Jordan Ayew - THREAD. LOCKED.

[Dahnsouff]

2 minutes ago, SafewayFox said:

That’s really not true though is it?

 

Haaland and Isak the top two “9’s” in the PL are there solely for goals.

 

Yet when you think of the best “10’s” they offer a great foil for the strikers and play between the lines.

 

Us not having a striker who’s going to get us 15+ goals is going to be the difference between this season and the Enzo one.

And tbh, it probably says more about Daka than anyone else

[Pliskin]

11 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

Think people refuse to see what he brings and cannot get past the weird belief that  he is here to score goals only

He does link play, he works hard, and maybe that is his job. 

 

Do like the new word @StriderHiryu - Ayew is a prime suffer of this “over hate”

 

 

And this is precisely why he divides opinion. He gives off the impression he’s an asset because he works hard, Ayew’s skillset lend him to a specific scenario. Oxford he was brilliant because all of that work you talk about helped us to gain a point from that game…… but today, he did nothing to help us offensively. He was as deep as ten yards in his own half today when the play was advancing. I don’t hate Ayew, he just frustrates me because I think a lot of his hard work, is actually causing us problems from an attacking sense. 
 

He simply has to start releasing the ball quicker, he was (as well as Mavididi) one of the main reasons play kept breaking down today. Working hard is all well and good, but you need a good end product to go with it, and he doesn’t provide that anywhere near enough. 

[Free Falling Foxes]

1 minute ago, Pliskin said:

 

He simply has to start releasing the ball quicker, he was (as well as Mavididi) one of the main reasons play kept breaking down today. Working hard is all well and good, but you need a good end product to go with it, and he doesn’t provide that anywhere near enough. 

The one time he could, and should, have taken an extra touch today, he didn't.  

[Jimmy]

thankfully I think its a matter of time before Carranza starts

[Dahnsouff]

7 minutes ago, Pliskin said:

And this is precisely why he divides opinion. He gives off the impression he’s an asset because he works hard, Ayew’s skillset lend him to a specific scenario. Oxford he was brilliant because all of that work you talk about helped us to gain a point from that game…… but today, he did nothing to help us offensively. He was as deep as ten yards in his own half today when the play was advancing. I don’t hate Ayew, he just frustrates me because I think a lot of his hard work, is actually causing us problems from an attacking sense. 
 

He simply has to start releasing the ball quicker, he was (as well as Mavididi) one of the main reasons play kept breaking down today. Working hard is all well and good, but you need a good end product to go with it, and he doesn’t provide that anywhere near enough. 

Didn’t he release Mav for his one-on-one cock up?

[Jimmy]

Just now, Dahnsouff said:

Didn’t he release Mav for his one-on-one cock up?

it was a well worked move between the 2 of them, one of the few that involved Ayew

[UniFox21]

In an ideal world, we drop Soumare with James being the box to box, and Carranza/Ramsey/Ayew/Daka rotating with the 10/striker role 

[Dahnsouff]

1 minute ago, Jimmy said:

it was a well worked move between the 2 of them, one of the few that involved Ayew

You could have just said yes. 

[Pliskin]

16 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

Didn’t he release Mav for his one-on-one cock up?

He had some moments, it was just few and far between. 

[MrsJohnMurphy]

I don't mind Ayew I just wish he had a yard more pace

[StriderHiryu]

41 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

Think people refuse to see what he brings and cannot get past the weird belief that  he is here to score goals only

He does link play, he works hard, and maybe that is his job. 

 

Do like the new word @StriderHiryu - Ayew is a prime suffer of this “over hate”

 

He needs to be scoring goals too, but this is a fluid system where he's operating more like a Bobby Firmino than a standard number 9.

 

Ayew was excellent in preseason but he did drop a couple of stinkers against Preston and Charlton. He was good today, and should have gotten an assist. At the end of the day I can't think of many times where he's gad a gilt-edged opportunity to score which he's missed. So it's up to the team to give him more service, even if he is guilty of not getting into the box enough. In general the team needs to link up with him better, more one-twos and crashing the box to support him. 

 

His lack of pace lets him down which prevents him form sometimes rejoining a move he started. That's maybe where Carranza could step in. But put it this way, Ayew has done a lot of good stuff this season, whereas Daka looks totally lost when he comes on. He isn't the biggest problem. 

