Vurnon Anita (now playing for RKC Waalwijk)

[Newcastle Fan]

Fantastic today. ran all over the pitch.

[Kanji]

Love Vurnon getting the better of Juanazajajaz near our goal too. He loved fouling him.

[Dave]

vurnon

Don't lower your expectations to meet your performance. Raise your level of performance to meet your expectations.

 

Great team performance #nufc Next time we strive again togheter for the win. Hard work pays off.

[Incognito]

Love Vern. Shame we've wasted him since he arrived. Glad he's now been given a chance to show his true ability. He'll only get better.

Who'd have thought Pardew would be ruining a player?

[mrmojorisin75]

Love Vern. Shame we've wasted him since he arrived. Glad he's now been given a chance to show his true ability. He'll only get better.

Who'd have thought Pardew would be ruining a player?

 

who knew?  oh aye, everyone

[mrmojorisin75]

vurnon

Don't lower your expectations to meet your performance. Raise your level of performance to meet your expectations.

 

Great team performance #nufc Next time we strive again togheter for the win. Hard work pays off.

 

has he not just described alan pardew's entire time managing at the club in two perfectly weighted sentences?

[BrettNUFC]

 

Love Vern. Shame we've wasted him since he arrived. Glad he's now been given a chance to show his true ability. He'll only get better.

Who'd have thought Pardew would be ruining a player?

 

who knew?  oh aye, everyone

 

Not really, I'd say the majority of the fans haven't stuck by Anita. A lot questioned his physicality for this league along with his overall ability to play football.

 

Even on here when I said during pre-season Anita would be a key player under McClaren and show how good he actually is, it was rubbished off.

[mrmojorisin75]

 

Love Vern. Shame we've wasted him since he arrived. Glad he's now been given a chance to show his true ability. He'll only get better.

Who'd have thought Pardew would be ruining a player?

 

who knew?  oh aye, everyone

 

Not really, I'd say the majority of the fans haven't stuck by Anita. A lot questioned his physicality for this league along with his overall ability to play football.

 

Even on here when I said during pre-season Anita would be a key player under McClaren and show how good he actually is, it was rubbished off.

 

jesus imagine not understanding enough about football to think this

[Incognito]

Love Vern. Shame we've wasted him since he arrived. Glad he's now been given a chance to show his true ability. He'll only get better.

Who'd have thought Pardew would be ruining a player?

 

who knew?  oh aye, everyone

Almost everyone

[BrettNUFC]

It doesn't feel like that in the ground. Colback seems far more popular amongst fans than Anita. Even though Anita has much more ability than him.

[Tiotes Witch Doctor]

Most I've spoken to don't rate him claiming hes too weak etc... I always stuck up for him to the point where it annoys the people who don't rate him, and they think I'm mental when I say I don't rate Colback.

 

At matches even when Colback gets the ball and passes it 5 yards he gets a round of applause as if hes just delivered a ridiculous outrageous pass.

 

One of the main reasons I dislike him, hes a bang average CM who gets treated like hes Scholes mk 2 by our fans.

 

Anita was oustanding again on Saturday, hes turning into a class little player, his attacking game is growing also.

[Guest Recoba]

I think the "on the ground" view is changing.  Colback was more effective than Anita under the Pardew/Carver "system".  Anita struggled, no two ways about it.

 

I heard a few opinions in the pub I was in on Saturday that Colback was struggling with McClaren's system / McClaren has a "dutch style" that suits Anita / little Anita is a good footballer.

 

But then again there was a cheer when Tiote came on...

[TRon]

It doesn't feel like that in the ground. Colback seems far more popular amongst fans than Anita. Even though Anita has much more ability than him.

 

That's because a lot of fans at the ground have about as much football knowledge as Lee Ryder.

[BrettNUFC]

 

It doesn't feel like that in the ground. Colback seems far more popular amongst fans than Anita. Even though Anita has much more ability than him.

 

That's because a lot of fans at the ground have about as much football knowledge as Lee Ryder.

 

Even social networking, you see far more praise for Colback than Anita.

 

I'm surprised Anita has stuck around this long tbh. He's not had the backing of fans and his performances on the pitch have generally been way below standard because we never played to his strengths.

[mrmojorisin75]

 

It doesn't feel like that in the ground. Colback seems far more popular amongst fans than Anita. Even though Anita has much more ability than him.

 

That's because a lot of fans at the ground have about as much football knowledge as Lee Ryder.

 

Even social networking, you see far more praise for Colback than Anita.

 

I'm surprised Anita has stuck around this long tbh. He's not had the backing of fans and his performances on the pitch have generally been way below standard because we never played to his strengths.

