Rudy Gestede - GONE

[Malandro]

Doesn't bother me one bit his lack of mobility, he's a goalscorer with a 1 in 2 ratio. He just needs decent service. He's still getting match fit - judge him when he's fully up to speed.

I banged on enough about how *just* scoring wasn't good enough to Bent so that rule should also be applied to Gestede.  Luckily for him he cost a fraction of the amount and with his height it would not be hard for him to add something extra (even if that is just defending corners).

He hassles the opposition defenders to get the ball back more than Bent too.
I like him.

[Salsa Party Animal]

 From what I see he is no good in the air with long ball from defenders or goalkeeper, but he is very good at crosses and set pieces. What we need to do is improve our corners and free kick and make him study Christain Vieri, Dion Dublin, Andy Gray and Martin Laursen and Dider Drogba

[tomd2103]

From what I see he is no good in the air with long ball from defenders or goalkeeper

A lot of that has to do with Guzan not being able to reach him.  His kicks barely reach the halfway line, which makes it very hard for a striker.  Guzan's kicks are floaters as well, which again makes it difficult.  The striker has to make up ten yards towards his own goal and and try and compete with a player in front of him.

[paul_e]

I've said this before, there are 2 types of strikers, ones who can play with their back to goal and ones that can't.  All the other differences are largely insignificant in terms of play style, you either have a striker you play off who has his back to goal a lot and can bring people into play and be a focal point or you have a striker that you work around and play balls into his path.  The issue is Gestede, like Kozak, looks like he should be one of the former but he's not, get the ball in front of him where he can attack it and he scores goals, he has 4 which highlight that perfectly.  Play long punts up to him and expect him running into corners or winning flickons and you'll be disappointed.

Although I get your point what you are describing are just players with two different playing styles. Such as a Withe and Shaw. Both players, and ALL forwards, can play with their back to the goal as they do it for the vast majority of the 90 minutes. Where they do their best work is what you're getting at and asking Gary Shaw to win balls in the air is never going to be his forte. But every forward knows how to receive the ball with their backs to goal because they've been doing it their entire career.

That's the problem, they haven't but we assume they have.  That you've specifically said the bold bit suggests that you're not getting my point.  A striker like Benteke is a back-to-goal striker, he wants to be involved in the play and wants to get the ball in and out to get touches and feel his way into things.  Other strikers don't want or need that involvement, they're the 'facing goal' strikers that I'm talking about.  Bringing them into play regularly doesn't work because they want to be making breaks away from defenders and moving people about (Gestede needs to get better at this) to open gaps.  For me the 433 we're currently playing relies on a back-to-goal striker because we've got big gaps so we need someone who can hold it and wait for support.  To work with Gestede we need someone central, and higher up the pitch, who can hold on to the ball and find the runs, etc.  Grealish can and should be doing that job but then we need wide players who can come inside or stay wide and offer a threat so that they're offering that movement.

[ClaretAndBlueBlood]

From what I see he is no good in the air with long ball from defenders or goalkeeper

A lot of that has to do with Guzan not being able to reach him.  His kicks barely reach the halfway line, which makes it very hard for a striker.  Guzan's kicks are floaters as well, which again makes it difficult.  The striker has to make up ten yards towards his own goal and and try and compete with a player in front of him.

most of it has to do with the fact that he can't jump unless he is running onto the ball when he becomes very effective. He has hardly won the ball when it is played forward from the back

[Salsa Party Animal]

Then we should get a central forward coach to help him out.  Allan Evans should be ideal as he used to play both role.

[brontebilly]

He made the Stoke centre halves look like junior players in the cup game last year, had the pace of Josh King next to him the same day.

Maybe we should try Ayew up top next to him

[Sexual Ealing]

The goals are great but he appears to have two 50 pence pieces for feet.

[saunders_heroes]

The goals are great but he appears to have two 50 pence pieces for feet.

Who cares as long as he scores goals.

[aj2k77]

If his feet were a pair of heads he'd probably be the best finisher on the planet.

[Sexual Ealing]

The goals are great but he appears to have two 50 pence pieces for feet.

Who cares as long as he scores goals.

http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/Derby-County-Aston-Villa-loan-striker-Darren-Bent/story-25798161-detail/story.html

[Risso]

Watching him play reminds me of the Ents in Lord of the Rings, or maybe studying plate tectonics. 

[aj2k77]

Unless we are willing to appoint Fat Sam and become Wimbledon then this guy is basically useless in any build up play. He's a big head to aim things at in the box and that's it.

[Stirchley Villain]

No point in playing him. We provide hardly any accurate crosses and our corners are a joke. With Grealish, Ayew, Gil and Sinclair we need a holdup player who can use his feet. That ain't Gestede by any stretch.

[KRS]

Gestede very much surprised me when he controlled the ball and ran at their defence from about 40yds out...his tame weak shot didn't surprise me. He's basically useless in this team if we don't supply him with good crosses and it seems we are incapable of doing that so we'd be better off playing Ayew up front and playing our football on the deck with Gil and Grealish feeding him.