 

Overall the team is badly missing goals. Vardy was prolific, Daka and Ayew aren't. And none of Winks, Soumare or Skipp are known for getting good numbers from midfield. Add to this a misfiring Mavididi, and we can all see the area which needs improving. Ricardo has done well, 2 goals already despite limited appearances when he's the spare man. Hopefully we can see more from JJ and Ramsey, but even Luke Thomas who also inverts in at times. 

 

Against Coventry, it was the first time we had control of the game and sustained attacks for long periods of time. If we do that every week, I'd be fairly confident that multiple players in the team will start to hit the next frequently. 

[JimJams]

The trouble with the idea of Ayew playing the Firmino role is that role requires the two wingers to be driving into the box to play off and make opportunities for themselves AS WELL AS and probably more importantly, the fullbacks getting in on the attack with overlaps to create distractions, draw cover, provide crosses and on occasion be the man at the back stick for over hit crosses meant for the 3 forwards in the box.  Your midfield 3 is better comprised of a 6 and two 8's (which suits Winks most imo) to squeeze the opponents and cover laterally for the attacking fullback.  Then Ayew can play the more withdrawn role with the wing forwards and even fullbacks getting further forward than him.

 

Trouble is our fullbacks stay at home.  Ricardo is the only one with any attacking nouse.  So defences only need to worry about being beaten 1v1, and so they can double up on the wingers, crowd them out, and there's no ball on to play with Ayew.  Or any other striker in that instance.

 

Cifuentes at present isn't getting attacking impetus from the fullbacks nor the midfielders.  He needs to get one set of them contributing going forward.  Given the midfield options we've had don't have goals (or even assists) in them, then we need to be getting the fullbacks going up.  They don't even need to be scoring and assisting.  If they just provide options and draw defenders to them we can turn our wingers into goalscorers, or at least give them the opportunity to exploit the space.

[Jimmy]

it might be a fluid system but I don't think Ayew is ever meant to be stood at right back whilst the ball is around their box, needs to be more selfish in his positioning when attacking get in the danger area as he's a decent finisher

[The Doctor]

he was crap today, I genuinely don't understand how anyone can say otherwise. Fluid system or not, your striker should never be at the full back position when your wingers are trying to stretch past a man. His lazy ambling also proper pisses me off, on more than one occasion the throughball was tried to him and intercepted, then we turned possession over with a good high press and he was just stood offside making very little effort to get back, just taking an attacker out of the game.

 

Not to mention that he is a big part of the reason why our attack looks so toothless - if you are playing a false 9 type, then they need to be quick on the ball, to draw it in and get it out to the wingers asap. This bloke does the exact opposite to the point that you'd honestly start to wonder if he has bonuses for number of touches in a game.

[Corky]

Said it in the post match thread that we cannot persist with him whilst the wingers are streets ahead of him on the pitch. We need a mobile forward, he cannot influence the way we need up front.

[dbtcity]

1 hour ago, StriderHiryu said:

He needs to be scoring goals too, but this is a fluid system where he's operating more like a Bobby Firmino than a standard number 9.

 

Ayew was excellent in preseason but he did drop a couple of stinkers against Preston and Charlton. He was good today, and should have gotten an assist. At the end of the day I can't think of many times where he's gad a gilt-edged opportunity to score which he's missed. So it's up to the team to give him more service, even if he is guilty of not getting into the box enough. In general the team needs to link up with him better, more one-twos and crashing the box to support him. 

 

His lack of pace lets him down which prevents him form sometimes rejoining a move he started. That's maybe where Carranza could step in. But put it this way, Ayew has done a lot of good stuff this season, whereas Daka looks totally lost when he comes on. He isn't the biggest problem. 

 

Overall the team is badly missing goals. Vardy was prolific, Daka and Ayew aren't. And none of Winks, Soumare or Skipp are known for getting good numbers from midfield. Add to this a misfiring Mavididi, and we can all see the area which needs improving. Ricardo has done well, 2 goals already despite limited appearances when he's the spare man. Hopefully we can see more from JJ and Ramsey, but even Luke Thomas who also inverts in at times. 

 

Against Coventry, it was the first time we had control of the game and sustained attacks for long periods of time. If we do that every week, I'd be fairly confident that multiple players in the team will start to hit the next frequently. 

