Better Off Elsewhere 11

[Fox92]

1 hour ago, Pliskin said:

I’ll try…

 

 

GK Zieler - actually a decent goalie but just couldn’t settle into our way of playing, was a bit too relaxed.

 

LB - John Paintsil - one of the championship heavyweight signings, again flashes of looking decent, but on the whole was majorly disappointing.

 

CB - Matt Mills - I think we all saw him as the answer to our problems, but didn’t heed the warnings from Reading, turned out to be bobbins…..

 

CB - Damien Delaney - looked pretty decent when he first emerged, but probably fell foul of Taylor’s dismantling of our club. 
 

RB - Ben Chilwell - he isn’t a right back I know before we start, but he really needs to be here, showed such promise initially, but something went badly wrong, got his £50m move to Chelsea and is definitely better off away from the KP. 
 

 

RM - Cengiz Under - cold have been brilliant, was absolute bobbins, just again couldn’t adapt to the premier league or us. 

 

CM - Michael Johnson - High hopes of resurrecting his career, but again due to his personally troubles just couldn’t settle.

 

CM - Junior Lewis - literally better off anywhere, even McDonalds wouldn’t have been a bad shout. 
 

 

LM - Mark Davies - came in for a short (very short) loan spell in league one, and took the piss game after game, was far too good to play in that division. 

 

ST - Harry Kane - goes without saying really. 

ST - David Connolly - was a miserable twat, always felt he felt he was too good for us, I met him once at a signing event and he barely looked interested. 

I was thinking about Connolly in the thread you created. I put Dickov in my side, one of my favourite players, then he left and we got Connolly in. Can't remember off top of my head how many goals he scored for us in 04/05 but I'm guessing between 12 and 15. Once Connolly left we never really had a goalscorer until Hume.

[Pliskin]

12 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

I was thinking about Connolly in the thread you created. I put Dickov in my side, one of my favourite players, then he left and we got Connolly in. Can't remember off top of my head how many goals he scored for us in 04/05 but I'm guessing between 12 and 15. Once Connolly left we never really had a goalscorer until Hume.

You’re not wrong, he was a cracking little plater, I just always got the impression he’d rather be playing somewhere else. 

[Lambert09]

5 hours ago, StanSP said:

No wonder it didn't work for Lingard if he's played as a LWB! 

You didn’t see the bbc’s fantastic journalism that he’s going to be playing there for Newcastle with sterling on the other side? 

[Sampson]

4 hours ago, Golden Fox said:

Looking at the numbers, Beckford was at 0.53 goals per game before he came & managed a paltry 0.21 goals per game for us.

 

I'm surprised that Dublin's goalscoring rate is quite a bit lower than that. He always seemed to score for Coventry, but that period was by some way the best goalscoring period for him. 0.9 goals per game makes him a shoe-in for this 11 though.

I just can't believe he played as many as 58 times for us.

 

 

You're comparing Beckford's goals per game ratio at League One and Two level to his ratio in the Championship and Premier League though.

His spells in the Championship included Bolton and the non-loan spell at Preston - both of which he had a worse Goals Per Game ratio at those clubs than he did with us. And I remember Bolton fans at the time in particular thinking he wasn't at all good enough even more than we did.

He also had that one season at PL level with Everton where he was largely used as an impact sub when players were tired.

All the other goals per game ratio you're using to negatively compare to his spell with us are all in the lower divisions.

I've never understood why people make out Beckford was poor here compared to elsewhere - he wasn't, he was his usual level. He was always a player who was too good for League One, but never quite good enough for the Championship - if anything, he had his best spell above League One level while playing for us and we may have actually seen the peak of him as a player.

Edited 14 October 2021 by Sampson

[mazarron fox]

Stephen Hughes now he was proper pony 

[Golden Fox]

12 minutes ago, Sampson said:

You're comparing Beckford's goals per game ratio at League One and Two level to his ratio in the Championship and Premier League though.

His spells in the Championship included Bolton and the non-loan spell at Preston - both of which he had a worse Goals Per Game ratio at those clubs than he did with us. And I remember Bolton fans at the time in particular thinking he wasn't at all good enough even more than we did.

He also had that one season at PL level with Everton where he was largely used as an impact sub when players were tired.

All the other goals per game ratio you're using to negatively compare to his spell with us are all in the lower divisions.

I've never understood why people make out Beckford was poor here compared to elsewhere - he wasn't, he was his usual level. He was always a player who was too good for League One, but never quite good enough for the Championship - if anything, he had his best spell above League One level while playing for us and we may have actually seen the peak of him as a player.

You could probably write a book on this subject & why players have ended up here (played out of position, fell out with the manager etc) & I'd agree a simple goals to games ratio is too simplistic. 

 

I would say for Beckford though that he was a machine at Leeds (& Wealdstone) - got his chance at Premier League level with Everton & proved himself competent & probably unlucky not to get more than 34 games, but to go from 8 goals in 34 Premier league games to 9 goals in 43 Championship games is a disappointing return & I'd argue he was on the decline then rather than us seeing his peak - 7 goals in 46 games for Bolton does make the case he was declining.

 

If you think there are better suggestions for the 11, then let's hear them!

[filthyfox]

Benny Lou-Anne

[Sampson]

18 minutes ago, Golden Fox said:

You could probably write a book on this subject & why players have ended up here (played out of position, fell out with the manager etc) & I'd agree a simple goals to games ratio is too simplistic. 

