Wilfried Bony

[The Great Mass Debater]

Saw a bit of him in the African Nations last night, thus prompting this thoughtline.

It was often said when we had decided to sell Grant Holt and were looking to splurge a lot of money on someone 'better' that we had two realistinc options - Bony and RvW.

I've also seen it said ruefully that we bought the wrong one.

Considering Bony scored the most goals in the Premier League last calendar year and more than doubled his transfer fee, and Ricky, well...  My question is this:

Are comments like this just sour grapes from us, and the perception we could have had Bony based on the fact the clubs and players had similar reputations and the fees were similar. Or were we actually genuinely in for him?

Did we really have the choice of Bony? Or is this just fans ruminating? Anyone know?

 

[morty]

I am sure when someone asked a similar question before, it turned out that Bony was a lot more money that RvW, so was never really a choice.

 

[Dandy Mountfarto]

Bony would have scored eff all in Hughton's system.

 

[The Great Mass Debater]

Swansea paid 12m for Bony I think. Makes you wonder what might have happened if we'd used 12m to buy him instead of RvW and Hooper, who seemingly werent supposed to be on the pitch together. The wonder of hindsight.

The 64m dollar question about RvW which I suppose will always be asked is - was he a great player that we ruined, or was he just not that good? I think he will do well to recover personally. The top clubs all looked at him, but also the top clubs all decided not to go for him.

Poor Ricky - I so wanted him to be great for us. Proves what a load of b*llocks the idea of opening your account early is!

 

[GJP]

I think Bony would score in any system.

 

[Dandy Mountfarto]

I think Bony would score in any system.

What happens when the man who can score in any system meets the man who can create a system no-one can score in? Any theology graduates about?

 

[Dandy Mountfarto]

The 64m dollar question about RvW which I suppose will always be asked is - was he a great player that we ruined, or was he just not that good? I think he will do well to recover personally. The top clubs all looked at him, but also the top clubs all decided not to go for him.

Becchio scored 20 in less than half a season before we got hold of him, has he scored since? Holt was averaging a bit under 1 every 2 for three seasons, Hooper & RVW scored for fun everywhere they were prior, Morison didn't look out of place during Lambert's season, and we made Harry Kane, who now seems to be England's best striker, look like a pub player. I think its fair to say that Mr Hughton did none of those strikers careers a favour.

There's no reason to think RVW could have been 'great' but he I reckon he could have carved out a career at Prem level similar to someone like Shane Long, if he was at a club that didn't approach every game like a non-league side desperate for a cup replay.

 

[The Great Mass Debater]

What happens when the man who can score in any system meets the man who can create a system no-one can score in? Any theology graduates about?

Is God so powerful, that he can create a system even he couldnt score in...  :huh:

 

[The Great Mass Debater]

Becchio scored 20 in less than half a season before we got hold of him, has he scored since? Holt was averaging a bit under 1 every 2 for three seasons, Hooper & RVW scored for fun everywhere they were prior, Morison didn't look out of place during Lambert's season, and we made Harry Kane, who now seems to be England's best striker, look like a pub player. I think its fair to say that Mr Hughton did none of those strikers careers a favour.

There's no reason to think RVW could have been 'great' but he I reckon he could have carved out a career at Prem level similar to someone like Shane Long, if he was at a club that didn't approach every game like a non-league side desperate for a cup replay.

And yet people still queue up to say what a good manager Chris Hughton is. I wonder why. Gary Lineker thinks we were 'bonkers'. Alan Shearer asked 'what do they want down there?!'. Bigotry/ignorance is just not cool

 

[splutcho]

Chris Hughton has a pretty decent record as a manager to be fair. One promotion from the Championship, One 5th place finish in the Championship with no money, our highest place finish for however many years, and now starting to resurrect a Brighton side that looked doomed. And technically we saved him from having a relegation on his record 

 

[The Great Mass Debater]

Chris Hughton has a pretty decent record as a manager to be fair. One promotion from the Championship, One 5th place finish in the Championship with no money, our highest place finish for however many years, and now starting to resurrect a Brighton side that looked doomed. And technically we saved him from having a relegation on his record 

Just playing Devils advocate, but you could also argue he inherited good situations. He took over a Norwich team that had just had its highest ever finish in years, buoyant with success over previous years. He inherited a Newcastle team that should never have been relegated and had kept its best players. In both those examples it was only after the momentum from previous ran out and those teams operated under Hughtons own steam that the problems developed.

