Yes, he worked "hard", but his problem is that he is stupid, (in football)
He cant move before the ball is passed, he dont have a clue where the best place to run is and when to start, if the ball aint on its way...
This is why he can work all day and he wont be a top scorer. I would go as far and say we would be a better team witout him in the team.
You can't just call someone stupid, put "in football" in brackets and expect a comment like that to slide. I completely disagree with you. One of Ade's trademarks is his intelligent running. He is extremely good at pulling defenders away from areas to create space, he actually has a better ability to see the bigger picture than a lot of our players. We have 3 players that are considered for his position and Ade understands the role the best. (It's unfair to Dempsey as he hasn't had an entire career as a striker to learn all the positions he is expected to take up purely to force defenders into positions that are beneficial for the team even though it means he isn't getting into a position that gives himself a better chance to score.)
There are a lot of things that can be thrown at Ade, but that's not one of them. Whether his movement to make himself available for passes has questionable in the last few games is something that can be debated, but one of Ade's major strengths is his intelligent running.
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A striker has no one to blame for himself for being offside. That goes for Defoe too btw. I remember my Dad shouting at me for being offside numerous times in the space of about ten minutes. He was also the manager and didn't let me off the hook or have a go at the midfielder for not playing the ball sooner. And I was about 12 when this happened.
It's not difficult, you look across the line to see if you are offside, and the if player hasn't played the ball yet, wait!
That's not entirely true. Most of the time it is the striker's fault, but you can't just say 100% of the time it is all down to the striker. Sometimes you have to commit to runs, if the pass doesn't come in the window of opportunity, you can't just teleport back onside. Plus, you're completely ignoring defenders that step up, there are certain defenders that pride themselves on their ability to make strikers be caught offside, in that situation you can't say it's all the striker's fault.
Not every striker is capable of world record sprinting pace, you can't just stand still, wait for the ball to be played and react to it. If that were the case, defender and striker would react at around the same time, it'd just be a race from a standing start (striker) and potentially a running start (defender)... My previous point about defenders stepping up also comes in here. You can be onside, until the defender steps up and the midfielder passes the ball and it wouldn't be your fault. The defender's movement is his choice, reaction times cannot match someone knowing they are about to move. Plus, you'd have strikers constantly walking backwards if it were that simple.
I know you're a striker, so you should know your stuff, but can you honestly tell me you have never played a pass, seen the player be called offside and thought to yourself "Damn, I fudged that up"? I can tell you every midfielder has thought that.
Don't get me wrong, Ade and Defoe are both terrible when it comes to getting caught offside, I just don't think you can say 100% of the time, it was the striker's fault. I also think you made it sound like players have to stand still or at best run from touchline to touchline waiting to arc their run towards goal when the ball is played rather than make runs that could see them through 1v1 with the goalkeeper with not a soul around them or even close.
He worked hard off the ball as he generally does(contrary to popular opinion) but his quality on it seems to have fallen off a cliff. I'm sure the guy used to be pretty powerful, gave defenders a tough time and was something of a cool and competent finisher. Now he kind of just floats around aimlessly, laying off harmless passes here and there. I was a big big fan of his last season but deary me ... he's becoming like Torres.
He is still powerful. He'll give defenders a tougher time than Defoe would. He was never a cool and/or competent finisher though. He has been an inconsistent finisher since he came to England. I used to take the tinkle out of him when he played for Arsenal because he seemed to hit row z more times than he hit the target. (I'm not counting wide shots as "row z" or even shots that go a little bit above the bar either...) His finishing actually got a hell of a lot better with time.
But that's never been a huge strength of his. Though, if you only remember the times he played against Spurs, you'd think he was Falcao.
I certainly think on his day that he can be a nigthmare for defences with his pace, skill, strength and aerial ability and of course we would all love strikers to contribute more than just goals, but strikers are paid to score goals and his tally is nowhere near good enough.
I hate strikers, you are a striker, so that's probably why we're going to have this disagreement, because if you think like Defoe, then strikers are all about the goals... But if you think like Guardiola they really aren't. You just need the potential to score goals from your team rather than having something that will do nothing* aside from scoring goals.
*Nothing is an exaggeration, but if a striker scores a goal there seems to be the opinion that he did his job and even if he'd been total brick for the other 93 or so minutes, he did what he is in the team to do. (Not everyone thinks like this, and strikers are expected to do some other things, but strikers that don't defend get away with it far more than players in other positions, strikers that have a very low workrate also get away with it if they tend to score goals, etc.)
In the 10/11 season, VDV was our top goalscorer. In our system, the number 9 was not the position in the team designated to score all our goals. There is a difference between having a responsibility to contribute and being judged purely on goals.