 

he's never been openly criticised though has he?  iirc obertan for example was booed on or off once right?  can't recall that ever happening to anita, seems like he's not managed to annoy people with his performances

[BrettNUFC]

No no he hasn't been that bad to get booed, yet [emoji2]

 

Just get people standing up  shouting at him, making out like any mistake is catastrophic because it's Anita. Happy when his number is up and he's going off first.

 

Colback is treated like royalty compared to Anita.

[Foluwashola]

It doesn't feel like that in the ground. Colback seems far more popular amongst fans than Anita. Even though Anita has much more ability than him.

 

That's because a lot of fans at the ground have about as much football knowledge as Lee Ryder.

 

Realise I'm a boring twat on this issue (and all others) but Colback performed at a higher level last season than Anita had in 3 seasons. Fans generally respond more favourably to the player delivering better performances.

 

This season Anita has outshone Colback so far and I hope he continues to prove me wrong.

[Tsunami]

He played well on Saturday after the first 15 where we were all over the place. He was certainly better than Colback but let's not pretend he's turned any kind of corner yet. Man U didn't put us under any kind of real pressure to get at our weaknesses. For that same reason Colo and Taylor had fairly comfortable games.

[mrmojorisin75]

He played well on Saturday after the first 15 where we were all over the place. He was certainly better than Colback but let's not pretend he's turned any kind of corner yet. Man U didn't put us under any kind of real pressure to get at our weaknesses. For that same reason Colo and Taylor had fairly comfortable games.

 

what kind of corner does he have to turn like?  he's a footballer who can play football, now that we're playing football he's starting to look a decent midfielder and will continue to do so as long as we play to his strengths and not his weaknesses as we'd done for the entirety of his time with us

 

but yeah of course, if we send him out to face a strong, physical midfield on his his own he'll get overran so it'd probably be a good idea for us not to do that

[The College Dropout]

He played well on Saturday after the first 15 where we were all over the place. He was certainly better than Colback but let's not pretend he's turned any kind of corner yet. Man U didn't put us under any kind of real pressure to get at our weaknesses. For that same reason Colo and Taylor had fairly comfortable games.

 

what kind of corner does he have to turn like?  he's a footballer who can play football, now that we're playing football he's starting to look a decent midfielder and will continue to do so as long as we play to his strengths and not his weaknesses as we'd done for the entirety of his time with us

We didn't play much football on Saturday tbf. We set up perfectly for Anita to max his strengths and Man Utd. played to his strengths too. But Anita did his thing. It's where there's strong midfield runners looking to get ahead of the strikers and really boss the midfield is where he usually struggles. But today we saw a glimpse of what we could do.

[mrmojorisin75]

He played well on Saturday after the first 15 where we were all over the place. He was certainly better than Colback but let's not pretend he's turned any kind of corner yet. Man U didn't put us under any kind of real pressure to get at our weaknesses. For that same reason Colo and Taylor had fairly comfortable games.

 

what kind of corner does he have to turn like?  he's a footballer who can play football, now that we're playing football he's starting to look a decent midfielder and will continue to do so as long as we play to his strengths and not his weaknesses as we'd done for the entirety of his time with us

We didn't play much football on Saturday tbf. We set up perfectly for Anita to max his strengths and Man Utd. played to his strengths too. But Anita did his thing. It's where there's strong midfield runners looking to get ahead of the strikers and really boss the midfield is where he usually struggles. But today we saw a glimpse of what we could do.

 

i honestly don't think we should be comparing what he's done or not done in the past to what we're seeing now when he plays in the right system

 

if he's playing behind wijnaldum/sissoko (or colback) and his job is as it was on saturday he'll be able to do the ball recycling thing we all know he can do, but he'll also be better protected and able to track runs, intercept and so on, just as he did on saturday and he's actually very good at

 

i know it perhaps seems like a massive excuses are always being made for anita but he's a diminutive defensive midfielder playing in the premier league, in the same way that armstrong is a diminutive striker and didn't suit having the ball launched up to him by williamson

 

armstrong hasn't "turned a corner" at coventry, he's just being played properly (and of course has dropped down levels)

 

if you expose anita he's going to look shite because he doesn't have the physical attributes, but played correctly he's twice the CM colback is and offers twice as much

[The College Dropout]

He played well on Saturday after the first 15 where we were all over the place. He was certainly better than Colback but let's not pretend he's turned any kind of corner yet. Man U didn't put us under any kind of real pressure to get at our weaknesses. For that same reason Colo and Taylor had fairly comfortable games.

