Whether you love him or hate him, he’s the best we have. Bayo cant hit a open barn door and Rajovic is next level crap. VI wanted a player that could hit the ground running and have a positive impact on the team. Gino gave him an unfit striker that had only played a handful of games in the past year.
But he's clearly sensational when fully fit and motivated. That first half of the season could only have been produced by a truly ace player. Sadly we'll never see that form replicated at our great stadium, as the numbskulls in charge signed him when he was totally out of condition and are now playing him with an injury. It's a farce, but he IS ace.
He looks like a player who's not played properly for half a year before joining us and it incredibly rusty. In some respects, it may help us try and get him on loan again next year as we know he's much better than we've seen technically but that's pie in the sky thinking at best.
He's come from a substandard league, he needs a proper pre-season to properly get up to speed, now where have we heard that one before
You could say the same about Deulofeu. I think he had about 1 good game in 6. But he was ******* mustard.
I mean Dennis is unfit, playing gash and in a terrible team and he's already scored 2 goals. Most people would say that's a decent outcome from a last minute Jan loanee.
He can be absolutely incredible, but Saturday reminded me of all the frustrating games he had in his first spell with us. His decision making hasn't got any better and he still runs with his head down. I'd imagine he's a very frustrating teammate.
It's a farce, but he IS ace.[/QUOTE] Even unfit, he is still better than anything else we've got in the squad, excepting perhaps Asprilla.
Even unfit, he is still better than anything else we've got in the squad, excepting perhaps Asprilla.[/QUOTE] It depends what you mean by "better". More skilled perhaps, but not necessarily more effective. Dennis will always be inconsistent because of the way he plays - trying things that look fantastic when they come off but derailing an attack when they don't. Asprilla is still young and is inconsistent because of that - his decision making is often at fault.
It depends what you mean by "better". More skilled perhaps, but not necessarily more effective. Dennis will always be inconsistent because of the way he plays - trying things that look fantastic when they come off but derailing an attack when they don't. Asprilla is still young and is inconsistent because of that - his decision making is often at fault.[/QUOTE] Apart from when he first started back here when he was completely lacking fitness, we've generally looked better with him on the pitch, and he's got more goals than anyone too. I don't think we've really looked any worse since he's come in, it's just we're more tired now and aren't getting away with some ropey performances like QPR (and arguably a few more too)
I was excited when we signed him and like everyone else excited whenever he gets the ball. It's such a shame it hardly ever ends up with anything good. Remember anyone of us could of scored his first goal.
He doesn’t just look unfit, he looks terrible. His touch has been rubbish, he overplays it almost every time, and he looks slow. He also seems to be having a regular moan on the pitch and already started arguing with the fans after the Millwall game. I was excited we got him back, but he looks a way off the player he was in 2021. If it is all just fitness it doesn’t look like he’ll be back to it in time to benefit us.
Early in the second half against Swansea, Bayo played a great ball across to him in plenty of space. All he had to do was bring it down with his thigh and then put it away. He managed to knee it like a kid in a playground and it spun off straight to a Swansea defender. If it was Rajovic then people would have been hysterical, yet some people near me were still talking about him trying to get 'up to speed'. He has a lot of excuses made for him but he has been a dreadful signing, and his signing has coincided with an absolute nosedive in confidence, form and application. The form may have already been iffy before he signed but the complete lack of cohesion and team spirit has been pretty alarming since he came in.
The horrible dip in form has nothing to do with the arrival of Dennis. He has not been the player we remember but he at least tries to make things happen. Rajovic is not even close to him and is rightly slaughtered on here even if it's not his fault. Against Swansea, he was a threat and looked to take players on and maybe he was a bit selfish at times but when you look up and see Raj lolloping in to the box you can't blame him for being selfish. The downturn in form for me is down to VI and some very odd decisions
Of course, it’s easier to accuse Dennis of being a bad apple that has ruined team cohesion rather than the fact that he was the only player we signed in the window, where the ‘tired’ players clearly thought they would get some reinforcements for a playoff run and it killed any remaining motivation in the team that had been stuttering along with a useless coach.
To be fair to him, I think there was one time where he shot from a poor angle, most of the time he dribbled around for a long time but actually created a decent chance for himself. Compare that to the occasions where he did try to pass... I think it's very easy to just take a glance at the scoreboards in games and make a conclusion, but we really aren't playing that much better or worse now than we have for most of the season, it's just we're not getting the breaks we got around the middle part of the season, allied to injuries/tiredness and some questionable decisions from the manager. People say Huddersfield was our worst performance of the season, we've seen that performance on multiple occasions, even when we were 'good', we've had two games where we have actually played well, no coincidence that they were against League 1 standard teams...
Lauded by some as 'the best player in the Championship' and now he has dropped to the depths of being praised for contributing more than Rajovic.
Not praising him, he's clearly not 100%, but come on, you have to take a lot of those comments with a pinch of salt. If he were in any way fit in January, there's no way he would have been available to us...
He may be guilty of trying too hard or trying to do everything himself as he doesn't have faith in either of our 2 number 9 options ?. Neither of them have a trick to beat a player so he takes another option
Another game where nothing much came off for him, can't be 100% fit if he's coming off after an hour, but that goal was all about him
