Arouna Kone

Gomez isn’t really that type of player; whereas, Espinoza is. I’d actually like to see these two paired together in midfield, as I think each provides what the other lacks, & they could make for a nice tandem – Gomez the creativity & possesion going forward, and Espinoza the energy & defensive cover. I Think that would be worth the try, especially with the congestion & need to rotate players in the next few games.[/quote]

That was sort of my point about Gomez – it always is – but it sometimes gets lost/omitted in my haste to throw in a sarky retort, so let me explain what I meant about the headless chicken comment. ;)

First off, I wouldn’t say that either ESpinoza or Di Santo are headless chickens. Di Santo, in particular, puts himself about more than Gomez and harries people. Espinoza, likewise, quiet similar to McArthur in my view. It doesn’t make either of them better than Gomez.

Gomez isn’t, and never will be, that type of player. He is in the team to do a specific job, namely retaining possession and trying to provide a link with the other forward players in the team.

In order to do this, he needs movement ahead of him and sometimes when that doesn’t happen, he gets caught waitinghoping for it to happen and other times the pass goes astray rather than him just lumping it hopefully forward. It also explains why he goes backwarda and sideways a lot because he would rather keep possession and start again than try something overly ambitious and give away possession.

Yes, he doesn’t always track back and he tackles like me, but we have other players in the team to do that. It is to his credit that he has improved this part of his game recently, in my view. And yes, he could do with being a bit faster and have a bit more quality with his passing, but if had all of that in his locker, he wouldnt’ be playing for Wigan now, would he?

The people who constantly use Gomez as the scapegoat (the first “Get off, Gomez” shout was heard on 6 minutes on Saturday) clearly don’t/won’t understand the role he is being asked to play.[/quote]

What a good post that is.

Completely clear, concise and importantly……correct.

It will mean nothing to people that don’t like Gomez though, or people that don’t know anything about football, they’re the same people btw.

I can clear the Macmanaman substitution up for you boys and girls, basically he was totally goosed. :woohoo:

Just before his substitution, he made a couple of great tracking back runs, one ended in a great tackle putting the ball into touch, [one of those legit tackles where you get the ball plus clean the player out].
The second ended in the attacking player cutting back and hitting a long ball to their centre half. I said to my mate look at Callum Mac he was doubled over with his hand on his knees. He stood up grimaced and looked at the bench. Immediately Franco was told to warm up and within a few minutes the sub was made.

The worrying thing was it was only about 65 mins on the clock so you would expect the young man to keep going at least until the last ten mins or so. :sick: