Portsmouth have announced this morning that Luke Rodgers, and five others, have left the club. How does that effect his status? Do we offer him a contract? As a free agent I guess he can go anywhere, anytime.....even after the 'window' closes. People have blogged that he looks a little jaded after the last two games; is he still worth keeping, particulary as no other strikers have arrived AND we lost Gornell? All good stuff to enliven the site after a quiet week!
Just done some digging on old Sky and STFC websites and the consensus was that he would sign for the Shrews during the window until the end of the season. Has that happened and I've missed it? .....or......watch this space!!!!
Believe he was under contract with Pompey and so on loan from November, to be made into a permanent loan on its expiration; thus suggesting the deal was agreed. I believe it was in the initial announcement when he returned.
If we hadn't let Gornell carelessly slip through our hands, I would have said thanks but no thanks. It is evident that he is well past his sell by date and now only fit as a bench warmer.
things have looked up for shrews since lukebaby joined but we now have another striker on form. tom bradshaw scored a hat trick against morecambe today, playing in the reserves and has earned a start at swindon. personaly i would offer lukeebaby a 5 month contract as he has a habit of making things happen. up front with tom, look out swindon! if it comes off roland can again lose the combination numbers to his wallet. do we need anyone else. who are we loaning out? does anyone want them?
we stopped shipping some goals when Rodgers turned up. He is very good at defending from the front and this has brought Morgan into doing more of this too. It would admittedly be good if either of the forwards also helped by scoring ome goals though!! It might be quite good to see Bradders and Rodgers play together, but perhaps not agianst Swindle.
I don't get that defending from the front bit. He cannot hold the ball up and seeing as Marvin is in defence at corners/free kicks the ball always comes back. Added to that, he is constantly offside and again the ball comes back. Bradshaw (and I have been a critic of his recently) and Morgan is a no brainer up front on Saturday in the absence of a new striker. Ryan Lowe must come in to the equation again with Franchise signing McLeod.
You must admit that Rodgers is willing to try to take the ball off of their players, especially defenders. He might not always be successful in this but it helps to keep the ball in their area for longer.
It's clear we've improved since Rodgers came back, and Taylor's upturn in form coincided with his return as well. Coincidence or not, it's hard to criticise Rodgers too much and, much as I like Gornell, Rodgers is the better option up front for now. Works much harder and has scored a couple too, something TG wasn't able to do at this level at any stage of his career.
myopic graham turner appears to be shipping young tom to morecambe. in my view , if this happens, is that it will be a piss poor management decision. surely bradders has play at snowy swind which may only have a 10% chance of goimg ahead because of snow.
Gornell worked no less hard than Rodgers and the latter's 2 goals were tap ins. Taylor never started in the same team as Gornell this season, so his upturn in form in relation to Rodgers is merely coincidence.
There's no way that Gornell covers as much ground as Rodgers. On a good day, maybe, but bad games (think Yeovil) he doesn't put the work in. Rodgers does - I think Terry is a more naturally talented player but he doesn't hassle defenders, pull out wide or drop off to augment the midfield like Rodgers does. As for the tap ins - doesn't matter. Gornell didn't score any tap ins this season. Finally, Gornell and Taylor not starting together has nothing to do with Rodgers's impact on Taylor. I didn't claim that Gornell had a detrimental effect on Taylor, merely that playing with a similar player has helped JT.
Gornell had none to tap in. Read any report about Gornell's performances this season and apart from Yeovil he was always credited for his work rate including running the channels. He had a greater ability to hold the ball up than Rodgers, so things arriving at him aerially as is Shrewsbury's won't on occasion had more chance of sticking. Rodgers main asset always was his pace which is now lacking. He was retained for the Conference season in the hope that he would score a shedload of goals but these never materialised. This really acquaints to one good season with the nous of Jemson to set him up. His goalscoring record in anything above League 2 is very average to say the least. By and large he was brought in for his goalscoring which has been a no no, hence why GT is still looking for a goalscorer.
Is that not partly to do with his movement off the ball? I recognise Gornell's not a goal poacher, but simple runs (see Rodgers' strike vs Notts) are what provide the opportunities for tap ins. Usually Gornell does work hard, and I confess I am going a little off hearsay as I was unable to go to many away games this season whilst Gornell was still here - I saw him for all of 15 minutes at Doncaster in my solitary away trip in which he played. I also agree with Luke's goal record. Distinctly average at this level (much like Gornell), but I just feel he's more suited to a team scrapping for survival than TG. Oh, and he can cross a ball! My main gripe with Gornell was his reluctance to get in the box - he dropped off to the treqaurtista position with Marv out wide, and we had nobody in the middle. P.S Happy thousandth post to me. Glad to see I've found a productive use of my spare time!
Lenny +1 rep for your 1000 post. Quite a few of our team seem to be scared to get into the attacking box area mainly strikers and central midfield or even shoot from outside the box On a more sensible note TG would have possibly had a better time up front if he had a different strike partner, we haven;t got that part of our team right yet. We started the season not scoring goals, then we had the defensive crisis and that took most eyes away from the forwards for a while until it was sorted. Now we are back to realising that there ain't too many goals going in to the opposition's net but our GD looks quite good at -4 compared to some of the teams around us and that might come into play later in the season. It is essential that for a team to be successful all of the squad has to work well together, Gornell obviously didn't work well with some of style of play in our team (I did and still do rate him BTW) and it is a real shame he has moved on. Rodgers is frustrating as he is getting so many offsides, and I hope that through training sessions the other team members gain an understanding of how to play balls through timing wise for him as he can be a real threat. Jake Robinson was a player I think who suffered here from not having the full understanding of his team mates in how to read his runs, he made some excellent moves and had a real skill of lifting the ball over defenders feet to run with it yet when passed to another player they would either fumble the 1-2 or pass it elsewhere.
http://www.shrewsburytown.com/news/article/18jan13-rodgers-puts-pen-to-paper-606840.aspx Rodgers signs until the end of season