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Here is a list of things we require from a striker (those that have been wanting us to buy a striker that would come to a non CL club for low wages and a low transfer fee can probably count the number of strikers that fit the bill on one hand):
Extremely strong at winning aerial balls. (If 10 of our players are in our box under extreme pressure, we need a striker that can win a hoofed clearance around the halfway line and then keep possession of the ball for long enough for our players to get close enough to him to receive a pass.)
Extremely strong at holding the ball up. (The ability to hold off 2-3 defenders without having a touchline or any other assistance is vital.)
A contribution of goals/assists (probably in the range of 10-15 in the league, depending on the rest of the team's capabilities to score goals)
Capable of pressing for 95 minutes.
Good passing ability.
Good vision.
Very fast (needed for counter attacks).
Intelligent running. (Needed to make space for Bale, the n10 and various others.)
Decent tactically.
Decent penalty taker (this one does slightly depend on who else is in the team, it's more optional than most of the other things on this list).
Good at long shooting. (At the moment our team is set up to try to give our players the opportunity to get off long shots, if Defoe doesn't play and Bale leaves, the team style may change, but at the moment it would be strange to have a striker that can't shoot from outside of the box.)
Good at heading the ball. (Defensively, offensively (shooting) and passing with headers. Our wing play is a focus of our game, we must have someone with the ability to get on the end of high crosses or we risk being easy to defend against. Especially with Bale and Lennon on their stronger sides, Bale is going to be forced wide rather than allowed to come inside anyway. Teams would rather defend a cross from him than have him shoot.)
Tall with a good jump.
Decent at intercepting the ball and tackling to some degree.
Must have outstanding ball control. (Including an exceptional first touch.)
Decent at crossing.
Amazing in tight spaces.
Able to dribble at speed (with good close control).
Decent at beating players.
That is by no means everything, but it's just a quick list of some of the core skills we'd need in a striker... You can sort of put together a rating system that gives X points for completely nailing something then fewer points if they are only good or average in that category, while we would need strikers with A ratings in some of those things, we'd love a striker like Drogba, even if he isn't great at everything on the list.
The problem is narrowing down all the strikers in the world to a list of strikers that can do most of the stuff I mentioned and quite a few things I didn't mention. Trying to find a striker that we could afford (transfer fee/wages), that is the right age, that doesn't need CL football (hopefully next season this won't be an issue, last month it would have been), etc... It would have been very difficult...
The reason I'm mentioning all this in the Ade thread is simply because I'm not sure how much better we could have done in the summer... The form of last season (which some people weren't happy with) would have seen him be a huge success, but injury and other issues have really killed the number of games he has had. Without a run in the team, he wasn't going to have a super sub thing that Defoe always seems to have.
If you look at all the strikers in the world that are target men, hardly any do actually finish consistently. Ibra cost an insane amount of money and is even more inconsistent than Ade when it comes to finishing. Many of those strikers are strikers that aren't expected to score 10 league goals a season. Dzeko was out of our price range and he doesn't even tick half the boxes on the list.
To judge a striker purely on goals is very strange. I'd rather have Pique playing as a lone striker than Michael Owen. The thing that has impressed me most about Defoe over the past couple of years is the way he has improved at all the things he has to do as a lone striker. After seeing the second striker position fade in popularity and seeing so many 2nd strikers end up on benches, he has done really well at improving his overall game. But an on form Ade like we saw against Saudi Sportswashing Machine a year ago has so many of the qualities that we need from a lone striker. I prefer those qualities to an on form Defoe like we saw against Wigan a few years ago. (I still think Lennon deserved Motm for that match, even though Defoe scored 5 goals... And I still can't believe they were allowed a handball goal about a week after Henry got his.)
But perhaps my thoughts are biased, as I said earlier, I hate strikers.
So I'd rather have 11 players that are all capable of playing CM than 1 GK with no feet, 2 strikers that'll have 10 touches per game, 2-4 hoofers and a few poor sods in the middle expected to do all the playing.
This probably a good time to touch on Dempsey. When he plays lone striker, we don't play a false 9 system, we try to use him as a proper 9. He might have qualities that make it look like he's playing as a false 9, but without a team set up to take advantage of 2-3 CBs being dazed and confused, it's not a situation in which he can thrive. If you watch the Spain team, there are quite a lot of players that aren't used to the system and don't play their roles as well as one would hope... In the Euros, Fabregas was very well suited to being the false 9, but a lot of the time, the wide players weren't used to the system and didn't take advantage of the situation. When Fabregas had swapped with someone and made runs from deep, he actually showed a very good understanding of the system. (Which I suppose is natural considering his role for Barca compared to say Silva who doesn't have that role for City.) Sanchez, Pedro and other Barca players are usually good at knowing when to be wide and when to go narrow.