 

what kind of corner does he have to turn like?  he's a footballer who can play football, now that we're playing football he's starting to look a decent midfielder and will continue to do so as long as we play to his strengths and not his weaknesses as we'd done for the entirety of his time with us

We didn't play much football on Saturday tbf. We set up perfectly for Anita to max his strengths and Man Utd. played to his strengths too. But Anita did his thing. It's where there's strong midfield runners looking to get ahead of the strikers and really boss the midfield is where he usually struggles. But today we saw a glimpse of what we could do.

 

i honestly don't think we should be comparing what he's done or not done in the past to what we're seeing now when he plays in the right system

 

if he's playing behind wijnaldum/sissoko (or colback) and his job is as it was on saturday he'll be able to do the ball recycling thing we all know he can do, but he'll also be better protected and able to track runs, intercept and so on, just as he did on saturday and he's actually very good at

 

i know it perhaps seems like a massive excuses are always being made for anita but he's a diminutive defensive midfielder playing in the premier league, in the same way that armstrong is a diminutive striker and didn't suit having the ball launched up to him by williamson

 

armstrong hasn't "turned a corner" at coventry, he's just being played properly (and of course has dropped down levels)

 

if you expose anita he's going to look s**** because he doesn't have the physical attributes, but played correctly he's twice the CM colback is and offers twice as much

As soon as Wij joined and I found out he had been playing at CM for PSV I wanted a flat 3/ 3 man with a defensive pivot and if we go that way long-term Anita is the guy for that role. However, in a 4-2-3-1/4-4-1-1 I still don't know about Anita. IMO he might be a bit of a specialist in that 3 man midfield and not nearly as effective in another type of set-up.

[TRon]

It doesn't feel like that in the ground. Colback seems far more popular amongst fans than Anita. Even though Anita has much more ability than him.

 

That's because a lot of fans at the ground have about as much football knowledge as Lee Ryder.

 

Realise I'm a boring twat on this issue (and all others) but Colback performed at a higher level last season than Anita had in 3 seasons. Fans generally respond more favourably to the player delivering better performances.

 

This season Anita has outshone Colback so far and I hope he continues to prove me wrong.

 

It might have something to do with McClaren changing the way we play football as well.

[mrmojorisin75]

He played well on Saturday after the first 15 where we were all over the place. He was certainly better than Colback but let's not pretend he's turned any kind of corner yet. Man U didn't put us under any kind of real pressure to get at our weaknesses. For that same reason Colo and Taylor had fairly comfortable games.

 

what kind of corner does he have to turn like?  he's a footballer who can play football, now that we're playing football he's starting to look a decent midfielder and will continue to do so as long as we play to his strengths and not his weaknesses as we'd done for the entirety of his time with us

We didn't play much football on Saturday tbf. We set up perfectly for Anita to max his strengths and Man Utd. played to his strengths too. But Anita did his thing. It's where there's strong midfield runners looking to get ahead of the strikers and really boss the midfield is where he usually struggles. But today we saw a glimpse of what we could do.

 

i honestly don't think we should be comparing what he's done or not done in the past to what we're seeing now when he plays in the right system

 

if he's playing behind wijnaldum/sissoko (or colback) and his job is as it was on saturday he'll be able to do the ball recycling thing we all know he can do, but he'll also be better protected and able to track runs, intercept and so on, just as he did on saturday and he's actually very good at

 

i know it perhaps seems like a massive excuses are always being made for anita but he's a diminutive defensive midfielder playing in the premier league, in the same way that armstrong is a diminutive striker and didn't suit having the ball launched up to him by williamson

 

armstrong hasn't "turned a corner" at coventry, he's just being played properly (and of course has dropped down levels)

 

if you expose anita he's going to look s**** because he doesn't have the physical attributes, but played correctly he's twice the CM colback is and offers twice as much

As soon as Wij joined and I found out he had been playing at CM for PSV I wanted a flat 3/ 3 man with a defensive pivot and if we go that way long-term Anita is the guy for that role. However, in a 4-2-3-1/4-4-1-1 I still don't know about Anita. IMO he might be a bit of a specialist in that 3 man midfield and not nearly as effective in another type of set-up.

 

[Lotus]

Was very impressed with him on Saturday. He hustled really well. He put himself in good positions that made the Manu players play the ball elsewhere quite often.

I'm not into Colback bashing for the sake of it but he wasn't really as effective as Anita. He's not not got that sudden burst of speed or the positional awareness.

I've been thinking that a midfield 3 with Anita deeper than Wijnadum and Sissoko/De Jong ahead of him could be a very nice blend of talents.