The Afonso alves myth

Badonde said:
Easy in hindsight though isn't it?
What I'm saying is that many Clubs now don't seem to have to take a 'risk' at all.
They can make 10 bad buys as long as one or two hit the spot.
People can have a go at the Club's past decisions all they like (I agree we have made some bad choices of course) but we are fighting a in a nuclear war aimed with peashooters :mad:
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I don't think you need to use hindsight. We were all very unhappy about young being sold for hoyte at the time. People looked at digards injury record and lack of experience and questioned whether we should be letting rocky boating and cattermole go. You could see within minutes of O'Neill signing that he was a donkey not fit to lace Morrisons boots. They were just stupid stupid decisions.

Selling your youth products who would not have been on a big wage is just dumb. Replacing them with untested mediocrity is dumb.

I'm getting big Southgates last season in the prem vibes this year. The loss of chuba has hit us as hard as the loss of viduka did. And we've gone down the magic beans route in the transfer window again.

The "elite" clubs can just **** away money yes. It's ridiculous and it's utterly killing competition. That doesn't excuse us making stupid decisions though.
 
I do wonder about his motivation, as there can be few doubts over his technical ability.

Prior to Heerenveen he'd had a couple of spells in Sweden, presumably getting paid very little. Doubt he would be on much in the Dutch league either. We were his first "big" move - I wonder if he felt he'd made at this point (earning a much better salary) and his motivation dropped? His subsequent moves would suggest he was primarily if it for the money as well!

Wiki suggests he had some issues in Netherlands with application too (not turning up to training and denigrating Heerenveen's standing in the game) which might back this up?
 
He was very poor and were certainly over paid. However, the reason he gets grief is that he was an expensive flop at a time when we could least afford him to be. In a time of frugality, our one expensive striker signing needed to produce. He didn't and his under performance was a large part in our relegation.
 
I think the YouTube reel of his goals did him no favours, we expected the player in those reels, and he wasn't at all. For whatever reason it didn't work.
 
changingman said:
I do wonder about his motivation, as there can be few doubts over his technical ability.

Prior to Heerenveen he'd had a couple of spells in Sweden, presumably getting paid very little. Doubt he would be on much in the Dutch league either. We were his first "big" move - I wonder if he felt he'd made at this point (earning a much better salary) and his motivation dropped? His subsequent moves would suggest he was primarily if it for the money as well!

Wiki suggests he had some issues in Netherlands with application too (not turning up to training and denigrating Heerenveen's standing in the game) which might back this up?
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He was basically Michael ricketts with an a level.
 
He was nowhere near as bad as claimed on here.

I remember Nicky Butt jumping on his ankle in the first half away at Newcastle to put him out for the run in, definite red card but he stayed on the pitch and if memory serves me that was the last time we saw him.

But for that the season could have been different if he had got one or two key goals because I don’t think we had much else up front.
 
Jedi boro said:
I’ve seen a few people on here denigrate Dutch football and they always seem to rope Afonso sled as the main evidence of this gulf.

But was he really as bad as some now think

After he may have only scored 10 in his 40 game spell but that includes 2 v man united and a hat trick Man City.

So was he really the issue in what was a dreadful season.
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I dont often agree with Bernie, but as he pointed out you don't buy an out and out goal scorer and play him up front on his own running the channels and challenging for headers against English cloggers. Man u were allegedly in for him after the city game and I think if he'd gone there people would have a very different opinion of him as I think he would have been a revelation in their team.
 
At end of Alvez's 1st season Rochemback was in the team, playing well and linking up well with Alvez.
Arca was out of the team and not getting a game.
So what did we do, get rid of fellow Brazilian Rochemback and give Arca a new contract.
Huge error from the club again.
Alvez was never the same player after that.
 
Jedi boro said:
I’ve seen a few people on here denigrate Dutch football and they always seem to rope Afonso sled as the main evidence of this gulf.

But was he really as bad as some now think

After he may have only scored 10 in his 40 game spell but that includes 2 v man united and a hat trick Man City.

So was he really the issue in what was a dreadful season.
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He wasn't awful, he had some ability (remember that free kick vs Stoke?) but he missed a lot of chances too and didn't look like a striker who would use any sort of physicality, despite him being fairly big.

