by handbags_harris »
31 Dec 2012 20:37
Handbags away ladies, the real handbags is here.
As previously stated many on here could have told you he wasn't anywhere near Championship standard. There was a joke around these parts back in 1997 after Quinn/Gooding departed that suggested the reason we got Terry Bullivant in as manager was because we'd already had the TB printed on the tracksuits after Tommy Burns turned us down at the time. I think the same may have happened 10 years later as Simon Cox departed so we gave his first team spot to Simon Church. Unfortunately Church isn't good enough to wash Cox's boots.
He will leave in 2013, when is unknown obviously as none of us have crystal balls (I, however, have balls of steel instead), but if he makes it as a Championship player then I will eat Compo's Hat. His workrate is excellent, some of his movement extremely intelligent (at one point it was suggested Rafa Benitez was looking at him when at Liverpool) but his physical attributes just don't stack up. He is lightweight, his touch is utterly p*ss-poor, worse than Shane Long's was when he was younger, he has no aerial presence and he cannot hold the ball up. He snatches at a lot of things and misses sitters like they're going out of fashion. However he still finished as one of our top scorers in 2009/2010. He can pretty much be summed up in one game, Crystal Palace away in February 2010 - scored a superb first time volley, scored a tap in from 6 yards, yet missed an absolute sitter of a one-on-one when he was put clean through 40 yards out after beating the offside trap with great movement, only to fail to even get a shot away.
He has given us some good memories, some memorable goals - the winner at home to Donny after being 3-1 down with half an hour to go, the winner against Forest at the City Ground with 2 minutes to go having just been pegged back to 3-3, his first for us at Peterborough to put us 2-0 up (although we went on to lose 3-2, the first signs of Reading fans losing faith with Rodgers), the two goals v West Ham last season at home...but the sitters missed far outweigh the goals scored. If he was a lethal striker like Le Fondre has shown he can be he would have 20 goals a season even though his all-round play is poor.