With a goal and two assists in today's match against Middlesbrough, Robbie Keane officially revitalized his career. Following his astute abandonment of his childhood "dream come true" of wearing Liverpool gear (although he got to wear it while riding the bench), Keane has become a central part of Harry Redknapp's plans and has consequently regained the sort of goal scoring form we are used to seeing from him. His revival began with a two goal performance for the Republic of Ireland during mid-Feburary, which sealed a narrow victory and won a vital three points for his national team, and has continued on until this momentous occasion.
Though once again the common man is left bewildered. How in just a few short weeks has Keane managed to go from zero to hero? And how did Rafa fail so miserably at getting any sort of return from his massive investment? To be perfectly frank, during the summer I was quite terrified of the prospect of Liverpool having two legitimate strikers. Especially a pairing that seemed like it would work wonders. But for some reason besides my nightly prayers, it just never clicked. Well now that the old Keane is back, its hard not to point a finger at Rafa and laugh at the fact that he has to play the likes of El Zhar and N'Gog on account of his inability to squeeze goals out of Keane. But I guess such is life as a premiership manager.
2 posts in 1 day???
ReplyDeletenoooooooo
maybe if benitez put a little more faith in keane good things would have happened (i think danny said this awhile back)
also, at spurs, keane is the star. at liverpool he was overshadowed by torres and gerrard. we see stuff like this happen a lot (ie any striker who has gone to liverpool bar torres, darren bent, henry... etc)
also liverpools style of play doesnt suit 2 strikers (we've seen morientes, cisse, kuyt, baros, and keane fail now).
Darren Bent maybe, but Henry?? Henry playing poorly at Barca was so last season. He has been fantastic lately.
ReplyDeletewell its relative..
ReplyDeletecan you place henry in the top 5 strikers in the world?
also even if its a bad example, thats not the point. bentley is another example, hleb, flamini (though not 'stars' definitely integral parts of their previous teams), totti and henry in the international game.. etc
im not saying it'll def happen but its not uncommon
You understand that any good team with the complete and inexplicable exception of Liverpool has more than one superstar. By saying that Henry is playing badly (completely not true btw) because he is overshadowed at Barca, you are implying that Henry ran the show completely by himself at Arsenal. Interesting thought. I am also interested as to how Keane can be overshadowed on a team with world-class forwards such as Nabil El ZhaR and David Ngog, and not be overshadowed by the likes of Pavlyuchenko, Bent, Defoe, and up-and-comers Dos Santos and Frazier Campbell? People take time to adjust to new clubs, and sometimes they are just not a good fit. If you are playing at the highest level you do not get overshadowed by another professional—it's as simply as that.
ReplyDeletefirst, i never said henry was playing badly. perhaps overshadowed isn't the right word, but at barca he wasn't/isnt the main man
ReplyDeleteat arsenal he was, without a doubt (vieria was a close second)
look at it this way,
in the 06-07 season, henry was absolutely the main man, completely expected by everyone, including his arsenal teammates to score (hence most forward play goes through him).
then you stick him into a barca squad with ronaldinho, eto'o, messi. regardless of how acclimated he is, will he score as much? obviously not--the play will be distributed among those 4.
in keane's case, i mentioned two reasons, the latter being "also liverpools style of play doesnt suit 2 strikers."
i also mentioned "maybe if benitez put a little more faith in keane good things would have happened "
my comment you (all) so vehemently disagree upon, was one option of 3 for keane, but is still a trend seen.
fuck these titles
ReplyDeleteno one loved them
ReplyDelete