by 48-1119859832 » Wed Apr 12, 2006 9:05 pm
There have been four or five players I have been pleasantly surprised by but I will just pick two and they are Momo Sissoko and Peter Crouch.
When I first heard we were signing Peter Crouch I thought to myself this has to be mindless media speculation surely. The recently crowned Champions of Europe should not be linked with a player who was in a team that got relegated. And then I heard Southampton wanted £7million for a player who I just regarded as a beanpole who got lucky and broke into double figures on the goalscoring tally, in my eyes he wasn't worth £1.5million nevermind £7million. I also rattled my brain cells to try and figure out:
A) Why we would sign a Championship bound striker for £7million.
B) What would he offer us?
And he came and he went about seventeen matches without a goal and during this period, I figured out just why we signed Crouchy. He offers us a lot in attack in terms of holding up the ball, his creativity seemed to be very good. His work ethic was unquestionable and certainly seemed better than that of his counterparts Cisse and Morientes. It was his lack of goals that got to me somewhat and then I gradually realised that Crouch wasn't a twenty goals a season striker and he was bought in to give the team more options. But he can also score and he's scored 11/12 in total. Not bad considering I didn't think much of him and branded him a "one season wonder!".
Momo Sissoko, I remember when we signed him, I was reading the sport section of the Guardian. I sat there in a silent daze and said "who the (f)uck is Sissoko". Then I read he was a 19 year old Mali player who had just turned down Everton for us and we signed him from Valencia. I didn't expect to see him feature much and just thought he's gonna spend a season or two in our reserves like most of Benitez's young signings and I thought Hamann would still keep his place.
How I was wrong and Sissoko has looked a promising talent ever since day one. I was back then surprised to hear Benitez branding him the "next Viera" and whilst many fans were building him up without knowing and many ppl chose to build him up and I thought that the ppl doing that would be in for a big let down but I have to eat humble pie on this one (granted I don't think he's as good as Patrick or should be branded the next this and that), he's been an exceptional player, he's over-come a serious injury which could of affected him for the rest of his life nevermind his footballing career. He bosses the midfield, is extremely good at breaking down the oppositions play and we've dearly missed him when he hasn't been present, he's already in 8 short months become an instrumental figure head in our starting eleven.
He's shown what a real class act he is and he's getting better and better with every game that passes! I've also learnt from the signing of Crouch and Sissoko that you don't have to sign the Zidane's and the Shevchenko's of this world, you just have to sign the right players with the right attributes and the right mentalities.
Last edited by 48-1119859832 on Wed Apr 12, 2006 9:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.