Credit where credit is due though, he still did well in places and particularly at Birmingham

 

[eatonparkboy]

Nobody has a right to be successful and I tend to believe that over a period, most records are just fifty fifty. Some worse. Even Lambert. A friend of mine lavishes praise on Steve Cotterill for the job he is doing at Brizzle City and Cheltenham fans revere him. But his record is no better than even.

When people eulogise about Ferguson, I answer that he did a remarkable job. But in 1988  a banner reading "Three years of excuses and it's still crap ... ta-ra Fergie" was paraded at OT and if the Prem had existed in those days, I have no doubt he would have been sacked and history would read differently.

Bony might well have scored several more than RVW and staying in the Prem  would have made the extra £3-4M justified, especially if the style of football had altered because of a dream striker.

 

[The Great Mass Debater]

What I will never understand is what the plan was supposed to be. We splurged 8-10m on RvW, a player who scored most of his goals from crosses following quick counters, then played inverted wingers with a slow build up. Why buy that type of player to fit into that sort of system. The answer is that it didnt and thats why we couldnt score goals.

Even more baffling is why our two most expensive outlays werent intended to be in the first 11 together. Surely you want your two most expensive players in the same side?

I will always believe that Hughton felt all he needed to do was splurge an appropriate amount of money 'improving' on Grant Holt with 'better strikers' and that goalscoring would take care of itself. I cant get past the idea that football snobbery led to the thought - right, we're not scoring enough goals, it must be because of that embarrassing fat ex-tyre fitter up front. Lets get rid of our most effective player because he doesnt have 'genuine quality' (ie he has no link with Spurs)  and lets get in some proper players.

£13m - job done, goals taken care of, right, lets get back to drilling fear and defensive obligation into the rest of the team.

I genuinely believe Hughton thought those two would score goals automatically and that goals didnt need to be a product of the team or tactics as long as you have a 'quality' footballer up front.

Ironic really, because the way Hughton set his teams out, Grant Holt was exactly the player we needed - as we found out. Holt was widely criticized for scoring only 8 goals that season. RvW, Elmander, Kane and co would have killed for a return like that.

 

[eatonparkboy]

What I will never understand is what the plan was supposed to be. We splurged 8-10m on RvW, a player who scored most of his goals from crosses following quick counters, then played inverted wingers with a slow build up. Why buy that type of player to fit into that sort of system. The answer is that it didnt and thats why we couldnt score goals.

Even more baffling is why our two most expensive outlays werent intended to be in the first 11 together. Surely you want your two most expensive players in the same side?

I will always believe that Hughton felt all he needed to do was splurge an appropriate amount of money 'improving' on Grant Holt with 'better strikers' and that goalscoring would take care of itself. I cant get past the idea that football snobbery led to the thought - right, we're not scoring enough goals, it must be because of that embarrassing fat ex-tyre fitter up front. Lets get rid of our most effective player because he doesnt have 'genuine quality' (ie he has no link with Spurs)  and lets get in some proper players.

£13m - job done, goals taken care of, right, lets get back to drilling fear and defensive obligation into the rest of the team.

I genuinely believe Hughton thought those two would score goals automatically and that goals didnt need to be a product of the team or tactics as long as you have a 'quality' footballer up front.

Ironic really, because the way Hughton set his teams out, Grant Holt was exactly the player we needed - as we found out. Holt was widely criticized for scoring only 8 goals that season. RvW, Elmander, Kane and co would have killed for a return like that.

The RVW signing, and I assume he cost  a wee bit more than Fer and Hooper, made him the champagne signing and that close season was one of unbridled joy because, I think to a man, we all thought we had joined the big spenders and this guy will only have to turn up and he'll score. The hype was immense. And the smutty name made other people talk about us. Confidence was high.

