break this summer, after all he is the old man of the team.! I fully expext us to start on Sunday with the team that came out in the 2nd half last Saturday, I also expect us to get a result.!
IMO Murphy is pretty average, I actually preffered him out on the wing but at the same time currently he's probably our best option upfront alongside McGoldrick. Thing is Murphy is decent enough in the air but despite his physique he's not the best target man, which we are using him as, he's actually not bad on the floor but doesn't win enough headers for me neither does he attack the ball in the box enough in the box for me. I think he's okay as the second striker, as a foil i.e like he was used with DJ but with McGoldrick he's expected to be the target man and the main striker as McGoldrick drops deep. Alan Lee is(was) far better at playing that role than Murphy. In a battling team Lee was great, in fact I think we may have been relegated in Royles last season if it weren't for Lee, he was monumental for us but in Jims second season our play evolved a bit more and he didn't need to be that hustle and bustle player, he tried to become a more technical player and I think he lost his spark abit, so had no qualms at the time about us selling him, I felt it was the right step for us to progress, as we didn't really need a player like him anymore, with hindsight though perhaps selling him wasn't a good idea as we didn't really improve and I think a player like Lee would really suit this team and actually although PJs team was more technical and 'tippy tappy' I think he may well have suited playing upfront in the 451.
Loved Pablo, such intelligence on the ball, if he had a good game we'd win unfortunately the reverse was usually true aswell. But it's players like Pablo who make football enjoyable!!! Shame he never got a real shot at playing in the PL, I think soometimes none of the players around him were on the same wavelength as he was
" To say that Pablo 100% wasted his career is a tad harsh, I do think he could have done better but he did not do as badly as you say. (sorry Pablo is my favourite player in the moden era) " Pablo may well be your favourite player, however he has quite literally wasted a career that could have offered much more. If you told him in 1999 after topscoring in that championship he would have had his best days in the English second tier with Ipswich Town, pretty sure he would have laughed at you. Likewise, if you'd told him he'd have a spell at Đồng Tâm Long An and Kitchee...... One of my favourite players is Ricardo Quaresma. He had similar ability to C.Ronaldo, however he chose not to apply himself and pretty much waste years of his career. Now whether I want to admit Quaresma has pretty much wasted his career I don't, but like it or not Counago ( who I do like ) is very much an absolute waste of talent.
Definitely a waste of talent but then sometimes I also think luck plays a big part with these talented players, as it does in any career. JET could go a similar way, I don't think it's bad attitude neither was it with Counago but whether they have the real desire to be a top top player I'm not sure or that real drive to succeed.
