Adebayor knows what he's doing. He's clever. Everytime something like this happens, there's always a decent reason from his point of view. IMO, the form we're seeing (seen until the last couple of games) is purely an "up yours" to AVB. He'll always do enough each season to remind everyone what he's capable of and it's always in 1 spell over a short period of time, but it never lasts and it's never consistent.
That's what I hear. But can you name a single goal or assist he's had? I'm struggling to think of a single decent cross. My memory is a bit crap, admittedly.
His crossing was better at the start of the season, I remember lots of good ones going begging across the box as we only had one player in there most of the time. I'm a fan of Rose. Like Townsend I'm hoping he'll thrive with the right manager to give him some fine tuning and get him thinking about the game rather than doing things automatically, which is a problem they both have.
Maybe if Rose was part of a better team and had a decent midfielder in front of him I might feel more inclined to be patient with him but he's just one more player that I'm supposed to be being patient with. And he's just not done enough this season to alter my opinion at the start of the season that he does not look anything special - an inadequate winger who's converted to a very average full back. Decent cover but that's about it. On a side note I think fullbacks get over-praised for attacking ability full stop. Walker, for instance. Attacking is supposed to be the main part of his game but his crossing is woeful and he's not hit too many good shots in the last couple of seasons. His pace is by far his main asset but it's used mostly for getting back into position after wandering upfield. He was one of our best players early in the season but I suspect that it might be due to the fact that he struggled to read the AVB script and hence was the only player playing their natural game and not getting bogged down in how to keep safe possession 30-40 yards from the opponents' goal.
Surely we can all recall a decent goal from him! [video=youtube;hfGpA_DUl6E]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfGpA_DUl6E[/video]
Rose has 1 assist and 1 goal from what I can remember. Where as he's assisted the opposition about 15 times. Not all teams have a wide midfielder/ winger that helps out defensively, especially one like Lennon, if you want a wide player doing more defensive work then there'll no doubt be moans and groans that they aren't doing enough in the attacking sense. I just think people are making excuses for Rose. He's 24 in a few months and hasn't progressed since making his transition into full back. Taking into consideration a lot of the left backs in the league, Rose doesn't even make the top 10 in my opinion. Evra, Azpilicueta & Cole, Clichy & Kolarov, Gibbs & arguably Monreal, Baines, Shaw, Enrique & Flanagan, Davies, Santon, Figueroa... I personally wouldn't rate Rose above any of those. For a club with our supposed aspirations, that's not good enough.
Monreal - I'd like to see the argument for that! I think part of the problem for Rose are the team formations, he seems stuck upfield too often. This didn't happen at Sunderland so I have to think he is following instructions to play almost as a winger. Otherwise he wouldn't play so much surely?
Both ****, just debatable who's ****ter . I didn't see enough of Rose at Sunderland but with all due respect, being a LB at Sunderland and being a LB at Spurs is a different scenario. Sunderland have been poor for a couple of seasons now so to excel in a side like that won't be difficult. I think it's a case of there's no choice but to play him, unless the manager(s) show more faith in Fryers (which I'd like). Benny's on loan, Jan hates LB and Naughton's a RB.
Good news: We're supposed to be signing a top Belgian left-back. Bad news: He's 16-years-old and has a silly name. Axel Frix. Sounds like an 80s action hero/villain, probably played by either Arnie or Dolph Lundgren.
Why do I get the feeling that any choice we make with Ade will be wrong? If we keep him, he's sure to have a bad year, and if we let him go, he's sure to have a good one? Last year I thought with Soldado, Ade, Defoe and Kane (confession: I didn't really add Kane at the time), we'd be in pretty good shape for strikers. They've combined for about 20 PL goals (though 38 in all competitions)--not good enough, though I think the culprit was playing AVB's defensive, one striker style. Since Sherwood took over, Ade and Kane have been banging them in. Next year I'm reasonably hopeful that Ade, Soldado and Kane will be decent in total. It says a lot about how football changes fast that I may be most hopeful about Kane. I can really see him scoring at least fifteen if he starts regularly with Eiriksen. Soldado might well stay in his funk, and Ade might well join him.
I finally found a stat that makes a case for Rose: He's #11 in the PL for fouls drawn, just above Stirling. So teams do have trouble coping with him. The stat that makes the case for Townsend, incidentally, is that he's third in the PL in successful dribbles per game. The problem in both cases is that each is a bit of a one trick pony.
