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HatRicky

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Ricky Van Wolfswinkel scored a hattrick today and moved on to 18 goals in the Eredivisie this season-2nd highest goal scorer.

Didn''t work out for him or us here but glad to see him doing well again.

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[quote user="GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary"]merely shows what a weak league the Eredevise is....Jerome would get 25....Oliveira 35...[/quote]What a mean-spirited comment. RVW may have his limitations, but he is a better player than he was able to show at Norwich.

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no, he isn''t.....one of if not the worst strikers I''ve ever seen at this club

.

Dutch football is littered with strikers who have scored in that league but couldnt elsewhere, it''s no gauge whatsoever

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I will always maintain that I think the Wolf would''ve done well for us at this level but unfortunately, was never given the chance.

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just not suited to the English game....at Championship level he''d have got knocked around even more.....never seen a Norwich striker bullied more by centre halves more than him, desperately lightweight.

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[quote user="GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary"]no, he isn''t.....one of if not the worst strikers I''ve ever seen at this club

.

Dutch football is littered with strikers who have scored in that league but couldnt elsewhere, it''s no gauge whatsoever[/quote]Quite. He was given every chance at Norwich City. Both as a lone striker and playing alongside a target man. By any decent standards, let alone top flight top European standards (and I took careful note of how he got on at St-Etienne and the sad but honest final judgment of their fans), he had no pace, no physicality no ball control, no dribbling skills and so no ability to manufacture chances for himself. If he is now back at a lower level where his lack of those necessary talents means he can score goals set up by others then I am very happy for him.

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[quote user="Baldyboy"]Dutch strikers like Van Basten, Kluivert and Bergkamp you mean GJL?[/quote]

oh dear....for every one of those, you could quote plenty more who haven''t?.....look at that useless carthorse Spurs have landed themselves in Janssen

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Glad to see it work out for him somewhere. He wasn''t a bad lad, just ineffective. We''ll always have that goal against Everton and the infamous ghost pass.

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he''s basically playing league 1 standard football...The eredivisie has been shocking for years.Found his level...If he''d stayed with us he''d still not have scored.Utter sh*te.

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[quote user="GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary"]no, he isn''t.....one of if not the worst strikers I''ve ever seen at this club

.

Dutch football is littered with strikers who have scored in that league but couldnt elsewhere, it''s no gauge whatsoever[/quote]If RVW is one of the worst strikers you''ve ever seen at the club you obviously haven''t been to many games or know very little about football as a whole. Either way, your comment can be disregarded. Broughton, Maric, Coote, Notman, Sheron, Dalglish, Killen, McDonald and the list goes on of players that offered far less to the club than RVW did.It''s good to see him doing well, as unlike a lot of the experts that sit in the stands or watch from home, I was always hoping that he would come good for us. Sadly it was not to be but good luck to him.

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this is my 37th season and I stand by that.....how would any of those offered "less" when RVW offered absolutely nothing?.

....and thats before we discuss the fee we paid for him.

most of those strikers you mentioned would have at least ONE strength about their game....RVW in the time we saw him here had no pace,was physically weak,offered nothing in the air,was bullied by defenders,couldnt link up with other players, couldnt finish one-on-ones, wouldnt come deep to receive the ball, couldnt run with the ball, couldnt create his own chances.......am I missing anything?

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[quote user="GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary"]this is my 37th season and I stand by that.....how would any of those offered "less" when RVW offered absolutely nothing?.

....and thats before we discuss the fee we paid for him.

most of those strikers you mentioned would have at least ONE strength about their game....RVW in the time we saw him here had no pace,was physically weak,offered nothing in the air,was bullied by defenders,couldnt link up with other players, couldnt finish one-on-ones, wouldnt come deep to receive the ball, couldnt run with the ball, couldnt create his own chances.......am I missing anything?[/quote]Your list of RVW''s failings could pretty much apply to any of the afore mentioned strikers from my previous post and then some. For goodness sake, Broughton scored more own goals than he did at the right end. How many strikers do you know that leave a club with a negative goal difference?

