He's been great for us, his goals to game ratio is superb, I'd imagine one of if not the highest ever by a town player. He's one of the best I've seen at pinning defenders and has improved throughout the season and was unlucky to be dropped when Hurst came in. However yesterday highlighted to me and I've felt this for alot of the season that the balance didn't look quite right upfront, there seems to be less space for others and additionally not quite as many options for forward passes when he plays. Additionally as I said we put some really good balls into the box and his strength isn't getting across his man with clever movement. We have alot of players who are good at finding space in the box from deep but not attacking the ball. The improvement in terms of quality of ball and how much quicker we're getting the ball into the box now it'd be a waste if that was something we didn't try to improve...every little step towards perfection
Very good summary Nuggets. Hampy is right, we all like Freddie, lovely character, and he has scored loadsa goals especially in our earlier difficult period. But he is not at his best in present preferred line-up. Good back-up and comes on to enjoy himself, fine team player and real personality!
Nobody is questioning his character it was his performance v Vale was that poor to say the least, the people around me thought he should be subbed at half time that is how ineffective he was, then Hirst comes on and we looked far better going forward.
Chaplin was even worse against Vale in that first 45, the game before he was the hero. When Ladapo gets such short bursts of time on the pitch to judge him like that is harsh. Sure he has different attributes to other players but he does his job scoring goals better than any forward we’ve had at the club going back 20 years (yes Murphy had a great season in that time, but it was only one season).
