After the Man City game I left the ground content with the performance, disappointed that we conceded so late but pleased that we did ourselves proud. My personal view was that Sidwell was our weakest player and Ruiz was comfortably our best. So you can imagine my surprise when after visiting a couple of forums many not only saw it differently but in fact the complete opposite! And its this that has got me wondering, apart from any pre-conceived ideas we may have about certain players does the the way we like the game to be played really effect our opinions of players and performances? I admit, I'm a Ruiz fan but I'm also quick to say so when he has had a bad one. I like to think that I enjoy "the beautiful game", one-touch football, good movement, skill, etc. but at the same time obviously understand the need to put the boot it where it hurts. From what I got from the various posters was that they think that Ruiz gives the ball away alot and doesn't get stuck in enough. My view on that is that he was the only player trying to take risks with forward passes which of course won't always come off. With regards to him getting stuck in, I don't exactly want him to not make any challenges but I don't necessarily or expect him to be jumping into 50-50 balls with Yaya Troure, let alone winning them. It appears that he loses points for this with some of our fans. So I guess its he opposite for someone like Sidwell, winning a tackle or blocking a shot as important as it ultimately is he still needs to be able to pass the ball over 10 yards but again I guess due to things outside of the game (transfer fee) maybe players like Sidwell get more rope than others. One thing it has taught me is that football is a game of opinions and I for one need to realise that people will value different facets of the game differently to me.
As a whole its been a good start for us. Berbatov coming in has somewhat softened the blow of losing Dempsey and the fantastic Mousa (would have loved to seen those 3 in the same Fulham side). Although Richardson and Dejegah also made moves to the Whites on the last day of the window the feeling was that we expected more, especially a central midfielder to replace the number we saw depart. Since the window we have signed a short term fix in the mold of Karagounis and apparently at the time of writing we are set to sign another free agent. I understand the need to have cover but this is surely not the answer and it frustrates me even more when I hear that "we ran out of time to complete the deal" on the last day. Sorry, but the window was open for 3 months, time should not have been an issue for key reinforcements. I always feel that we are in a period of transition, if its not trying to reduce the age of the squad its replacing the good players we have sold or waiting for a player to settle. Under Hodgson we had a period that for some reason we were settled, we didn't yearn for new signings nor did we sell our better players and we all know what happened over those 2 seasons. At the moment I actually think we are quite a way from having that again, I fully expect Jol to spend some of the money we must have due to the sales over the last 12 months (or is that paying for the new Stand??). Maybe this time we can "kick on" but something tells me that we may face the same challenges next summer with the likes of Hangeland out of contract, 1 step forward 2 back springs to mind. Then again, am I being realistic? Could we do a Newcastle? do we have ambitoins to challenge for a top 6 spot? or is our board happy for us just to exist in the Prem? I'd like to think its the former but I'm not so sure.
JH
twitter: @JamboHunt
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