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read my original quote again....it''s there in black and white

"no, he isn''t.....one of if not the worst strikers I''ve ever seen at this club "

...so you tell me what he did here to not be mentioned in same breath as your list of strikers.

...and when you factor in the £8.5m we pi$$ed up the wall on him.....the "pound for pound" factor makes him worse by default.

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[quote user="GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary"]most of those strikers you mentioned would have at least ONE strength about their game....RVW in the time we saw him here had no pace,was physically weak,offered nothing in the air,was bullied by defenders,couldnt link up with other players, couldnt finish one-on-ones, wouldnt come deep to receive the ball, couldnt run with the ball, couldnt create his own chances.......am I missing anything?[/quote]Actually, RvW is quite good in the air when attacking a ball (rather than playing as a target man), and his finishing is pretty damn good, but the problem is that we simply did not give him the supply that suited his game (which is almost non-existent at the top level anymore), and instead of complaining that we wasn''t a Costa or Lukaku, we needed to recognise he was more of an Inzaghi or a Muller, but Hughton wanted him to play like he was Carroll or Crouch anyway...

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Good players adapt their game if in a formation not suited to them, Holty had to when Hughton came in and still managed to be our top scorer that season. He didn''t like it but made the best of it. Holt cost half a mil. I don''t think it was too much to expect our record signing (at the time) to have found a way to at least look half competent at playing football. The fact he failed at any kind of top level football proves the point.

RVW has found his level, good luck (and good riddance) to him.

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Cody Mac > RVW

If we were forced to sign one right now,a s an English Championship club I''d pick Cody....or pretty much any other striker we''ve had in the past 9 years. Even Lafferty is better.

How he''s made it all as a footballer is beyond me. How can you get a Dutch cap if you actually, legitimately can''t trap a football? His dribbling and short passing are also non League standard. He has some qualities, good header of the ball, intelligent, moves into some great positions etc but he''s completely missing certain aspects to his game that you need to play as a forward at a high level in top European countries now.

His finishing is only decent as well which is the puzzling thing. If he was a pure poacher then fair enough, but he wasn''t even as good a finisher as Hooper and absolutely miles away from a Defoe or Bent circa 2012.

Rubbish footballer and showed very little from day 1- Everton header aside.

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He was awful for us and is now scoring goals in a league where a 36 year old Dirk kuyt is still getting 10-15 a season from the wing.

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Pleased for him.  He tried to move to the next level and failed, but if you don''t try, you never know! So he has stepped down a standard or two, but is still in the top league of his country and doing well.  Good on him, pleased the experience in the PL didn''t destroy his career completely.

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this is my 37th season and I stand by that.....how would any of those offered "less" when RVW offered absolutely nothing?.

....and thats before we discuss the fee we paid for him.

most of those strikers you mentioned would have at least ONE strength about their game....RVW in the time we saw him here had no pace,was physically weak,offered nothing in the air,was bullied by defenders,couldnt link up with other players, couldnt finish one-on-ones, wouldnt come deep to receive the ball, couldnt run with the ball, couldnt create his own chances.......am I missing anything? Your list of RVW''s failings could pretty much apply to any of the afore mentioned strikers from my previous post and then some. For goodness sake, Broughton scored more own goals than he did at the right end. How many strikers do you know that leave a club with a negative goal difference?

Is that true?! I remember John Deehan enthusing about him coming through in an interview once...

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I always thought RVW was a luxury player pretty much out of fashion in the modern game. Not many teams can afford to play with 10 men, remember this is a player that holds the Premier League record for least number of touches in a game and I think statistically that season finished 5 off the bottom of about 600 players.

Ricky seems to be effective in being the player who gets the final touch on essentially a goal created by others. Stick him up front for a team like Arsenal, I could see him scoring maybe 10 goals a season - I say this as Arsenel usually dominate possession and play the most expansive passing game, meaning players like Ozil would probably dump a few on a plate for him that he simply couldnt miss.

