McCallum should be in the mix as well with his shot off the post to set up Sara's goal. Cracking cup game really.
Idah has scored 6 goals this season in 1253 minutes on the pitch, which is the equivalent just under 14 games, and that doesn't include last night's goal. He's also scored 2 goals for Ireland from 308 minutes on the pitch, which is the equivalent of 3.4 games. That looks like a striker to me.
But as always the devil is in the detail. Is it 6 goals from 6 poor chances or 6 from 600 good chances.
For me Idah has been given ample chances to shine due to the injuries to Sargent & Barnes & failed to impress. He got a couple against Plymouth after they already trounced us , but did get a couple of winners as sub . He's bulked up loads , improved his hold up play got bags of pace but lacks composure & that killer instinct. Hopefully he improves we still have another 4 years left of his latest contract
Barnes is classed a striker and Idah has outscored him this season and certainly looks more potent in front of goal to me
He’s certainly a confidence player but he appears to have found some ore determination form what I’ve seen this year as well. As soon as we were awarded the penalty last night, he demanded it.
No one questions Barnes finishing but he certainly had the easier chances last night and failed to score on each occasion
That penalty was lethal as well. I think Idah’s a long way from the finished article and has a lot of work to do, but he’s definitely a striker and one with potential. You can see that from a couple of things: - the number of chances he creates - his occasional ability to single-handedly dominate a match (anyone remember his brief form of two or three matches before injury in our last premier league season where he was sensational?) Even Pukki missed lots of chances, it’s just he created so many for himself and went through periods of finding it harder to miss the back of the net. Only the likes of Harry Kane are close to faultless on missing golden opportunities. Idah needs to improve this area, but he’s at least making the chances and as RER’s stats show, he is converting at a reasonable rate by minutes on the pitch. And not even world class bully strikers can boss every match. But he only needs to do that 5 or so matches a season where he basically single handedly wins the game before that’s a decent enough return (though of course the more the better!) Not saying he will get there, but he’s still got the chance. Drogba only really broke through when he was 23/24 years old.
Not sure Barnes has missed as many clear cut chances as Idah, but I might be wrong. In my view Barnes brings much more to the party than Idah in terms of all round play and experience.
I thought how Idah brought the ball down from Sara's weighted ball over the top was a class bit of control and then the finish rather let him down. I can see he has improved this year, not as much as we would wish and I still wouldn't have offered him that 5 year contract, but I hope that the experts prove me wrong and it does turn out to be a good bit of business
Idah is still only 22. Kane was 20 when he came to us and people ridiculed him. The following year he went to Leicester on loan and scored twice in 13 appearances. The following year he gradually broke into the Spurs team, mostly as a sub. I'm not saying Idah will do what Kane has done, but there's more to come. Look at Sargent when he arrived, looking keen but a bit clumsy. He produced little in his first year, scoring 2 goals in 26 appearances. Last year he scored 13 in 40 appearances and this year he looks a very different player now that Pukki is gone and he's the main man up front. He'll turn 24 next month and Idah will turn 23.
