Downing
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He is a player that needs to be playing a particular style of football and was always going to find the transition to a team with higher aspirations difficult.
He has a fairly average record over the course of his career and bar one season at Villa (where the playing style was just right for him) and one or two at Middlesborough has never really stood out.
Paying near enough 20M for a guy like that in his late twenties was tantamount to gross negligence.
But even you choose to disagree with that - we always hear scouts and coaches waffling on about how they put every player under the microscope in order to ensure that he has the right mentality. Where was that crucial examination in the case of Downing? I don't think a "shucks, guess we got that one wrong" quite cuts in when you're making that sort of investment.
He is a decent player good enough for our first team. He holds the ball, passes it well and keeps possession which is what are game is about.
Not every winger is ronaldo, we have only had two wingers of that standard in 20 years FFS
Example -look at the Henderson goal , the lovely touch to Suarez from Stu.
He moves the ball well and teams worry about his pace and passing.
He is an easy target for the haters on here and although he is not a world beater he is at the moment one of our better players and worthy of his place.
Not every winger is ronaldo, we have only had two wingers of that standard in 20 years FFS
Example -look at the Henderson goal , the lovely touch to Suarez from Stu.
He moves the ball well and teams worry about his pace and passing.
He is an easy target for the haters on here and although he is not a world beater he is at the moment one of our better players and worthy of his place.
Love the way people think a team in the top 8 just deserves better than downing
You don't need 11 superstars. Is downing any worse that Park was at utd or Milner at City or Osman of Everton
At the moment he fits well into
Our team. Stop thinking about individuals. Everton are better than us nowadays remember they are a TEAM
Thing is that it's not just any team in the top 8 we're talking about.
Regardless of where we are in the league at the moment, we ARE still Liverpool and I'm sorry but a few "decent" performances doen't mean that he's of the quality we should accepting.
To me he epitomises everything that's wrong with our squad right now.
It has nothing to do with being trendy or a cunt, themn.
I don't post that much, obviously, but that doesn't mean that I'm incapable of forming an opinion based on what I've seen of Downing over the past season and a half. In fact, it was obvious to me very early on that the boy was not cut out to play for us and his level is where he was before he signed for us.
If there's anyway of going back through my posts you would see that I mentioned it a very long time ago.
I'm not saying he's good enough to, but I wonder what would have happened if he'd moved to United that Summer? He's as tidy and unspectacular as many of their other players and he's technically able to slip into that sort of set up, with the right backing and confidence to do well enough for a couple of seasons. Sure, people might have labelled him in much the same vein as they do with Carrick and a few others, as a middle ground player who'll do a job, but I wager he'd have still contributed well enough to a title challenge and maybe even honours. He's suffered here as much as anyone in recent years through an over burdening of expectation and having his confidence knocked early by bellends who laid into him from the word go. Maybe he does lack the fight to make it, but he'd have certainly had to fight from a different angle and from a position of strength at United as opposed to here, where he's put up with a hefty price tag and a change of manager too.
The issue was as it always stood, a good player who's good enough for a top squad but not worth £20m and not an ever present, the price tag caused the demand for him to play permanently regardless of form and that's where it fell on it's arse.
I see what you're saying but to me the telling thing is that if he was good enough for a top squad, why were none of the top clubs ever after him, even when he was at Boro and being touted as the next big England left winger?
Well we paid £20m for him, so you could argue that that put teams off, not that I think anyone was in for him, he was linked but players always are.
i cant beleive he is actually starting games, probably a ruse to convince people to buy him in jan, come next month he will be back where he belongs, on the bench.
Not that my opinion matters regarding Downing, but I never regarded him as a player who would improve our team. Didn't like that transfer one bit.
Still, I expected more from a "premiership proven" player.
Despite the fact that he's doing better today I still see the same faults in him as I did before he joined. He can't dribble, he doesn't challenge players, he carries no threat in front of goal and his crosses often gets blocked.
He's nothing more than a squad player in a team that's competing for titles. I can't see him being part of the team next season, especially since we're chasing Ince.
Still, I expected more from a "premiership proven" player.
Despite the fact that he's doing better today I still see the same faults in him as I did before he joined. He can't dribble, he doesn't challenge players, he carries no threat in front of goal and his crosses often gets blocked.
He's nothing more than a squad player in a team that's competing for titles. I can't see him being part of the team next season, especially since we're chasing Ince.
And rejects.
I think he should be credited for some nice games over xmas and after that. However we could have done so much better with that money that it is scary to think about it.
Blackburn won the league with a steady Eddie like Jason Wilcox on the left. He just did a job, wasn't noticed much but maintained reliable service for the attackers. I assumed Downing was bought to do such a job here. I wasn't expecting him to become anyone's favourite, just quietly fit in and improve the delivery from the left, which was certainly needed. So I'll never really get the anger about him not being a flair player; he never was going to dazzle. What's obviously frustrating and infuriating is he never found that quiet, calm consistency that was required of him, and which he has the right ability to supply. He's still not doing it regularly enough even now, but his position is complicated by the fact that his original role is no longer needed, and the new one has demands that go beyond his particular talents. It's good that he's trying but he's a square peg in a round hole.
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