Totally inappropriate player for us to replace Grant Holt with. Grant won us fouls, territory and was an outlet. To replace him with such a racehorse was a monumentally poor piece of judgement. I wonder who bears the responsibility for that. Is it Hughton 100%, or was poor scouting also to blame? Did his agent sweet-talk the board like a time-share salesman?

Considering his hype, I''ve never been more disappointed in a signing. I so wanted him to be good

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The blame for the signing of RVW was apportioned to Ewan Chester. In fact Chester never recovered from it.

It was a perplexing signing , given our relative riches at the time. Like many others I had never heard of him but got caught up in the hype. I was at the End of season Dinner the year he signed (infamously it was actually the beginning of the next season Dinner due to our flirtation with relegation) and I took a photo of my son with RVW. I was taken with how slight RWV was but assumed that he would have blistering pace to make up for it . When it turned out he didn''t have that either , we did at least have the lifeline of the goal against Everton to hold onto. Then injury....

So was he good enough? Not from what I saw. Did United really go in for him too? I can''t believe so. And was he 6ft 1 as quoted by his Wiki page? I''m not sure I believe that either!

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[quote user="The Great Mass Debater"]I always thought RVW was a luxury player pretty much out of fashion in the modern game. Not many teams can afford to play with 10 men, remember this is a player that holds the Premier League record for least number of touches in a game and I think statistically that season finished 5 off the bottom of about 600 players. Ricky seems to be effective in being the player who gets the final touch on essentially a goal created by others. Stick him up front for a team like Arsenal, I could see him scoring maybe 10 goals a season - I say this as Arsenel usually dominate possession and play the most expansive passing game, meaning players like Ozil would probably dump a few on a plate for him that he simply couldnt miss. Totally inappropriate player for us to replace Grant Holt with. Grant won us fouls, territory and was an outlet. To replace him with such a racehorse was a monumentally poor piece of judgement. I wonder who bears the responsibility for that. Is it Hughton 100%, or was poor scouting also to blame? Did his agent sweet-talk the board like a time-share salesman? Considering his hype, I''ve never been more disappointed in a signing. I so wanted him to be good[/quote]

 

I agree with this 100% - in a team with a lot of possession I could see him doing reasonably well and he had some good qualities as a footballer, he was just totally wrong for the role he was brought in to play with us.

 

If the blame for his signing is being pinned on Ewan Chester, my question would be what sort of remit was he given for the striker search ?  And I think the buck ultimately has to stop with Hughton for this one (anyway), because he knew the style of play he would be using and therefore should have know what sort of striker he needed - although my guess is that he underestimated Grant Holt (like many others) and thought that because players like RVW, Elmander and Hooper looked good on paper, they must be able to do as well as GH, which was a catastrophic misjudgement.

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[quote user="Its Character Forming"]

[quote user="The Great Mass Debater"]I always thought RVW was a luxury player pretty much out of fashion in the modern game. Not many teams can afford to play with 10 men, remember this is a player that holds the Premier League record for least number of touches in a game and I think statistically that season finished 5 off the bottom of about 600 players. Ricky seems to be effective in being the player who gets the final touch on essentially a goal created by others. Stick him up front for a team like Arsenal, I could see him scoring maybe 10 goals a season - I say this as Arsenel usually dominate possession and play the most expansive passing game, meaning players like Ozil would probably dump a few on a plate for him that he simply couldnt miss. Totally inappropriate player for us to replace Grant Holt with. Grant won us fouls, territory and was an outlet. To replace him with such a racehorse was a monumentally poor piece of judgement. I wonder who bears the responsibility for that. Is it Hughton 100%, or was poor scouting also to blame? Did his agent sweet-talk the board like a time-share salesman? Considering his hype, I''ve never been more disappointed in a signing. I so wanted him to be good[/quote]

 

I agree with this 100% - in a team with a lot of possession I could see him doing reasonably well and he had some good qualities as a footballer, he was just totally wrong for the role he was brought in to play with us.