Not terrible, but not good enough for the premier league either.
 
coluka said:
No, he was just one of them. To be fair Man City were a pub team in that game. The standard of player around him was also poor, O’Neil, Emnes, King, Mido, Aliadiere, Shawky, Arca. Gibson sold Luke Young for profit after 6 months to replace him with Hoyte. Up to 2006 we signed quality, but thereafter it was hopeful punts to keep costs down. It was around the time or just after that Lamb said the club will have the team the town can afford (or something like that). May even have been around relegation. But quality of player was reducing post 2006, year on year.
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O’Neil - disliked.. but he
Emnes - an odd signing again.. project emnes.. did well in the championship
King - should never have signed him
Mido - completely ruined himself
Aliadiere - he wasn't that bad.. up top with Tuncay he was class
Shawky - an odd signing
Arca - a solid pro
Gibson - probably stayed with us too long in truth, needed to be in the prem
Young - he was a solid player.. we should have had Steinsson in the bag before we sold him tho

our recruitment was just not up to scratch.. it was compounded by the fact that the banks pulled our money and we couldnt make good on any money brought in by the sale of Stewart Downing to Spurs.. the worst thing is that Mark Proctor had identified some absolute beauty players for us in Scotland.. Charlie Adam, Graham Dorrans etc The Summer of 2008 is where it all went wrong.. we used this experience to justify bringing in Gordon Strachan and recruiting heavily from Scotland...

------------------Itandje---------------
Steinsson--Huth--Wheater--Pogatetz
----O'Neil--Dorrans--Arca--Adam----
-----------Aliadiere--Tuncay-----------

Imagine that team in our relegation season.. not too shabby with a certain Nemanja Matic waiting in the wings lol
 
JonnyHistory said:
Losing Rocky and then playing him up top on his own killed any momentum he had.
He was a decent player, good finisher but was starved of support and service most of his tenure here.
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I remember his YouTube compilation from Holland like it was yesterday.

Almost every one of his goals was from a clever through ball from midfield.

We do have a habit of killing natural goalscorer - Rhodes, Boyd, Britt and Alves all had brilliant records before they joined us - and I wonder if that’s because we don’t give them anything like the right service.
 
jonny_greenings_sock said:
I remember his YouTube compilation from Holland like it was yesterday.

Almost every one of his goals was from a clever through ball from midfield.

We do have a habit of killing natural goalscorer - Rhodes, Boyd, Britt and Alves all had brilliant records before they joined us - and I wonder if that’s because we don’t give them anything like the right service.
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We try to cut corners by bringing in a big name goal tapper.. but forget about the rest of the side!
 
10 in 42 actually sounds worse when you mention 5 of them came in just two games, so besides those it was actually 5 in 40.
 
I have no doubt he had the pace, power and finishing ability to be a very good player for us but he clearly never wanted to be here, didn't have decent support or supply from the players around him and wasn't prepared to deal with the physical nature of the English game. Some players with great ability and potential are just not mentally strong enough or lose motivation.
 
SilentProf said:
I have no doubt he had the pace, power and finishing ability to be a very good player for us but he clearly never wanted to be here, didn't have decent support or supply from the players around him and wasn't prepared to deal with the physical nature of the English game. Some players with great ability and potential are just not mentally strong enough or lose motivation.
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I think that was a big part of it.
 
Alves was a one dimensional striker, like a Dean Saunders, he had good movement & pace & was a good finisher, BUT was almost entirely reliant on clever through balls to get his goals! When we sold our entire midfield (Especially his compatriot Rocky!) going into the relegation season, there was basically no one on our books that had that kinda creative ability! Downing would be going down the left & crossing to the ghost of Viduka & was why there was an abortive attempt to turn him into a No10! It's actually lazy & ignorant to deride Alves in this way, he wasn't the world beater we thought we'd signed but in a good side & playing to his strengths he'd have got a stack of goals!
 
Jedi boro said:
I’ve seen a few people on here denigrate Dutch football and they always seem to rope Afonso sled as the main evidence of this gulf.

But was he really as bad as some now think

After he may have only scored 10 in his 40 game spell but that includes 2 v man united and a hat trick Man City.

So was he really the issue in what was a dreadful season.
Click to expand...
No he played up front on his own and crafted a goal out of nothing, Southgate took him off 10 minutes later. Southgate wanted shot of him or was asked to get shot. I thought he was pretty good at times and scored 1 in 4 I think ?. He certainly wasn't as bad as some make out, I've seen a damn sight worse up front. I didnt mind Southgate but he dropped a few blobs with poor decisions.
 
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