The problem is teams that operate with a cf like that tend to have wingers/inside forwards who predominantly are just left to attack with limited defensive duties…. That’s not the case with us as we seem to be expecting to defend and attack in equal measure which is leaving us with the square root of f all up top at times

 

For the record I do rate Ayew when he plays deeper but as our sole st… nope not for me! 

[jv1]

He is what he is and doesn’t try to be anything else - a very useful squad player at this level - but a starting number 9 - Jesus 🤢 

[moore_94]

I don't mind when strikers drop deep to link up the play

 

We saw Carranza doing it a couple of times when he came on and it was more similar to when Vardy used to do it - a quick little 5-10 yard run back to drop the ball off and straight back into position to lead the line

 

The problem with Ayew is that he comes really really deep - he was literally down at right back a couple of times today - and he doesn't have the pace to get back up into position so it meant that it was usually either no one or JJ in the middle if we were managing to attack their box

 

Going forward if he is playing he needs to be behind the striker (until Ramsey is back)

[Ric Flair]

2 hours ago, StriderHiryu said:

He needs to be scoring goals too, but this is a fluid system where he's operating more like a Bobby Firmino than a standard number 9.

 

Ayew was excellent in preseason but he did drop a couple of stinkers against Preston and Charlton. He was good today, and should have gotten an assist. At the end of the day I can't think of many times where he's gad a gilt-edged opportunity to score which he's missed. So it's up to the team to give him more service, even if he is guilty of not getting into the box enough. In general the team needs to link up with him better, more one-twos and crashing the box to support him. 

 

His lack of pace lets him down which prevents him form sometimes rejoining a move he started. That's maybe where Carranza could step in. But put it this way, Ayew has done a lot of good stuff this season, whereas Daka looks totally lost when he comes on. He isn't the biggest problem. 

 

Overall the team is badly missing goals. Vardy was prolific, Daka and Ayew aren't. And none of Winks, Soumare or Skipp are known for getting good numbers from midfield. Add to this a misfiring Mavididi, and we can all see the area which needs improving. Ricardo has done well, 2 goals already despite limited appearances when he's the spare man. Hopefully we can see more from JJ and Ramsey, but even Luke Thomas who also inverts in at times. 

 

Against Coventry, it was the first time we had control of the game and sustained attacks for long periods of time. If we do that every week, I'd be fairly confident that multiple players in the team will start to hit the next frequently. 

He's also barely had a shot, the amount of times he's attacked the box is pitiful. There were times today he was closer to right back than our box when we were in the final third. Unacceptable.

 

You wouldn't praise a player filling in at CB if they never held the defensive line or marked players, so not sure why Ayew gets praise for dropping deep as a striker but not ever being interested in the core element of being a striker. The few qualities he does possess are nullified anyway. His hold up play does nothing for us as we haven't had midfielders going beyond him, hopefully that may change. The other is he wins free kicks regularly and we are quite possibly the worst in the league at delivering set pieces, it's embarrassing.

 

The frustrating thing as well is Ayew is an ever present, so we can't even rely on a period of unavailability and us be able to prove to the manager we are a better outfit without him.

 

The summer of 2024 really was a horror window.

[James_lcfc]

He’s such a weird player.

 

Was he good today or absolutely awful? Or somewhere in between?

 

I have no idea.

[Guest]

His strengths are very rarely of any real benefit to us (which admittedly isn't entirely his fault) and his weaknesses essentially hamstring our entire attack. If we persist with him as our striker I think it's going to be a real slog of a season.

[Mike Oxlong]

I can see him being useful as an Okazaki type player but he's not a number 9

[dylanlegend]

Play him behind the striker. He sshould bot be starting as a number 9

[SafewayFox]

Forget this “false 9” talk, you either do or don’t have a strikers instinct.

 

Ayew whilst a technically better footballer than I realised before he joined, clearly is not a natural striker and considering that we don’t have goals in the majority of our other positions, it means that we’re going to end up with a lot of results like today.

 

Frustrated and confused as to how we haven’t punished a pretty average Championship side.

 

Daka is never the answer but imagine him playing the same amount of minutes and offering the same end product, it would be wild on here, why does Ayew not get the same vitriol? 

[Raj]

Shouldn't really get the hate he does.

He is what he is, we bought him at the age he is.

Lovely ball to Mavadidi yday, but hopefully some of his experience can help the youngsters like Fatawu, Monga,Mavadidi 

Edited 21 September 2025 by Raj