 

If the blame for his signing is being pinned on Ewan Chester, my question would be what sort of remit was he given for the striker search ?  And I think the buck ultimately has to stop with Hughton for this one (anyway), because he knew the style of play he would be using and therefore should have know what sort of striker he needed - although my guess is that he underestimated Grant Holt (like many others) and thought that because players like RVW, Elmander and Hooper looked good on paper, they must be able to do as well as GH, which was a catastrophic misjudgement.

[/quote]But then he then had a season with St-Etienne - a good technical footballing side that finished 5th that year in the league supposed to be the least physically demanding of the top - and was a failure, ending up as an unused sub. And then at Real Betis, a team good enough to finish 10th, he failed again, scoring just one goal.I take the point about pure goalscorers  being out of fashion, but back when they were used they still had to have more about them than just being able to finish off everyone else''s work. And van Wolfswinkel had no other qualities. Technically he was nowhere near Premier League level. And he was hardly a genius (or near-genius) goalscorer worth a place on that alone. We had one of those in MacDougall and no Norwich City fan would choose van Wolfswinkel ahead of Ted.

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[quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="Its Character Forming"]

[quote user="The Great Mass Debater"]I always thought RVW was a luxury player pretty much out of fashion in the modern game. Not many teams can afford to play with 10 men, remember this is a player that holds the Premier League record for least number of touches in a game and I think statistically that season finished 5 off the bottom of about 600 players. Ricky seems to be effective in being the player who gets the final touch on essentially a goal created by others. Stick him up front for a team like Arsenal, I could see him scoring maybe 10 goals a season - I say this as Arsenel usually dominate possession and play the most expansive passing game, meaning players like Ozil would probably dump a few on a plate for him that he simply couldnt miss. Totally inappropriate player for us to replace Grant Holt with. Grant won us fouls, territory and was an outlet. To replace him with such a racehorse was a monumentally poor piece of judgement. I wonder who bears the responsibility for that. Is it Hughton 100%, or was poor scouting also to blame? Did his agent sweet-talk the board like a time-share salesman? Considering his hype, I''ve never been more disappointed in a signing. I so wanted him to be good[/quote]

I agree with this 100% - in a team with a lot of possession I could see him doing reasonably well and he had some good qualities as a footballer, he was just totally wrong for the role he was brought in to play with us.

If the blame for his signing is being pinned on Ewan Chester, my question would be what sort of remit was he given for the striker search ?  And I think the buck ultimately has to stop with Hughton for this one (anyway), because he knew the style of play he would be using and therefore should have know what sort of striker he needed - although my guess is that he underestimated Grant Holt (like many others) and thought that because players like RVW, Elmander and Hooper looked good on paper, they must be able to do as well as GH, which was a catastrophic misjudgement.

[/quote]

But then he then had a season with St-Etienne - a good technical footballing side that finished 5th that year in the league supposed to be the least physically demanding of the top - and was a failure, ending up as an unused sub. And then at Real Betis, a team good enough to finish 10th, he failed again, scoring just one goal.

I take the point about pure goalscorers  being out of fashion, but back when they were used they still had to have more about them than just being able to finish off everyone else''s work. And van Wolfswinkel had no other qualities. Technically he was nowhere near Premier League level. And he was hardly a genius (or near-genius) goalscorer worth a place on that alone. We had one of those in MacDougall and no Norwich City fan would choose van Wolfswinkel ahead of Ted.

[/quote]

 

I don''t know that much about St Etienne or Real Betis and whether or not they dominate possession in a similar way that Arsenal do in most of their domestic fixtures.  Given they only finished 5th and 10th in their leagues, I suspect not.  Hence the comparison you''re making is probably irrelevant.

