I think we should have kept Boyd. He's a great player, probably better than others that are still at the club!!
I was a bit torn when we sold Boyd, not because he's a work horse as most seem to be rueing, but because I think he's an incredibly gifted footballer who has that ability to just create something, but with the depth of options we had at the time ahead of him and the money we were offered it was absolutely the right thing to let him go for both parties. And if we hadn't, we wouldn't have had the pennies we scraped out the bottom of the barrel to sign N'Doye this month. So ask yourself, who would you rather have? Even with hindsight would you really have sacrificed the cash we used to get in a third proper forward just to have George Boyd knocking about to have played a handful of games when we were seriously short of options? Even now he'd still probably miss out on our bench. I'm glad his move to Burnley has worked out for him but I wouldn't take him back if I could reverse time. We needed a third striker more than we need a gazillionth winger. And although Ince as yet hasn't been as effective on a game at this level as Boyd has, and even further back Ben Arfa hadn't set the house on fire, if we did need a gazillionth winger, would either of them have been allowed to leave? Would they heck.
Boyd was only ever going to be a bit part player. It's one of those situations where you have a good player (not fantastic) with a great attitude that isn't going to be good enough to progress the squad. He wanted more and Burnley offered a fantastic fee for him. In context we swapped Boyd for Diame. I know which I would rather have.
Boyd was both a goal scorer, (was labeled a young Pele in his early days), very skilled, great crosser of the ball, and got through a huge amount of work defensively, as evidenced by the tackle rankings above. I was a big fan of his and was delighted when we got him from Peterborough so cheaply. I still believe it was a big mistake letting him go and he would have been invaluable during our run of injuries. I'm sure Burnley have no interest in selling him but would expect him to command a fee of double what we got. Diame is a great player but how much has he played since we got him, whereas George hasn't missed a minute. Boyd is no "ordinary" player as some on here suggest. He is very skilled, has better than average speed, and can make and score goals. Wish we had him back!!
A lot of it is to do with the teams they play for, can you imagine him playing for Chelski, or Man City? No. It's alright with this 20/20 hindsight, but what if he'd been here & we didn't have an injury in his position, people would be saying, we should have sold him when we had the chance. Let's just move on & realise no matter how much we wish it, nothing's going to change. It's done end of!
summed it up really i love boyd, he's good enough to play for us, but for £3m? how could you turn it down? he's a proper nice guy, and always gave his all, he genuinely has that bit of quality boyd tracked back like a machine, he is super human he's one of my fav ever city players
I think what he means is that one of the Posh fans once referred to him a 'the White Pele', never saw it myself, although I liked George, as a player and as a person. My lad once met him in Sainsbury's in Hessle and said what a top lad he was, I wish him every success.
