Kingdawson
Banned
he was non existant second half because Poch decided to move him into the striker position. First half was his best performance for us in the league imo.
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Roberto Soldado
- Thread starter Boonie
- Start date
Lost Mango
Goran Bunjevcevic
braineclipse
Willie Hall
Solid point. To some extent not surprising that a player like Soldado becomes more invisible when playing as an out and out striker against a team that primarily sat back very deep?
Kingdawson
Banned
I agree mate
Seriously speaking he did well yesterday first half. That AM spot is wide open so i think Soldado deserves another start in that role after yesterdays good half.
Rorschach
Sonny Walters
Yep Villa sat in after the sending off and we were rather narrow too which had the net effect of crowding the space in front of goal. No space at all to work with really.
The man needs a league goal badly.
braineclipse
Willie Hall
I agree mate
Seriously speaking he did well yesterday first half. That AM spot is wide open so i think Soldado deserves another start in that role after yesterdays good half.
Who would you have for the two other attacking midfield spots?
Soldado and Kane could be interchanging a bit with the striker spot and one AM spot, more effectively than Ade can imo. Would be interesting to see I think.
My choice for now would be a front 4 of Soldado,Kane,Eriksen and Chadli with Soldado and Kane interchanging as the CF....
Bedfordspurs
Martin Peters
Can't agree more
Unless we buy a battering ram forward who can do the physical stuff then this gets players on the pitch who link up well together
Kingdawson
Banned
It's a hard one but RIGHT NOW Chadli and Eriksen i think (Chadli on the right and Eriksen on the left). I would give that attacking 4 a go in the next few league games (provided Soldado plays behind the striker). If the plan is for Soldado to play upfront then i don't want him in the starting X1.
mudshark
Chris Armstrong
All this "all he needs is a goal and it'll set him on a run" talk is surely just that. People insisted exactly the same thing last season. Did he go on a run after scoring against Villa away in October? Well, there was his hat-trick against Anzhi Makhachkala in December (one of which was another pen), but other than that, he didn't score again from open play until we played Cardiff in March, and he hasn't scored a league goal since. Even Ade's got two this season. Has he gone on a run since he scored against Forest in the cup in September? He's a basket-case in terms of goal-scoring as far I'm concerned. Pochettino might be able to get something out of him in a different role, and let's hope so, but he's quite obviously never going to be the prolific scorer he was intended to be for us.
Millsy_Yiddo
Naybet
It's seems very strange that the one thing we bought him for, his finishing, seems to be the one thing he's terrible at and the things that no one though he could do (link up play, generally just not being a goal poacher and nothing else) are the things he does very well.
I am really interested to know how many of you have the same thought.
I for one have never doubt about his link up play and passing ability , not his strength but i think he's above average . All that is about pass and move and when you are trained , grew up in the La Liga you ain't be that bad in those category.
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I was saying this last season when he wasnt scoring, his all round link up play looked good to me. A few agreed, a lot weren't convinced...
Millsy_Yiddo
Naybet
A fair point, it's just that I think, particularly before he signed, if you mentioned 'Soldado' to your average football fan, their natural reaction would be 'goalscorer'. There was a stat floating about a while back that he's only ever scored one goal from outside the box or something like that, which probably goes some way to add weight to that opinion.
I suppose what I meant was we bought him to score goals, it turns out that he's not doing that, but that might be OK because his link up play will create goals for others. I'd say, on the whole, this is unexpected.
Me too, although it did noticeably tail off in the second half of the season
Millsy_Yiddo
Naybet
Yeh, his link up play has always looked good for us to be honest. I still didn't expect to see him playing as part of the 3 behind the striker at any point though. It seems he may cut it there though.
Based on goals, he should not be in the team ..
However, because we have so few ball playing midfielders, his passing seems to be second to Eriksen, he helps our passing/creation piece (Ade should have scored from his pass, his assist to Lamea previous game)
Big challenge is we now seem to have two strikers that play best (Soldado/Kane) with a main striker in front of them
Really think if we are to get anything out of this season, we need to take a financial risk in January and (probably overpay) go for a striker up front, then give Kane/Soldado/Ade half a season to prove which two to keep.
Indeed, but maybe just maybe this partnership could work as Kane still has the physicality to at times go up top - and whilst I am clutching at straws admittedly, if Soldado is playing consistently and develops a real understanding with those around him his confidence in front of goal will improve. If he doesn't have the pressure of being the main man for 90 mins and him and Kane are rotating along with the other two behind the front man then he might become more productive. Either way I do want to see him given a good run of a few games in the PL and see where it takes us(along with Kane)....
The egyptian
Carlo Cudicini
I remember this period with AVB, we had a good run in EPL with performance "not bad". Defo was scoring in UC while soldado not, with couple assists to Sigurdson so we started to play with defo in EPL Thus we lost our shape and definitely lost our season.