Easy in hindsight I know but forget Bothroyd, Burke, Chopra and even Bellamy being allowed to go, or no real effort to keep them.....it has to be McCormack and Adam Matthews in my opinion. You couldn`t buy McCormack right now, but we all knew it at the time of leaving. We can never forget his season, or is is just me?
Dave Jones favoured Chopra and Rossco suffered. He didn't always suffer in silence either, he had the odd spat in the press about his "treatment". His head went down and he got fatter than Gerrard on a good day. The defining moment for me was him being benched by DJ for the last game of the season at Sheff Wednesday two seasons back when we needed to win the game to be sure of a playoff place. Not only for him, but it was also a defining moment for Dave Jones in many supporter's eyes to be honest. He bottled it going up there for the draw and we lost 1-0. To also be fair, Rossco's head was turned by his agent who exploited his first season's performance with us to the full. I remeber he was allegedly off to Hull when they were in the Prem, but Brown wouldn't pay the price. He was never the same again with us, but look at him now. The treatment of Mathews by DJ was shocking but I never saw enough of the lad to be able to say how good he could really be. Likening him to Rambo at the same age was way over the top in my estimation at the time.
Maybe we should have kept Rossco, although he appeared to be a moody so and so. Always thought Mathews was over rated. Good going forward but caught ball watching on more than one occasion.
Rosco's been a revelation this season. We were told when he signed that he'd score free-kicks and penalties and not much more, but so far only 2 free-kicks have contributed to his tally and he's been magnificent at linking up play, he and Snodgrass have pretty much both been given free roles behind Becchio and are causing all kinds of problems.
Yep,he has been a great signing for you guys. You would fancy yourselves as a chance to sneak into the playoffs with your form.
It'll be a push to get into the play-offs but I would be optimistic should we get there. The team who come up from the pack always have momentum going in and I think Warnock has instilled the right attitude in the players to deal with the pressure.
with hindsight of course we shouldnt have let mccormack go. however at the time, i remember saying that although he was in poor form, £300k or whatever pathetic fee we got for him was a disgraceful decision by the board, considering we rejected £2m + £2m in add ons from hull the previous year. he was completely out of form, low on confidence, and either on the bench or reserves as bothroyd and chopra started almost every game. he is a confidence player and needs to be wanted. but he still had that ability and thats why £300k or so was pathetically low for a player who would always come back to haunt us at that price. he also had that scumbag agent willie mckay who was touting him around like there was no tommorow after his first season. he got a new contract with a big wage rise then his form went out of the window, no surprises there.
Rossco - I couldn't believe it when we let him go for a pittance. Great player to have, een if you've only got him onthe bench. He could often change a game. When fit he always was a real handful. However, a number of our fans decided they didn't want boozers like Chopra and Rossco at the club. Matthews - good footballer, academy recognised he couldn't defend (and still can't from what I've heard today). A lot of local media said (entirely false, with no substance) that he was worth £4 million and was a target of top Premiership clubs! I wonder why he ended up in Scotland where he is playing with quite a few other players who were of varying abilities at Championship level. The best of these is Ledley, but the rest wouldn't have got in to the City side over recent seasons (though they probably would now).
Thanks a bunch Simon. Hope we can keep him out when Leeds come to us on 21/4. Bywater? Isn't he with DJ at Sheff Weds now?
bfb, yep...hes been there a while now. sitting pretty in the 2nd auto spot too....what could possibly go wrong?
I unreservedly apologise to all for mentioning the 'B' word but I'm surprised the other name didn't trigger some abuse.
