There is a simple answer to the question. You have to earn your place in the side and then perform well enough to retain it. We have a number of highly talented players but they can't all play at the same time, so some have to wait for their chance and take it when it comes. Having said that, I agree with AndrewH63....one or two old favourites may well be moving on at the end of the season. I still have difficulty accepting that Ross Jenkins doesn't play for us anymore and he will be 65 and a senior citizen later this year!
I just don't want us to go down the Hull route, forsaking the players that got us up for new players that don't put in the leg work (and don't know the meaning of that) and take us down. We've brought in a hell of a lot of players this year but we've still kept the spine of our promotion-winning team, from Gomes, Cathcart, Watson, Abdi (to a certain extent), Deeney and Ighalo. Palace have shown that keeping that spine for the first two years does the job and I would like us to keep that for the same duration (even if I am resigned to us losing Iggy this summer).
He deserves the same opportunity that Jurado has been afforded and give him a game or two in his position i.e. the central attacking midfielder position. He has proved himself and got his head down playing out of position so far this season; he is stronger and has a better shot on him than Jurado and he creates chances which so far, despite his better pass completion % (probably due to lots of short square passes) Jurado has not. Give him that chance please Flores!
Even this season, largely out of position Abdi is actually still amongst our top performers ... I doubt he'll be going anywhere unless we sign our own Sanchez, *zil or De Bruyne. https://www.whoscored.com/Teams/27
It was a slightly facetious question and solely posed because i happened to see a twitter post with a formation that had watson dropped and no abdi , as our first choice , i wonder , if longer term , he will be happy playing second fiddle to Jurado , because he looks like he`s getting squeezed into Jurados role or nothing , going by our possibly long term narrow set up
He could probably fill in for Troy too although we'd have to make some adjustments (like playing on the deck)
there's no shame in being dislodged by a better player. I'd rather he went abroad somewhere than back to the championship, but I suspect he'll end up at somewhere like derby
If that's the case how come he is equal to Jurado in the assists (ie zero) with fewer shots per game? And as for not creating chances, well add our second against Newcastle as another goal where Jurado's part has strangely eluded much of our fans. But hey, much easier to jump on the "square passes" bandwagon, instead of concentrating on what is actually happening...
No. Abdi is far, far too good to play for Derby as he was too good for us in the Championship. He is doing a solid job for us in the PL and could continue to do so. If he scored one or two more goals he would be considered indispesnable.
Jurado is not a better player than Almen Abdi. I've defended Jurado, but let's not compare apples to pears. Abdi is a much cleverer player than Jurado, in my opinion. He can spot a defence splitting pass several moves before it comes about, and he's got a shot on him.* Jurado has some flair about him, and can do some pretty things, but if I was the manager of a side facing Watford, and I could pick Watford's pinnacle central midfielder, I'd choose to play against Jurado ahead of Abdi 999.999 days out of every thousand. *Don't even think it, you dirty minded bounder!
4 - 5 million is not a lot where we are now. Almen can play the game he plays for a few years yet and be worth a lot more than that to us.
I hope so. But Quique has to deploy him right, and I'm not alone in thinking he hasn't exactly done that so far. Not wanting to 'dis' Jurado or Quique, but I do believe that the pecking order for certain midfield roles are in the wrong order at this time.
I think the love of Abdi stems from no talent coming from the youth team or players like Mooney, Ramage, Foster or Miller coming in when we were shhite and becoming cult heroes.. Abdi is alright he is an okay player but is neither a cult hero.. I think Deeney is the closest thing we have to someone who identifies with the fans but I feel some people yearn for a cult hero but Abdi? If im wrong and its just that people think he is top 6 Prem class then fair enough but if we sold him I doubt any other club would want him in the top flight.. Perhaps a Derby, Bristol City or mid table German team?
I agree with all of this. I do love abdi for all he has done for us and love his style of play. But a cult hero? nah. Presumably amrabat and suarez, and whoever our other targets are, are players "of the next level" and just better players. The likes of abdi, watson etc will be phased out. I honestly wouldnt be surprised if deeney was one of the next on the list to go (albeit in the summer). If we become established in the premier league I think we will have to get used to not having heroes of the likes you get in the lower leagues. We will see a series of foreign players come and go. Some of whom will be brilliant and we will love, but I doubt we'll get another mooney until we get relegated. Welcome to the bigtime, I guess.
I still have difficulty accepting that the second Ross Jenkins ever played for us despite appearing to have the pace of a senior citizen, or even that he became a professional footballer in the first place.
Certainly can see Anya moving on this summer, Abdi is a better player but may be considered in the same dispensable group. I hope not.
The second Ross Jenkins may have disappeared and obviously wasn't a patch on RJ the 1st, but let's not all pretend that he was rubbish for us, because he wasn't.
Completely agree, when he first broke into the team after 10 games I thought to myself, we've got a potential superstar here. Then came the back injury and he was never the same player, tentative, error prone and generally lacking in confidence, which was a real pity.
I agree Ross Jenkins got a lot of stick. When he first started I thought he could be the sort of player we would sell for a couple of million to a middling premiership team. I fear that Sean Murray is going the same way.
