Gabriel Sara

[hogesar 9,693]

33 minutes ago, king canary said:

Yep.

Returning from injury, first start in the league, in a game we struggled and in a midfield lacking a proper 'holder' and some are writing him off already?

Not to mention, all our midfielders were poor that game, not just Sara!

[Satriales 655]

Just watched the 'highlights' from Saturday. I'd forgotten Sara nearly scored a worldie with that left foot strike which hit the bar.

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

He of course deserves more games to get up to speed with everything, but at the same time he does need to start performing soon if he’s going to establish a regular spot - given we have McLean, Nunez, Hayden, Gibbs, Sorensen, Ramsey and Dowell effectively competing for the three central midfield spots (a bit of a simplification but you know what I mean).

I know the majority of posters are advocating for a lot more patience, but I will be a bit disappointed if it takes our record signing half a season to acclimatise in the championship like it did with Vrancic, Onel, Steiperman etc as examples provided in this thread. I understand the comparisons but all of those players were bought for little to no expense and did not come with any pressure to succeed. 

A club like ours gunning for promotion with a self-funding model can’t really afford to spend £11 mil on someone who can’t hit the ground running in the championship. Smith also quoted as saying he expected ‘big things’ from Sara when we signed him!

To be clear - I’m absolutely not writing him off and as I said of course he deserves plenty more rope as a result of the long term injury lay off. But from what I’ve seen he’s struggled to show more than a rare flash here and there so far, and if he’s still struggling in say 7/8 games’ time after you plenty more minutes on the pitch then I can see him dropping down the pecking order as our injuries clear and players like Hayden establish themselves.

IMO he needs to grasp this opportunity while he can still get consistent game time over the next month or so!

[RobertRosariosBeefTomatoes 31]

I remember the same being said about Mario Vrancic in his first few games and look how he ended up adapting. Can't write someone off this early.

[Gordon Bennett 786]

1 hour ago, RobertRosariosBeefTomatoes said:

I remember the same being said about Mario Vrancic in his first few games and look how he ended up adapting. Can't write someone off this early.

Its common sense yet people do it year after year after year.

[Capt. Pants 4,252]

Smith is saying all the midfield was sh1t apart from Ramsey, but he wants Sara to step on the gas according to an interview with Paddy Davitt...

"His head coach, Dean Smith, admitted it was hard going against the streetwise Baggies, but wants Sara to kick on the other side of the international break. 

“I thought it was tough for him. I thought it was tough for all our midfielders,” he said. “I thought the only one bright spark in that game was AJ (Aaron Ramsey). He had a little bit of creativity, a little bit of awareness and made things look likely to happen. Other than that we didn’t create an awful lot"

 

 

[PurpleCanary 5,563]

On 18/09/2022 at 00:04, WD40 said:

Said before the season he’ll be a flop at that price point. His highlight reel showed nothing special. The local Brazilian reporter was surprised we spent so much on him. Maybe it all clicks with Hayden.

Given what I think we were looking for I saw that as a good thing.

[unique 435]

Good to see Sara getting another three minutes pitch-time under his belt…….……

Hopefully Dean Smith will stretch this to four minutes Tuesday night.

150 minutes over the past two months? Have to hope his salary doesn’t match his transfer fee…….

[corbs 147]

There’s a player in there… hope we get to see 

[unique 435]

Can any City supporter who went to the game last night shed light on the position of our £10m mega buy?

Was he on the left, the right, or the centre of the bench?

[ec-p 90]

It is becoming a bit of a mystery as to why Sara isn’t getting any games, despite being a record transfer signing. It could just be he hasn’t settled yet, the worry is he’ll be another that never will.

[BroadstairsR 2,179]

Perhaps superstar Kenny needs a welcome rest. Virtual ever present this season, he also turned out for his country.

Whether or not the team can actually function without this presence is a moot point. We'll need to find out one day. The Mayor can't go on being the driving force behind the team forever after all.

Tongue out of cheek, Gabriel Sara needs a special moment to establish himself and provide that much-needed dose of confidence. Perhaps if his shot that hit the bar had gone in that moment would have already come, and we would now be privileged to our Brazilian superstar in all his pomp.

He can't establish himself on the bench though.

With Gibbs back I, personally, would rest poor tired Kenny and give Gaby a start on Saturday.

Whether Smith will seems doubtful.

[Capt. Pants 4,252]

If and when Hayden is fit and we have enough fullbacks to have a spare one, Sara might not even make the bench.

Until then he can join the list of players that 'need more time'.

I'm even wondering if a loan spell in January to get him more game time might be a possibility.

[Move Klose 303]

On 17/09/2022 at 17:21, unique said:

1) £10m sp*nked up the wall?

or

2) Too early to say?

He was given the nickname astronaut for a reason.

[shefcanary 2,410]

4 hours ago, ec-p said:

It is becoming a bit of a mystery as to why Sara isn’t getting any games, despite being a record transfer signing. It could just be he hasn’t settled yet, the worry is he’ll be another that never will.

I've mentioned this on the Kenny thread. One reason may be that Mayor Kenny is the main player in our set pieces, especially corners where he seems to be the only target for Nunez's spot on inswingers. I assume Sara is not as adept in such situations and so Deano continues to pick Kenny as in his pragmatic approach he thinks we'll win more games that way, rather than have a more expansive but more inconsistent player to start with, in the team. Although I'd say Kenny is inconsistency personified aside from his all action (read headless) style.

[Google Bot 3,278]

21 minutes ago, shefcanary said:

I assume Sara is not as adept in such situations and so Deano continues to pick Kenny as in his pragmatic approach

One of Sara's strengths is in the air, surprisingly.

I think he's still not 100% since injury, but club are keeping it under wraps or else it looks pretty bad with two new players joining us crooked.