Rajovic - How Many Goals Will He Get This Season?

Stick him in the box and cross the ball. If we can keep doing that, it doesn't matter if he has limited involvement in the build up.

 

He still gets an awful lot of pelters and moaning for a bloke who works hard and scores goals. Seems some people have made their mind up on him long ago and their view will not be changed.

 

I've seen enough of him now to form an opinion....and he is an enigma. Outside the box he looks like a competition winner. The game largely passes him by. He's often beaten in aerial duels, he's not really involved in any build-up play and doesn't hold the ball up at all.

Yet, in the 6 yard box he's top drawer. He looks Premier League class. It's so strange to see someone that hopeless on virtually all aspects of professional football, yet is so clinical in the 6-yard box. He's quality there. I've watched how he finishes, and it's deliberate. He steers the ball away from the keeper every time. I initially thought he might be a bit lucky, when he sticks out a leg and the ball goes in wide of the keeper, but that seems to happen every time. The goal he scored last night confirmed it to me. He deliberately headed the ball wide of the keeper and into the side netting. A perfect finish. How often have we seen someone like Bayo head it from close range but straight at the keeper? Most of the time I'd say.

Rajovic has a clinical skill of finishing at close range. He's right up there with the very best. Sounds a bit OTT to say that, but scoring consistently from close range is a skill. It looks easy because he makes it look easy, but he knows where to place the ball so the keeper can't get it, and has the quality to execute virtually every time. So it begs the question, if he can be so calm, clinical, composed and technically excellent in the 6-yard box, why does he look like a donkey Sunday league player everywhere else on the pitch? Like I say, he's an enigma.

 

Sums it up very well. If he could work hard on improving his first touch and build up play (you can always improve with coaching and practice), you would have a decent player. On occasions yesterday, he miss controlled balls played into him and it resulted in dangerous counter attacks. Opponents will know this and seek to exploit his weaknesses. He does score goals though.

 

My view would definitely change if he started looking like a footballer at this level. I agree working hard shouldn't be taken for granted as we've seen enough slackers over the past 3-4 years to last a lifetime, but still a bit telling if that's the only positive you can point to other than goals. And his goalscoring run is bizarre and my gut says it's probably not sustainable. He's got 7 from 15 shots (according to this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/championship/top-scorers) and only 8 of those shots were on target. It's bonkers. The rest of his game is awful. That's not his fault, he is what he is, but there's no way he should have been our main summer recruit or heralded in the way he was.

He'll do for now though.

 

There have always been players like this, but go back a few decades they were always part of a partnership, usually coupled with a faster, more skilful forward. This tended to hide their weaknesses as did a game more reliant on getting the ball forward quickly or wing play.

Nowadays you need at least 9/10 hands on deck for 90 minutes. I think we started poorly yesterday because Norwich had 10 involved for the first 20 mins and we only had 8, Asprilla being the other early non-combatant.

Rajovic will be better after a season and pre-season, but at the moment it is odd watching him.

 

He's already matched what Donkey Davis managed to get for us last season so it is a vast improvement. I'd be interested to see what Rajovic would be like in a 2 but that is unlikely to happen soon.

 

Still looks completely dreadful outside of the six yard box but just can't argue with the goals. I think we have to remember the level he's played at before joining us. The Championship is a much faster and tougher league than he's used to. He's only 24 so has time to improve but as it stands he does the thing that wins us games and I can't knock that

 

At present I don't think he has the ability to control the ball and slip a strike partner in, or to win enough flick ons from aerial duels. He's no Deeney in that respect, but he does seem a superb finisher.

 

Highest goals per minute played in the championship.

 

"Look, actually he can't play football at all. He's just always in the right position" - Cruyff.

We've got the Danish Inzaghi (without the physical attributes).

"It's not Inzaghi (Rajovic) who is in love with goals; it's the goals that are in love with him"

 

He runs like Shaggy out of Scooby Doo .

 

He's our "Fox in the Box"

 

Scores goals and I don't have to watch Bayo, win win situation.

 

"Owl in the Bog" if you please.

 

Think Naaaarch first goal was partly down to him. Closest “defender” to the 2 N players going for the ball from the corner but as always was second (third?) best in the heading duel, a very weak challenge. So that’s a negative 1 against his name !

 

I think it was a fantastic delivery from the taker.
If you asked him to do it again I think he would struggle

 

It was a cheap corner to give away. Lewis was beaten far too easily and then Kone dangled a leg as gently as possible rather than putting a firmer challenge in where he would have won the ball or conceded a throw at worst. Sloppy goal all round.

 

Agreed .
However it was still a great corner

 

I prefer the corners we take that never beat the first man...joyful.

 

I don't think 'King' Ken (who I like otherwise) gets nearly enough criticism for this.

 

Really it should be the manager copping most of the criticism. Mainly because the days of players coming up with their own set piece routines on the hoof are over. If Ken's hammering the ball in hand towards the near post that's presumably because he's been told to target that area. It's quite a technically tricky thing to do and far more high stakes than a floaty ball into the box.

 

Maybe, but I don’t think we have the players at the moment to pull off that tactic. Presumably, the idea is to get a flick-on at the near post for someone coming in at the back to score. That’s pretty difficult, so why not put in a higher ball for Rajovic or one of the centre-backs to attack?

 

Ken's corners are crap, I agree, but the other Watford players' corners are crapper.

 

Rajovic scoring inside the 6-yard box is also down to his apparently instinctive assessment of where the ball’s likely to arrive, and that truly is an attribute that no amount of coaching will achieve. And I agree with HB1 that he also seems to be able to direct the ball far enough away from the keeper to give him no chance. Sometimes getting a perfect connection results in the effort hitting the keeper rather than the keeper doing a lot to save it, but Rajovic’s finishes thus far have taken the keeper out of the equation.

 

Our corner routines have been awful for years now. Have said it before but the reason why Sema's corners are so bad are that he's trying to do something really difficult - hit a flat, hard corner that just clears the first man, can't be claimed by the keeper and if he gets it right, will generally lead to a decent chance. But there's very little movement even if he does manage it, we tend to put the centre backs and Rajovic in a big cluster and hope they can beat their markers from a static jump.

Norwich, on the other hand, clearly had a plan for the first corner, involving taking advantage of our zonal marking to surround Hamer, then a bit of movement and blocking got two players free for a header on the six yard box. We did at least try one short corner routine to mix it up a bit but that ended up with Jamal Lewis getting a right footed shot away when he can barely kick the ball with that foot!

With an average team in a competitive league, it's madness that we neglect set pieces in the way we do, could make such a difference.

 

Most teams defend with a mixture of zonal and man marking.

If we have a quick game of "you are the manager" and your team is defending a corner kick from my team .
What will your team do if I line up 6 players on the edge of the box and 2 further back to pick up any 2cnd ball , the taker , the GK and another on the h/w line ?

 

Let in a goal?

 

I know the answer to this one.

"PANIC!!!"