 

I think what you''re missing is that GMD said (and I agree) he was a luxury player, playing with him was like playing with 10 men, but he could do OK with a team that dominates possession.  Neither of us said anything about him being a near-genius or being worth a place.

I remember seeing RVW in that pre-season friendly against a Spanish side (Real Sociedad?) and there he showed really good movement off the defender, constantly running to look for a ball to be delivered on the floor into the channels, and showed good control for quick one-touch short passing interchanges .  The problem was that for Norwich City as managed by Hughton (but probably under any manager given our relative squad strength in the Prem that season) those qualities were virtually useless.  The passes were never delivered into the channels for him and gradually he stopped making those runs.  He rarely received the ball on the ground with other City players near him so never had the chance to do one-touch passes.  And while I think he was a reasonably good finisher by the standards of the Portuguese or Dutch leagues, with us he got so few chances that he was never going to score many goals.

In time of course his confidence wore away and the injury problem just made it worse so by the second half of the season what good qualities he had were no longer really on display.

 

Instead of RVW, we needed a tall and strong striker who could play up front on his own, keep possession under pressure (or force the defender to foul him to stop him keeping possession) and lay it off when support comes up, win a reasonably amount of long balls in the air, take a few chances in the box when they came up, and generally put the CBs under pressure.  RVW was simply unsuited to that role in every possible way.  I remember someone linking to the bleacher report website saying pretty much exactly this, in a report after he''d scored on his league debut against Everton, which was a pretty courageous piece of journalism - to say a player who''s just scored on his debut will not succeed in the Prem is not an easy thing to say, but of course it was absolutely spot on.

 

The fact that he''s presumably now recovered his confidence in the Dutch league, and is able to play to his strengths, changes none of this.

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[quote user="Its Character Forming"] 

I think what you''re missing is that GMD said (and I agree) he was a luxury player, playing with him was like playing with 10 men, but he could do OK with a team that dominates possession.  Neither of us said anything about him being a near-genius or being worth a place.I remember seeing RVW in that pre-season friendly against a Spanish side (Real Sociedad?) and there he showed really good movement off the defender, constantly running to look for a ball to be delivered on the floor into the channels, and showed good control for quick one-touch short passing interchanges .  The problem was that for Norwich City as managed by Hughton (but probably under any manager given our relative squad strength in the Prem that season) those qualities were virtually useless.  The passes were never delivered into the channels for him and gradually he stopped making those runs.  He rarely received the ball on the ground with other City players near him so never had the chance to do one-touch passes.  And while I think he was a reasonably good finisher by the standards of the Portuguese or Dutch leagues, with us he got so few chances that he was never going to score many goals.

In time of course his confidence wore away and the injury problem just made it worse so by the second half of the season what good qualities he had were no longer really on display.

 

Instead of RVW, we needed a tall and strong striker who could play up front on his own, keep possession under pressure (or force the defender to foul him to stop him keeping possession) and lay it off when support comes up, win a reasonably amount of long balls in the air, take a few chances in the box when they came up, and generally put the CBs under pressure.  RVW was simply unsuited to that role in every possible way.  I remember someone linking to the bleacher report website saying pretty much exactly this, in a report after he''d scored on his league debut against Everton, which was a pretty courageous piece of journalism - to say a player who''s just scored on his debut will not succeed in the Prem is not an easy thing to say, but of course it was absolutely spot on.

 

The fact that he''s presumably now recovered his confidence in the Dutch league, and is able to play to his strengths, changes none of this.

[/quote]ICF, I wasn''t missing anything. My point was that unless you are a genius or near-genius pure goalscorer who in essence does nothing else then you cannot be justified even as a luxury player. And it is a myth that van Wolfswinkel was always played up front by himself. Elmander started 16 league games that season and came on 13 times as a sub. I don''t have the time to check how often the two started/played together but I remember from when I did do the research that it was much more often than I (or other posters who made the same point in van Wolfswinkel''s defence you do) had supposed.

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