Sunderland
Why not Diouf?
El Hadji Diouf
By The Black Cats
December 30 2008
Why are we so reluctant to give El Hadji Diouf a chance at Sunderland? He is a Premiership quality player, proven time and time again during his time at Bolton where he is still a legend to the Whitemen's fans. Yet here in Sunderland he has never really had a chance, even though when he does get a game he stands out, take his performance against Man Utd in the 1-0 away defeat.
In that game Diouf was the only player who looked like he might do something yet we play Andy Reid, who is good on his day, but in recent times has been wasting his corners and just doesn't have the pace to beat players. Which to be fair, is one of the basic requirements of a winger.
Take the Everton game for example, Reid was out through illness, yet we brought in a forward, Daryl Murphy and stuck him out on the wing.
Ok so Murphy scored 4 in a reserve game last week, but Diouf loves to play on the wing, has pace, can go past people and other teams hate to play him rather than Daryl Murphy, who is rather Shola Ameobiesque running into players and standing on the ball all the time.
He should have started on the wing, yet he wasn't even in the squad.
Personally I believe that we need to get rid of some of the dead wood at the club in the upcoming transfer window and bring in some players with true premiership quality.
We have been linked with Tal Ben Haim, ex-Bolton and Chelsea central defender who I think would do a good job for us partnering Anton Ferdinand in the middle.
I think bringing in another striker would be a good idea to give Kenwyne Jones some more competition as he seems to be a bit lazy recently, even though he's scoring goals.
Also if we're not going to use Diouf then maybe a left winger to inject a bit more pace into the side.
All in all I think we have a good team, but could do with some strengthening in the positions mentioned earlier, i also believe Sbragia needs to make the team his own rather than the team that Roy Keane left behind.
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Stumbleupon30/12/2008 13:06
Big Sam will have him away to Blackburn in the transfer window!
Further so should Chopra. Given a run like Cisse or Jones up front he''ll score more goals than either of them.
I still find it hard to understand what people see in Reid. Yes he has skill but thats not enough to be a premiership player (or an international it would seem). He's slow, wasteful of possession and why oh why does he get the ball at set plays? No end product.
Murphy is a bad joke enough said. Edwards is incapable of going past a man and Deano it pains me to say this but your finished.
With our reserves doing so well why has'nt someone made the break through?
Jones needs to up his work rate, he has been very lazy the last few games.
I agree 100% on Reid, not fast enough, you need a winger who can beat players, and like you said, his set pieces are always wasted.
I think Whitehead has lost his place to Tainio, and rightly so, he's been excellent under Sbragia.
As for reid, he is the obafemi martins of mifield..... where it takes martins 10 shots to get 1 on target and when he does its a beauty..... it takes reid 10 attempts to make a pass, he always overhits them. When he does make the pass though its quality.
Whitehead can go, carlos is way to laid back for premier league, hes too slow on the ball. Although he does have quality.
Apparently Edwards, Healy and Chopra will be getting starts today (from SkySportsNews).
Think we should always play Cisse, he's always a threat with his pace and makes space just because the other team are worrying about him.
A winger with pace would double the fear, think that's what we need most.
Carlos was very poor, but he was quality when it counted and set up djib!
