The College Dropout

You're talking in circles Wullie. I didn't say any of what you claim. "Greedy Demba" was his name. Look up the Demba thread, earlier on in this thread or in match day threads. Many people said Ba/Cisse swapping positions would improve the quality of the overall team play. To me, that never made sense. I always maintained there's nothing in Cisse's game to suggest results/performances would get better with a simple switch and that has proved to be the case.

Aside from the wonder goals. What makes him so different from Darren Bent? I've started to say he's like Inzaghi because people seem happier with that comparison. But I don't understand. Inzaghi was world-class at it. Darren Bent is very good at it. From what i've seen, Cisse is more Darren Bent than Inzaghi. Bent's a good player man.

it's still Demba Ba Where was we in the league when he left? Everyone swore we would do better when he was gone. Just had a look on whoscored.com Cisse hasn't played up top a massive 9 times. Not that half a season BS that some keep spouting.

I remember when Demba Ba was banging them in. Getting us points at Reading, Everton, Spurs etc. I would say the same thing. A lot of people responded that if we played him wide and played Cisse (imo an even more limited player) the overall performance of the team would raise. Whilst it was clear to anyone with any football knowledge that would not be the case, the concept is based in truth. A different type of striker can lift the whole teams performance. Cisse's style of play doesn't encourage his team-mates to get involved in long phases of play with him. He's best facing goal on the shoulder of the last man and he's at his worst when trying to hold it up. Whilst we could do better in getting closer to provide good balls for him, he himself doesn't encourage that style of play. Now Dimitar Berbatov's whole style encourages playing off him. Best facing his team mates. Get it to his feet and chest and its party time right? Just seen West Ham launch it to Carroll isolated, he controlled it, firmed the oppo player and swang the ball out wide. The whole team moved up 10 yards as a result and they got a decent cross in. I mention strength/height because we generally lack that as a team. But equally, players with a lot of pace or skill are great at leading the line. I think Cisse might need a partner more than anything. Someone to either play with him or replace him. I don't want him sold but I don't want him being our main man. I genuinely think Cisse's poor overall play makes a significant contribution to our whole performance. People expect the other 10 players to be on some tiki-taka stuff FOR Cisse, when Cisse isn't that type of player himself.

AC is such a help defensively from set-pieces.

Darren bent is shit but Papiss Cisse is great, marra. Because Cisse scoring wonder goals makes him a different type of player. Half a season on the wing? He was the main man until Everton away up front.

Annoys the f*** out of me wen he tries to dink it over the keeper instead of just finishing in a more effective manner. Benfica away against the post (2nd half) should have been buried. v WBA last week onto the roof of the net. Deplorable attempts at making himself look clever at the teams expense. While that might win you a few brownie points down the pub, in reality the best strikers will use the dink in an effort to beat the onrushing keeper. It's all about angles and you have to make a judgement in a split second. The fact he's dinking it shows football intelligence rather than blasting it blindly against the keeper. Aye, the best strikers go for the dink. How silly of us. Not that I claim to know the go to moves of the best strikers in the world. But going around the GK seems a popular thing, I dunno.

Name them, because no one aimlessly hoofs from the CBs to the CF with no support in sight like we do. Yes Dortmund ping long passes to Lewandowski, but its not aimless and he always has support around him. It wouldn't be so bad if we hit long balls to Cisse and there was players around him and not 40 yards away. You could knock it long to a prime Torres. Chelsea spent close to a decade doing it to Drogba. Mandzukic is great at aerial duals. City - Dzeko. Arsenal - Giroud The list goes on. I also mean in general just harassing the defence. Pace, skill etc. something to force the team up.

Fully agreed on the Carroll point, especially if Pardew is to stick around.

The style you talk about is rather extravagant. A lot of the best sides in the world who do pass it through the midfield can also launch it long to their striker. Up top by yourself, you need to work the opposition defence.

Annoys the f*** out of me wen he tries to dink it over the keeper instead of just finishing in a more effective manner. Benfica away against the post (2nd half) should have been buried. v WBA last week onto the roof of the net. Deplorable attempts at making himself look clever at the teams expense. These are split decisions he's getting wrong but don't think it's to boost his ego though, just generally isn't doing the right thing at the right time. Agree with this. It's made the more annoying because he's so very reliant on service other than his wonder goals. Good movement true but he doesn't create chances to miss via strength, pace or skill. He works hard but he doesn't create loads for his team mates either. So when he has a golden opportunity, we are counting on him tucking them away.

Guess who has 101 goals in 238 PL appearances? Clue: He can't get a game in one of the few teams that are below us because he does nowt else but look for runs in behind and score goals.

IMO with have an inferior Pippo Inzaghi and that type of player struggles in this current climate.

Funnily enough I can't stand this thread as it's very negative and Pardew isn't getting sacked any time soon imo. But everything said is true. Pardew does look like a bit of a Charlatan. A fraud.

Everton play-off Fellaini as if he was a striker.

This kinda crap is why I keep going. More and more people are recognising Cisse isn't playing up to standard.

Funny how "contributing more" = doing everything Like we have not have legitimate talismanic strikers who add value to the whole team.

When you're squad is valued at £300m that is easier to implement. And even still their main striker is an awesome team player. the other Mario is more in the Lewandowski mould, the striker that fired BVB to successive Bundesliga titles. There's not a top team that has their star striker being so limited.

Agreed.

The Bayern team is not built around Mario fucking Gomez. They score tons of goals with or without him. We are reliant no Cisse's limited skill set and imo we should not be.

Our only convincing performances in that 6 game period came when playing 4-3-3, and only one of those could be classed as truly counter attacking, Swansea, as we clearly had the better of the overall play against West Brom and created more chances after the goals. We dominated Stoke and Liverpool, those performances were the antithesis of counter attacking. We even played alright and created quite a few chances at Wigan but were let down by rubbish defending. We've not seen the same formula this year, with Cabaye much deeper (bar Reading and Norwich away) or injured and Jonas playing virtually every game on the wing for starters. As for your Gomez comment. Yes, he's tall and is automatically more of a threat from set pieces, but can he move as well? Feed on through balls? Score the types of different types of goals that Cisse has here? Well done for highlighting that some strikers have strengths compared to others. It seems as if you've been reduced to pathetic criticisms these days, like covering the front post area at corners. 6 games. Mario Gomez would help our woeful set pieces. Cisse contributes to our weakness in that regard.

I can tell you haven't watched Bayern very much. Mandzukic is their main man and he was suspended. Gomez is a bench warmer and he's at least good in the air and a set-piece threat. Is Cisse?

I remember when Demba Ba was causing the whole team to play crap. Of course half a dozen games when we played counter football a lot and 4-4-2 is a better sample than this whole season. Okay. I'm getting lunch.

He's a striker, his main job is to score goals, not run in channels or win balls in the air for other people. I don't know if you watch internationl football but there are plenty of successfulk teams operating without the old fashioned English centre forward type. I don't think we're talking necessarily about an old fashioned English centre forward, but a lone striker needs to be something of an all-rounder, because he does have to link play as well as get on the end of chances. A specialist finisher is limited in that position. This is basically what I was trying to say.