Well, whilst it will certainly not make me a popular man, I have read a number o threads which end up very critical of Bobby Zamora, lambasting him and stating that he's useless. I completely disagree. I watched most of the games last year (not all live) and think that assessment is unfair. Here's why: 1) His link up play is incredibly good. When he wasn't playing, we had very little or no link up play between the midfield and attack. 2) He was carrying an injury in a lot of the games. That much was clear, and the fact he was willing to play on when the manager asked him to says a lot if you ask me. 3) There were times when he was very isolated up top, which wasn't really his fault. 4) He has performed very well in some games or us. See Arsenal last season - he was incredible! Or Tottenham away, Fulham away and Norwich at home this season. All in all I think he is a very solid PL striker, with a bad injury record. It's not really his fault that the whole team has played poorly, if anything the fact that the whole team has played so badly means you can't judge his ability on this season alone. Similarly, Hoilett was great for Blackburn and may go on to shine for another club - that doesn't mean he lacks ability, it shows there is something inherently wrong with the attitude of the squad as a collective this year, dragging all of the players down to the lowest common denominator. I hope that makes vague sense. Time will tell I suppose, but I think he will be very good in the Championship, and now that it looks like Remy will stay (who's going to sign someone on bail until September?!) we may have a strong pair up top. ***ducks for cover***
I agree with you the main problem we had this season was that we would clear the ball to the half way line and have no one to hold it Cisse was no target man and Remy as good as he is is not a lone striker, then the ball would just come straight back to us when Zamora was in the side this did not happen as much. He has shown that he can't be that bad as he finished the season with 5 goals joint 2nd top scorer and missed 3 months of the season.
There is no place for Zamora in the modern game. You need 1 striker up top that can score goals. That certainly isn't Zamora.
Its not that I don't think BZ has the ability its more that he looks totally disinterested and bored. Again shape up or **** off. Its quite simple
He has been progressively more useless with every game he has played for us. That could well relate to an injury problem although we are now told that he will not be having the surgery that we were previously told he desperately needed. The fact is the underlying reasons are irrelevant only the outcomes matter - he's simply no longer a PL striker and will struggle in the Championship IMO. Oh, and it doesn't help that he actually looks like he's not trying...
Potentially he could be what the OP suggested....however he is lazy, appears disinterested & is nowhere near as good as he thinks he is......& the whole hip injury thing sounds like BS. Two months ago he could only play 60 mins until he had the op but by the end of the season he was hanging around for 90 mins without contributing anything meaningful. Would be glad to see the back of him
Rather than sign up over the hill relics, Zamora & Johnson, we should have gone for say Jordan Rhodes & Charlie Austin and kept Heidar Helguson as our target man. For whatever reasons Hoilett & DJ never came through for us, Cissé showed potential, but suffered from disinterest & red cards. Mackie never really got much of an opportunity under either Hughes or Redknapp - Remy was really the only one to show some real class up and score some great goals up front. Wonder how a Helguson/Remy strikeforce pairing would have made out scoring goals. Also Helguson would have likely scored those missed penalties.
that's exactly what I said at the time. Write to Tony and ask for flyer as dof! None of the mistakes of the last twelve months would have been made.
Zamora has been disinterested, divisive, dire, dreadful, disappointing, disastrously dull and had the first touch of a hippo, with about as much mobility (although hippos are much, much quicker!!). Apart from that, he did ok.
Every body gets so hooked on age....being too old is a personal thing, and different for everybody. Clint for example, especially last year probably reach the pinnacle of his ability, and this year on many occasions he has played excellently ....for someone who has the ability of Clint Hill. His personal ability has not decreased much/if at all in the last year...he was never a top of the range prem footballer, but even now I am not sure he is over the (Clint) hill.... However I think Park may have fallen off the cliff face.. In other teams Carrick is playing better and better with age, as did Scholes, Lampard too is showing signs that age is not holding him back...but Rooney may have gone, and follows the footsteps of Owen.... a player who got worse with age
I agree with you Beth, although I believe Rooney will be a top, top player for a few years yet. Probably needs to get away from Utd for that to happen though. Owen would have scored many, many more goals had he not had horrendous injuries imo.
Disagree. Not sure if we're seeing different things but to me he looked like he did care. Caring doesn't mean that you run around all game like a headless chicken. I saw him constantly looking at the play, communicating with players and shouting at others in the team. He seemed to care, to me.
The trouble is, like the team as a whole and each individual game, the fans' views are clouded by the results. If we had finished 16th or 17th , I think we would have had a different take on the whole lot of them. I've had this discussion with Raving and has convinced me that we do play more effectively with Bobby's hold up play. The goalies certainly used to target him with their goal kicks. There are so may regrets over this season but we did see the beginnings of the Bobby and AJ partnership at the Man City away game. Oh well.
injuries have caught up with Zamora. Granted he's decent at holding the ball up but in the Championship we're going to need more than that from a striker. We should get rid for something more mobile - like a lamppost
I think as RTID points out, many are being overly harsh because of the team as a whole; is it any wonder that our players looked dispirited this year? Wouldn't we have been by the end of the year with Bosingwa as our team-mate getting picked ahead of the likes of Harriman?!
Whilst he deserves credit for obviously playing through pain with an injury because we had no one else, he was a complere idiot against Wigan and his best days are long gone. They were when he scored a hatrick against us whilst playing for Brighton. He is still revered in Brighton so maybe we could get them to take him back as a player-manager.