Trouble is we had finished the previous season with two thumping victories which painted over the fact that we had been dire for weeks before. In fact, Hughton should have gone then and someone else would have had some money to spend on a "quality" striker. And that may have been Bony.

 

[It's Character Forming]

I agree 109% with the last couple of posts - hughton thought RVW and Hooper were quality strikers so he didn't have to worry about how to fit them in and give them service. Bony I think could have done better in the system and probably would done enough to keep us up. And our wins at the end of the season before certainly gave our final position a very flattering look.

 

[GJP]

Hughton had some doubts over buying RVW and for that money.

 

[The Great Mass Debater]

Maybe we're all asking the wrong quesitons. if Hughton had doubts, why did the signing go ahead?

You can accuse Chris Hughton of many things, but not having a set rigid way of playing is not one of them. If he had a system (regardless of how flawed) that RvW was unsuited for - why did we buy him?

I think our eyes popped out of our skull at this coveted player and we just thought 'this guy is top class' he'll do the business regardless.

So never mind was RvW not good enough, or the wrong signing - more simply was RvW just a brainless signing?

 

[GJP]

Maybe we're all asking the wrong quesitons. if Hughton had doubts, why did the signing go ahead?

We were put in the position of either sign him when we did or risk not being able to sign him if we left it any longer. There was soon to be a likely change at the top for Sporting and it was hinted that the new regime might not sanction the transfer.But of course that might have just been tactics on their part.

Unlike other interested parties we were good to go as far as the money was concerned  - and Sporting needed the money.

Sporting gave us a deadline to get it done and we left it until the very last minute to decide. 

Perhaps the issue over whether RVW was the right signing for us got slightly lost due to all the circumstances around the deal.

 

[Canaryboy]

RVW just didn't have the physical attributes required to become a success at the top level of English football. I still have my doubts about whether he'd be much of a success in this division, and I think he'd still have been a flop if he'd signed for Liverpool. 

We all thought that we'd signed a £20m player for £9m. Frankly though, if he were a £20m player then he'd have signed for a club willing to pay £20m for him, and those types of clubs - Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham, Man Utd, Man City, clearly didn't consider him good enough for their teams. 

That's because he wasn't and isn't.  I think it remains tough for some people to accept that we wasted our money on him, but it happens every year to several Premier League teams, Sunderland wasted £8m their money on Altidore, Cardiff £8m for Cornelius, Liverpool £11m on Balotelli, this year it is Brown Ideye for £9m. 

They were all signed by their clubs in the belief that they would bring goals, and then they failed to deliver them. Happens all the time, RVW was just another flop. Norwich fans clung on to the hope that he was going to come good and start delivering but there were actually people calling it pretty early on.....

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1744071-why-ricky-van-wolfswinkel-will-be-a-premier-league-flop-with-norwich

The person in the link above stuck his neck out and predicted that he'd flop after his goalscoring debut, and was proved entirely correct. That was what the outside were seeing looking in, whilst we all looked at Van Wolfswinkel through a pair of yellow tinted specs. He was, unfortunately, just rubbish for us.

We can blame Hughton for signing him, but I'm not sure we can blame him for 'ruining' him. The truth is that he was an overrated player with very little to his overall game who was out of his depth in this league and didn't even seem to attempt to punch above his weight. He always looked like a bit of a wimp to me, Hooper is the better striker.  

At Man Utd they used to kick lumps out of Cristiano Ronaldo in training to try and toughen him up. Van Wolfswinkel needed his teammates to do the same here.

 

[Boyerboy]

I agree CanaryBoy with your premise and vigorously argued the point on that nest of rats that we've all left for the better life here.

Ricky was part of a syndrome and not some unique failure of Hughton's or McNally's. Many foreign strikers fail. Some fail completely like those you've mentioned and similar like Helenius at Villa and Soldado at Spurs. Others come in and make an early splash usually because of their novelty value but run out of steam quickly when the novelty wears off and teams work them out. Jelavic and Michu spring to mind though I do wonder if Benteke also comesinto that group.

Credit to Bony for making it. The attrition rate is remarkably high and I think City fans are far too critical of both Ricky and the Club. Any rational view would suggest it was always no better than 50:50 that he'd make it.