If we switched things around a bit and played Defoe on the left, Bale on the right and Dempsey as the false 9 in a 4-3-3 for a false 9 system, you'd see the benefits of a false 9 when it comes to scoring goals. (I'm not saying we should do that, I'm just saying at the moment when Dempsey plays as a 9, he is effectively replacing Defoe/Ade in a like to for like change with no real change to the system... I'm not saying Defoe should play on the left or we should use Dempsey as a striker when we have Defoe... I'm just saying that is how a false 9 system is supposed to work. Goal scoring wide forwards, not wingers that are playing on their "proper" sides (as opposed to inverted)... A 4-3-3 set up for false 9 usually looks almost like a 4-4-2 but with a midfield diamond and two "wingers" rather than strikers (actually wide forwards, but that's the image the system has).... We don't really have the players for that sort of system, we really lack goals from midfield too, so I'm not saying we should play it. Just that Dempsey hasn't been deployed like a false 9, he gets deployed as a regular 9.)
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At the moment we have a central midfield which is not set-up to delivering quick 'out' balls when in transition. If Hudd were a) match-fit and b) of sounder kind, I would love to see him played alongside Scotty Parker with Dembele given a wee rest; the Hudd has many faults, and for me is not currently worth a place, but what a shame because the man can hit a 30 yard pass with pin-point accuracy from inside his own half and release players.
I think that's what ABV was thinking earlier in the season.
Spare Dembele 20 minutes or so a match by replacing him with Hudds. When we're leading we're more likely to be able to counter attack and we lack Xabi Alonso... It's one thing having Walker, Kaboul (when fit), Lennon, Bale and Ade in your side, but without the ability to play accurate long passes we can't counter attack as well as Madrid, a team that has a slower team as far as the speed their top 5 first teamers run at goes, but they have Alonso, Modric and various other players that can pass from their own box to anywhere on the pitch. That's why they probably have the best counter attacking team in the world.
We haven't seen the real Hudds for a long time though. I miss his passing and shooting, hopefully he gets back some fitness soon and scores in some match so he can cut his hair.
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(albeit you admit he has the touch of a rapist this season unlike onlyme ala Mrs Ade, who still argues he is in fine form)
Ironic thing. Quite a few of the arguments that he is in excellent form list goals as evidence. However, there are people saying Ade is off form and using goal records as evidence.
Quite a few of the people that say his form isn't great are looking at his performances lately and noting his first touch, holdup play, etc are not on the level they were last season...
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I think the sky is always falling when it comes to Ade, last season people complained about his finishing and various other things... This is while he was actually on form and finishing better than he usually does.
I'm not sure why everything has to be so absolute. There should be middle ground somewhere. Ade came on against Saudi Sportswashing Machine and things looked better, his last game was a game in which there were no 10/10 performances... We'll remember that game for Bale's 2 free kicks, but aside from a run down the wing fairly late in the second half, even he couldn't really influence the game from open play.
Defoe is injured, Ade has to get a run in the team now. It'll be easier to see exactly where he is after he plays a few more 90 minute matches in the league.
Also, it seems that since leaving Arsenal, Ade tends to score against them very often, so I'm sure he'll be a threat against them. Even the selection of Ade could mean Mertehoofer is selected (even if their shorter CBs are fit), so he might manage to give us an edge in that game by just turning up. Bale has scored more goals against Arsenal than any other team (I think), so Ade's height making Wenger play someone with the pace of a 90 year old with a walking stick would be awesome...
This is the key stage of the year, Arsenal are about to go out of the CL at the knockout stage as they always do, they will shortly go out of the F.A Cup and their season will be over aside from the scramble for 4th, the NL derby is coming... Last year, the NLD at their place killed us and gave them a huge boost... We have the chance to end their season, this time it's at our place and it's been a while since they won at our place. I don't think Blackburn will quite be up to knocking them out of the F.A Cup, which is a shame. But even if they survive one more round... I'd quite like them to be out of the CL, in a fight with Liverpool and Swansea to see who joins Everton in one of the Europa League spaces (assuming Everton, a Manchester club or someone wins the F.A Cup).... And getting knocked out of the F.A Cup soon would be awesome. The day Arsene Wenger has to admit he isn't challenging for 4 trophies and cannot win anything is always a wonderful day. Getting behind in the team, including Ade seems a good idea... It's not like we can replace him with anyone anyway. I'd love to see Ade get us the 3 points in the NLD.
Losing that match would stop the media frenzy when Arsenal get hammered by Bayern... We saved their face last year when Milan destroyed them in the first leg. I want it to last long enough to actually enjoy it this year.
