One thing we've been lucky so far is that the misses haven't cost us.

Agreed though, we've been really good. Especially as, like the manager says, all the changes we're making and have had to make.

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Originally Posted by Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult

Yesterday, Easy misses an open goal, Vik misses a tap in but it's a comfortable 2-0.

Midweek, Gabby misses a header and Leo could have had at least a couple. But it's a comfortable 2-0.

We didn't have any chances at Anfield, so it's not like we're ruing player X not taking his chance.

Likewise, the one chance we got against City, and it was a hard won, Gabby scored. As he did in Bilbao when it was 0-0. {I remember moaners here saying after he scored the winner in Madrid that he wouldn't have done it if it had really mattered. Oh, ye of little faith.}

Now the "fans" seem to be moaning about these relatively comfortable/boring 2-0 victories. We should be hammering them, they say.

Well I'd rather we had these 2-0 wins with lots of misses as long as we don't miss chances in the big games.

Look at that post-Dubai run 2 years ago. Loads of 5 and 6 nil victories but we couldn't take our chances against Villa.

Nothing would make me happier than winning every game from now on 2-0 with at least 3 missed chances every match, and the fans continually moaning that we're not winning well enough.

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Originally Posted by redgunamo

Shameful failure really. Alan Smith would've scored twice from that cross, it was so good. Even Kai Havertz would've buried it.

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I much prefer Reds comparing Vik with Smudger to Rich comparing him with Sesko.

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Originally Posted by Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult

I much prefer Reds comparing Vik with Smudger to Rich comparing him with Sesko.

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To be fair, I don't think red was making a comparison.

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Originally Posted by Peter

To be fair, I don't think red was making a comparison.

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I'm positive about Gyokeres. He's big, physical and fast and gets into all the right positions. The Portuguese league is good enough that he coudn't have scored all those goals without being a decent finisher.

He's what we needed. Rice's goal as an example. His run took a central defender away from where he might have stopped Rice from scoring. He does things like that all the time. He needs to get used to us, and us to him.

But he's exactly the type of striker that we needed i.e. one who isn't good enough to focus on much more than scoring goals.

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Originally Posted by WES

I'm positive about Gyokeres. He's big, physical and fast and gets into all the right positions. The Portuguese league is good enough that he coudn't have scored all those goals without being a decent finisher.

He's what we needed. Rice's goal as an example. His run took a central defender away from where he might have stopped Rice from scoring. He does things like that all the time. He needs to get used to us, and us to him.

But he's exactly the type of striker that we needed i.e. one who isn't good enough to focus on much more than scoring goals.

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I would caveat by saying have you really seem him finish well (on YouTube) when he's in a tight space and has a millisecond to get his shot away. That coupled together with the way he gets shoved off the ball (this must just be poor technique) / beaten to headers by folk much smaller than him his a cause for concern.

That being said; I think there is something in what Arteta says about him doing brilliantly. I assume he's talking about occupying defenders and pulling back lines out of shape - which is something that perhaps others will benefit from.

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Originally Posted by WES

I'm positive about Gyokeres. He's big, physical and fast and gets into all the right positions. The Portuguese league is good enough that he coudn't have scored all those goals without being a decent finisher.

He's what we needed. Rice's goal as an example. His run took a central defender away from where he might have stopped Rice from scoring. He does things like that all the time. He needs to get used to us, and us to him.

But he's exactly the type of striker that we needed i.e. one who isn't good enough to focus on much more than scoring goals.

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Certainly, it is early to judge. And I was not expecting a world class centre forward. Hopefully he improves over the season and we learn to use him, along with our other new players.

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Originally Posted by Peter

Certainly, it is early to judge. And I was not expecting a world class centre forward. Hopefully he improves over the season and we learn to use him, along with our other new players.

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The key sentence in my post was the last one.

It's true, and should make red very happy :-)

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Originally Posted by WES

The key sentence in my post was the last one.

It's true, and should make red very happy :-)

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Interesting thought that our previous strikers were too good. :-)

Apart from the goalscoring bit.

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Originally Posted by Peter

Interesting thought that our previous strikers were too good. :-)

Apart from the goalscoring bit.

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When we signed him there was a video about it on that ACFC youtube channel. It showed the PSG game where we had MnM up top and Dec left 8. It said that PSG didn't have to worry about them getting balls in behind. Yet with Vik they would.

And that's what he's doing. If they have to double mark him, or have one man marking and another covering behind then they can't double mark B and Odin. He creates space.

It took a while to work out how to use the space from double marking B but with Vik it seems to be working straight away, as it's making space for our skilful players. Cos if they don't mark him like that, we have players to put him through to do what he's best at. And against the Bubbles, he was double marked but still got the shot away that led to our first goal.

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Originally Posted by Peter

Interesting thought that our previous strikers were too good. :-)

Apart from the goalscoring bit.

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Probably too good at football, and it gave them ideas.