 

I would say for Beckford though that he was a machine at Leeds (& Wealdstone) - got his chance at Premier League level with Everton & proved himself competent & probably unlucky not to get more than 34 games, but to go from 8 goals in 34 Premier league games to 9 goals in 43 Championship games is a disappointing return & I'd argue he was on the decline then rather than us seeing his peak - 7 goals in 46 games for Bolton does make the case he was declining.

 

If you think there are better suggestions for the 11, then let's hear them!

Well if you're asking for alternatives, Nathan Blake and Mark Bright are certainly much better selections as strikers go. 

But there are countless players who are machines at League One level like Beckford was and then never make the step up to Championship level. Craig Mackail-Smith, Simon Cox and Will Grigg are all other good examples of this in recent years.

I think people just base this solely on that season at Everton, which people overrate as he came on late in a game when players were tired and there was obviously a reason Everton were happy to sell him to a side in a lower division after a single season. 

I just think Beckford was never really all that above League One level and that being one of the best players in League One was his level, but not quite the Championship.

As for his decline, I'm not sure that is the case, because when he dropped down to League One level again on loan at Preston, he was clearly banging them in and clearly one of the best players at that level again, but as soon as Preston got promoted he didn't do it anymore. I don't think he was really any worse here than he was elsewhere, that was just his level.

Edited 14 October 2021 by Sampson

[StriderHiryu]

5 hours ago, Finnegan said:

Harry Kane and Jesse Lingard were kids sent on brief loans. They weren't even that terrible they were just only ever brought in as fringe cover. 

 

I'm not entirely sure they count. People make a bigger deal of their loans than they should. 

I think we remember their poor attitudes. Neither player wanted to be here and it was all too obvious from their body language.

 

As a comparison, both players have ended up having much better careers than Tom Cleverly, but Cleverly endeared himself to the fans and played with a ton of enthusiasm and effort. So even though Cleverly went on to be an average at best player, I've way more respect for him. The same could be said for Michael Keane, who also had a good spell with us. 

[Finnegan]

1 hour ago, StriderHiryu said:

I think we remember their poor attitudes. Neither player wanted to be here and it was all too obvious from their body language.

 

As a comparison, both players have ended up having much better careers than Tom Cleverly, but Cleverly endeared himself to the fans and played with a ton of enthusiasm and effort. So even though Cleverly went on to be an average at best player, I've way more respect for him. The same could be said for Michael Keane, who also had a good spell with us. 

 

Honestly that's not what I remember. 

 

I remember Lingard working very hard, grafting when he got a chance but just looking very raw and technically limited. To be honest, that's not far off him now. I found it really weird when he came back with Birmingham and shushed the Kop because nobody had really given him stick either when he was here or during the match. 

 

It struck me as a very immature playing doing an impression of what he thought a player did against a "former team" but it just came across as cringey and silly because it was unprovoked. But that's, again, just Lingard all over. 

 

As for Kane, I thought he was pretty happy to be here. It was a step up from Millwall and the next natural progression of his youth development. 

 

But then we started playing him off the bench out of position. He'd come on and be played out wide and looked a little bit lost. Then wouldn't get too many chances. You could understand why he'd be a bit frustrated. Knowing what we know about his skill set as a player now you can see why he'd feel a bit poorly utilised. 

 

I definitely don't ever remember thinking either had a poor attitude or acted like they didn't want to come. 

[Stadt]

5 hours ago, Pliskin said:

RM - Cengiz Under - cold have been brilliant, was absolute bobbins, just again couldn’t adapt to the premier league or us. 

He barely got a chance, he got 30 minute cameos in terrible performances and looked poor in some but that's not the best yardstick. He got 2 goals and 3 assists in 945 minutes so obviously had something about him

[Aus Fox]

Is Packie Bonner worth a random shout in goal? Played his youth football here, don’t think he ever played a first team game, but went on to be a Celtic and Ireland legend!

I’m pretty sure he was even nominated for the Ballon D’or at one stage.

[TheFiveTime]

surely ghezzal gotta get a shout in? gradel? never really consolidated in the first team but ended up banging them in ligue 1. Chris wood? third choice behind vardy nugent for most of his time here. Any player craig levein brought in? maybe not quite at champ level. martin keown. Man that entire era everyone was just better off anywhere but leicester.

[HesNotGudjonsonn2]

Shilton - Won European cups and leagues elsewhere.

 

Gary Mills - As above.

 

Ben Chilwell - won Champions League elsewhere.

 

Martin Keown

Russell Osman

 

Adrien Silva

Kante

Cambiasso

Demi Gray

 

Slimani

Mancini

[HesNotGudjonsonn2]

Sorry. I got bored explaining the obvious reasons why. 

[The People's Hero]

On 14/10/2021 at 11:09, Golden Fox said:

Carl Cort 

 

(Did I miss something... Can't remember Jason McAteer at Leicester??)

Was sure Carl Cort scored for us away at Chelsea in the cup. The memory does funny things though. 

[Ecdysiast]

How about  we throw in Dennis Praet,  Laurie Cunningham and the W*se Cnut?

[Wymsey]

Aleksander Tunchev.

[MPH]

3 minutes ago, Wymsey said:

Aleksander Tunchev.

 

I will have absolutely none of this. Before his injury, he was solid for us.

[MPH]

 

Chris Wood?

[Golden Fox]

10 hours ago, The People's Hero said:

Was sure Carl Cort scored for us away at Chelsea in the cup. The memory does funny things though. 

Why would you ever doubt anything that came from Wikipedia??? 

 

From FoxesTalk:

 

Turns out Wikipedia is league goals only, and Cort had 100% goals ratio on the League Cup. 

 

Time to reassess his contribution in light of new evidence?