Trying to come up with reasons why his form has dipped and then only ending up with reasons outside of his control is what I call making excuses. Pretty sure that's what making excuses means too, but than again English is nog my mother tongue so I may be wrong..
As for the reason why Cisse has been so disappointing, I don't know and I din't want to theorise. What I do know though, and that's how this argument started, is that moving Ba who is scoring away from goal to accomodate a stuttering Cisse in the centre seems like utter madness to me.
As mad as moving Cisse away from the centre to accommodate a sulking, stuttering Ba?
Beggars f***ing belief this like.
I knew this was coming. I for one am perfectly happy for our best players to request being played in their preferred position, as long as they deliver when they are. Ba has delivered whenever he has played in the centre for us, Cisse hasn't so far this season, so with a change from two to one central striker it was obvious he was the one going wide for a while or out of the first team altogether (which I would have preferred btw). I fully expect Cisse to get frustrated for being played out wide, just as Ba did. Four games in, and the first signs were there last Saturday. He will have to walk the walk too though, like Ba did when he requested to play centrally. As I said, in a 433 there is only one place for a real central striker, which they both are. May the best one win. At the moment that is Ba. I really hope Cisse refinds his form of last year and reclaims his place. That's primarily up to him though; if he keeps missing chances at this rate it may be a while yet. If he starts banging them in I am sure nobody will be more delighted than Pardew himself.
The manager needs to do what's best for the team based on the evidence available. He's not doing it, and he wouldn't be sacrificing anything by trying something which worked so well last season.
If Cisse was playing anywhere near as well as last season we wouldn't even be having this debate. As it is, displacing the forward who is doing the business to accomodate the one who isn't is indeed a huge sacrifice considering where we would be right now if Ba's form was like Cisse's this season.
We did it at the start of this season for the sake of a sulking striker. Why can't we do it now for the sake of an under performing team getting s*** results?
Except we didn't. We reverted to the tactic we employed for 80% of our matches last season to great effect and accommodated both Ba and Cisse in central forward positions in an attempt to combine our defensive solidity of last season with playing two top class strikers capable of scoring 50 goals between them in theory. Whilst it's clearly not worked out as we hoped it would, I find it extremely simplistic to discredit this concept with the benefit of hindsight considering the fact we have also looked extremely vulnerable at times with the 433 formation that's now considered to be some sort of silver bullet by some on here.
The service has been worse this season. Guti for one rarely gets a ball into the box, if Hatem isn't playing there is rarely a final pass on the ground to be had etc...Just a lot of strange ball from anywhere in their general direction (the strikers) or hoofed kicks down the middle (neither are dominant in the air against big hefty PL CD's). Psychologically this year as well after the deflated summer window a lot of the buzz has gone out of the side...Reality has hit home.
It came out as part of the Ba singing saga that and the way the deal was skewed that Ba was only really thinking of playing for us as a shop window...Our side and deffo not his side imagined he wouldn't be snapped up (Lord knows his release clause was publicised up and down the land and trumpeted by angels - but alas no takers). So, this year he's been a bit Diva about things and now asking for silly money, moaning on french telly, niggling about his starting postion, taking free kicks he's clearly crap at. All this jazz needs to be reigned in and the team spirit returned. That for me is the fundamental first step and then 2/3 first team players is the second vital step...Or this winter is going to be dire.
There's nothing wrong with Cisse a bit of decent service won't cure. He gets one chance and one half chance a game at the moment.
