Here's a bit of fun (though with a serious purpose) to give us all a rest and incidentally please ncgandy (see his post on Munky's thread). We have signed an excellent forward (two actually but this is about one of them), Ricky Van Wolfswinkel. We play in the top league in England, which is brimming with good central forwards -- Van Persie, Rooney, Suarez, Sturridge, Cisse, Torres, Giroud, Soldado, Defoe, Aguero, Dzeko, etc. etc. Even Andy Carroll comes somewhere on that list. My challenge is this: tell us which other player in this rich (sic) selection of central PL strikers does our very own RvW most resemble in his attributes and style of play? Not just names. If you have a suggestion, please provide a serious defence of your choice (even going so far as to back it up with stats from Opta -- use Squawka if you haven't any other access -- such as player heat maps and so on.
As a postscript to my OP, I realise that there is a bit of a problem in that RvW could hardly be said to have settled into his usual game in the short time he has been with us. But hopefully we have seen enough to form an idea of how he plays.
How many of those summer's big money strikers have hit the ground running in the Premiership so far? Big things were expected of Bony at Swansea and Osvaldo at Saints after their mega bucks transfers, and both have looked very ordinary in the league so far. Even Soldado at Spurs has yet to do much of any note apart from a couple of penalties. Didn't Cardiff spend a ****load on a striker as well? Do t think he's scored yet either has he ?
May be misreading you but I wasn't having any sort of dig at RvW Munky. What I meant was that people might think it makes giving a well-argued answer to my question rather difficult simply because we haven't seen enough of RvW himself.
I was thinking about this the other day funnily enough. When we first signed him I thought he was a creator aswell as a goalscorer but since I've realised his game is all about movement and finding that little bit of space in the box, he also had proven he can head a ball (although I would rather we stopped looking for his head so much.) I think with those two points he is similar to Torres, I wouldn't say in the same ilk, but just the way they are both intelligent and their movement is their biggest strength. I haven't currently got access to stats as I am posting on my phone, so I am sure there will be another more suitable comparison with the evidence of statistics. Another similarity they have is they are not compatible to all styles of play (like nearly every striker) but they require more intelligent service aswell as a team who play with width. Chelsea are too narrow to get the best out of Torres and our service isn't quite there yet. Nice one Robbie for coming up with an interesting thread, looking forward to seeing other people's answers.
most similar in style to torres without question. comes alive when the ball is in the final third, good movement, good work rate but not all action like holt was. preserves his energy for the right moment
Apologies chap if I've muddies the waters by going off at a slight tangent, I wasn't suggesting that you were being critical of him and forgive me but I wasn't even really answering your question, just raising another slightly different point based on the discussion about Premiership strikers. As for your question, from what I have seen so far I agree that Torres would unquestionably be the one I'd compare him with most, with perhaps a touch of RVP thrown in the mix as well.
He currently seems to be on a charm offensive on twitter, which is nice to see. He's seemed quite frustrated of late.
Well, he (and Leroy Fer) are learning that "great supporters" (which they both cited as one of the attractions of coming to Carrow Road) is, shall we say, a nuanced phrase . A cynic might interpret his tweet as ironical, but RvW is a genuine guy and I read it as saying "No hard feelings fellas, but come on, get behind us!". Still just three suggestions about who he is, and all of them say "Torres". No votes for Andy Carroll? Oh good, then we can keep on trying to pass the ball.
