SteV

I’d argue that the one of the most important things about getting someone in during January, is that they get full pre-season with you for the next season (depending on WC participation this year I suppose). Gordon made very little impact in the Jan-May when he first signed, but was absolutely bang on it once the next season started.

Favourite Match: EFL Cup Final - Newcastle 2-1 Liverpool Favourite Goal: BDB’s match winning goal in cup final Favourite Moment: Final whistle in cup final Favourite Player: Bruno/BDB Any other favourite memories: Howe’s fist pump at the end of the West Ham match prior to the cup final (aligned with watching Liverpool lose on pens to PSG the next night) transformed my pre-final weeks thoughts from ‘this is going to be extremely difficult’, to ‘we’re winning’.

It doesn’t happen at games where it’s too much hassle (i.e mackems, Marseille), but obviously they can’t say that.

Does anyone ever make signings on ‘day 1’?

It might have felt like that, partly because we have an expectation of how it should go against the likes of Burnley, and partly because we are scarred from giving away a lead so much this season. But even given they were visually the dominant side in the first 20 mins of the second half, the numbers hardly scream ‘one way traffic’:

Targett’s contract is up in the summer *assuming MT is him and not Thiaw…

Do we know he has a shitty attitude, or is that just an assumption a lot of us make? I agree that sometimes his body language is poor, but I don’t think that’s necessarily indicative of a bad attitude.

Forest fans seem to think he was the worst goalkeeper in the clubs history. Mind, you could probably have found the same opinion about Nick Pope here after the Marseille game.

That’s fair enough, and I do understand that pov, but I suppose the difference is that, rightly or wrongly, I very rarely form negative opinions of our players for perceived character flaws (and if I can do that with Joey Barton, I’m definitely able to do it with Anthony Gordon). I’m definitely biased in that regard. I’d say that probably allows me to look at things slightly more objectively in terms of how they are performing game by game (sometimes anyway). The effort thing is an interesting one mind. I think people’s perception of Gordon leans them towards believing he sometimes displays a lack of effort. If we look at the Bilbao (I think) game where he went off injured in the first half, having looked miles off the pace. It was clear he should never have started that game and he wasn’t fit, but if you were to look at the match thread or his thread at that time, you’ll see a lot of ‘soft as shite’, ‘weak as piss’, ‘couldn’t be arsed’ type comments. But I think it’s often more that he displays poor/negative body language, rather than lack of effort. I don’t think the poor body language is necessarily deliberate, more a character trait, but it is one he needs to try and change, and I think Eddie has told him as much (one game earlier the season, West Ham maybe, he hooked him at ht and subsequently mentioned body language).

So he has been previously arrested for rape (specifically in relation to this case)?

Someone needs to post this on RTG to spark a 100 page debate about how Boldon is a red and white stronghold™️, and how any Boldon Mags are the worst kind of scum imaginable.

We’ll have to disagree there. Whilst it was far from his best performance, and he should have scored at least once, he was the one who was trying to make things happen. Execution - not great, bordering on poor, but it felt like he was our best outlet. Eddie said as much after the game. Murphy offered very little bar two (very) dangerous balls into the box. And that’s not even a criticism of him really. It’s what he is, and he’s been a huge part of the team over the last couple of years doing that. Woltemade offered next to nothing, but as pointed out, there’s significant extenuating circumstances around him, and we should definitely be having prolonged patience with him. Overall, I think the extremely long-winded point I’m making is that whilst he, like most others (probably bar Hall and Miley at present) deserve some criticism, what he gets on here is OTT IMO.

In stadium, you’re probably right, everyone gets it. But on here, and SM (OK, might be best off ignoring that), I defer back to the game the other night. Gordon, whilst elements of his performance were hugely frustrating, was far more dangerous than Murphy or Woltemade. But who’s the one who has pages and pages of negativity? There’s been some perfectly valid points made by @Lush Vlad , amongst others, on how we should expect more from him due to previous performances, wages etc, compared to the likes of Murphy. And I don’t dismiss that at all. I agree up to a point. I suppose I just rail slightly against the reactionary, ‘fuck him off’, ‘he’s shit’, type of comments when he is, and continues to be, one of our best players, albeit not currently at in a consistent enough manner.

That seems a considerable distance away from ‘rape’? I’m starting to think that Sun front page could have been a touch sensationalist.

Fair point. Which is why Man Utd had a (slightly) better xG than us on Friday, despite us being the significantly dominant team.

Without wanting to drag my previous posts up, I was very much OK with him coming in as the Wilson replacement, even with the injury record (which wasn’t as bad as made out IMO). However, once our other striker decided to activate dickhead mode, it changed everything. We were then shopping in a different market, which I agreed (and still do) with.

He certainly would have been a very good third choice, unfortunately I don’t think we’re in a position to be paying our third choice striker £100k p/w, even if he was on a free.

I suspect the entire forum would have exploded if we’d replaced Isak with DCL and Vardy (however much of a stopgap it was).

Can’t come back until next season unless he’s prepared to pay a massive tax bill. Plus he’s currently on 400k p/w

That could well happen, but I’d very much doubt it would be a striker who would start ahead of Wissa and Woltemade.

We scored from two crosses the game before

So that’s him, Pope and Elanga that we’re just pretending to be injured?

Josh Cullen went off injured for them today, sounds like his knee’s fucked. Thought he was the definition of a Championship-standard player when they came up here, so not really bothered either way, but he is their captain, so must have something about him.

There’s plenty of merit in many of those points. But it does kinda confirm that, rightly or wrongly, Gordon is held to higher standard of accountability/blame than the majority of others.