I'm not sure anyone is saying he's the second coming of Gerd Muller, tbf. Yes, he's a 1 in 4 striker on a kak run of form in terms of goals, but given our league form without him the past 2 seasons, it's clear the effect he has on the team when he plays.
I didn't say he's become completely useless at those things, just that he is less effective at those things now than he was earlier in the season, on top of the complete lack of goals. I'm also not saying leg him from the team permanently, I still think there is a player there, I just think he needs taking out of the firing line for a bit. The story now is that he is a striker that can't score goals and every week that goes by when he is in the team and not scoring just amplifies that. Give him a few games out of the starting line up, let him know he is not going to play every game when he is in poor form, and help him on the training pitch and off the pitch. Then, bring him back in, hopefully he scores and his confidence increases and everybody is better off. At the moment it's like banging his head against a brick wall, it's not working.
That would be the one. The lad who scored 10 premier league goals only twice in his career (in consecutive seasons) and was a bit of a sublime to the ridiculous merchant.
What loyalty does he have to Keane?
No, not my whole opinion, my opinion of whether he should be in the team at this very moment in time. I don't think he's a bad player, nor do I think he should be out of the team forever, but he does need dropping now, for his own sake as well as the team's. Every game that goes by where he doesn't score is going to affect his confidence, is going to affect the response to him from the crowd, is going to further impact subsequent performances. It's clear he isn't going to play himself back into form at the moment, we've been trying that and it hasn't worked. He needs time out of the starting 11 for a while. Our first team has to be selected on form, we are too poor a side for passengers. Beto and Chermiti don't look great but we have only seen them in bits and pieces, DCL doesn't look great right now and we see him every week, no matter how he plays or how much he affects games. We need to change something, without Doucoure there are no goals in this team at the moment.
Or you could say, he missed over half of last season, and we nearly went down, and he missed over half the season before and we also nearly went down. Whereas this year with him fully fit and in the side we have accrued lots more points.
