Someone summed it up concisely earlier. Fink is shit. That’s the reality. What people are seeing to believe there’s a player there is baffling. You don’t need 15 games to see when someone is completely out of their depth. Fink is National League at best. He doesn’t get close to starting for any other team in league 1.
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I would love Fink to come good. Judging by MD’s audible angry reactions in the dugout today he is on notice. Perhaps if we had an experienced centre forward to mentor him ( and score a few goals as well) it would help everyone. He had a few nice touches today but he was not chasing down balls like a Vokes or even Woodrow does. I feel for him to be honest.
I would have hooked him at half time (cruel I know) and had Mullins and Harris either side of Woodrow but I’m not a manager.
Peterborough weren’t all that but sadly neither were we.
Still in it though.
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Completely agree on the recruitment, it’s generally been poor, with the occasional exception (Henderson for sure). Up front, it’s been diabolical, laughably inept to be honest.
Specifically with Fink, he seem to get plenty of chances. This tells me that his movement is good and he’s losing markers, finding space etc. He doesn’t take any of these chances though. This could be lack of confidence and lack of opportunities won’t have helped this. I would agree though, that there’s not really any evidence to suggest he’s good enough. What I do see though is a player desperately trying to score and make it work. He will get a goal eventually, how he does after that will decide his career in England. Much as I’d like to see it, I’m not convinced he has the quality to go on a run. Would be delighted if he were to prove me wrong though.
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1 thing I wish the club would change, STOP using players are models for kits! Every time they do, the player is either pants, sold or gets an injury that makes them disappear for 9+ months. This is what has happened to Fink, he’s been cursed
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Woodrow is woeful
Agreed, he’s got good movement / positioning. But the bloke can’t finish. The chance at the start of the game was criminal, imagine Fred in that position. If it was GMac it wouldn’t even have crossed my mind that he wasn’t going to score.
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This seems very similar to what people said about Anders for a while.
I get people wanting to write players off early for a variety of reasons. But, its strange that what is known in football players, especially young players from abroad, don’t just settle into new lives quickly.
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Well reasoned point, thank you.
Anders is developing into a good L1 defender but he’s not Caleb Taylor, Steven Taylor or any other class above defender that’s put on the Quarters. A good L1 defender is exactly what he should be, if not more given fees, age and profile. His awakening should’nt be treated as a bonus or misty-eyed tale. It is what we expected from him, albeit it took longer than hoped for various reasons.
If the rationale is young players from abroad take time to settle then we should’ve bought a proper replacement for Kone and paid side project money for Fink and not given him the number nine shirt. But what’s done is done.
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I’m going to try and defend Fink a bit as I think some of the reactions here seem to probably be tainted with the fee we paid (and the general balls up the club have made of dismantling a great group of 6 attackers and replacing them with the bare cupboard we currently have), rather than the player’s performance we’re seeing currently. The fee was ridiculous, and the fact that we paid it for an effective youth ‘development’ player with extremely, extremely limited men’s football experience, none of which was in the UK, was absolutely unforgivable. But that is a separate issue and not about the player himself. If he was a free transfer or academy prospect, and a bit of a project to take a punt on, his performances would be viewed in a lot more reasonable light I think.
Honestly, I thought Fink was alright today, nothing more than that but, for me anyway, it was all that I thought could be reasonably expected of him after so few starts in the last couple of years. I actually think his movement and positioning is very, very good for a centre forward. He is always in and around the danger area and is a bit of an old fashioned centre forward in that sense - that is a difficult thing to teach and is the main reason I would give him a few more consecutive games to see what he can do when fitter/sharper/more confident.
His aerial ability to win long balls is very poor, particularly given his size - this must improve if he is to make it here. His hold up play, control and lay offs are pretty patchy, decent at times and poor at others but I think you can see some ability there - I think that would improve given more consistent game time. He isn’t quick but is certainly not a cart horse , but he definitely has a languid style which could easily be seen to be ‘lazy’ - he does not appear as a ‘bust a gut’ type player.
His finishing so far hasn’t been good - but today’s three chances were not as clear cut as some have made them out to be (the first one was dropping over his shoulder, 15 seconds into a match, with him looking to strike a bouncing ball first time from 20 yards, he didn’t strike it well but that is not an easy chance if you don’t have the pace to take the ball on closer to the goal. The first header was his best chance by far and was a decent effort, very well saved. The third header was quite high, and he couldn’t get over the ball enough, again, not easy). The reason for the focus here on the finishing as it has been stated he is a great finisher in training, so he must have ‘something’ about him in that regard.
Even with the above defence, I think if I was forced to make a decision on him now, I would say he won’t make it for us. However, I think given the state of the table (we’re certainly not going up or down) and the fact it’s very unlikely we’ll get a permanent quality striker in this month, he is worth playing 5 or 6 times in a row now to make a better and more informed decision about his future next season - persist for another season of development or cut our losses.
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I agree with every bit of this (expect i haven’t given up on the playoffs just yet, it’s the hope that kills you). Fink has definitely become a lightning rod for people who can’t go two posts without reminding us they don’t like Dan Rice etc.
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On a separate note, I thought it was not as bad a performance in general as some have made out. First half was pretty even but not a fluid performance at all. We were great in the second half after the switch to a 4 though and should have got a equaliser, but the sucker punch of the 2nd took all of the wind out of our sails. I think it was a decent game between two very mid-table sides.
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Yep, agree with all this. Much as I want us to win every game, I don’t think a play off push is realistic or even desirable. The spine of the team just isn’t good enough to be competing at the top end of the table. With that in mind, we may as well give Fink a run of games and seeing if some match sharpness can help. Even if we sign another forward, we’re still short up front, so the thought of loaning him out is a definite no go.
Will it prove productive? Quite possibly not, but we’ve seen we can create chances with Fink up front, probably more than with Woodrow who’s rather out of sorts anyway at the moment. I don’t disagree with those who say he isn’t good enough, but frankly our options are limited to say the least.
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Yet others saw it as a good save. 
Considering that the whole point of football is to score more goals than the opposition it’s frankly ridiculous that we only have 3 first team forwards registered and one of them is on loan. Yes 2 loanees went back which makes it look worse but you have to say the recruitment “team” dropped a b*llock in this area. Ridiculous when we knew Kone was always going to be sold. It needed addressing last January never mind in the summer. It’s not even like we’re skint. Why ship out so many at the end of last season and then not replace them. Are they really that inept??? Apologies I’ve woken up in a grump. Harrumph!
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my player ratings for yesterday’s game
Norris - 5 (positioning for both goals not grea
Grimmer 5 (exposed for both goals)
Anders - 8
Cases- 8
Harvie - 6 (crossing poor again)
Allen - 6
Leahy 5 (slow and should have been booked)
CBM 4 (offered nothing)
Harris 6 (ineffective)
Woodrow 2 (just awful- like playing with 10)
Fink-6 (tried but should have had at least 2 goals)
Subs
Junior- 6 (good outlet)
Mullins-5 (ineffective)
Stones 6 (Limited time but got a shot away)
Manager
Duff - 5 (we set up with no pace and took too long to make the subs, should have hauled woodrow off at HT)
Great post @NewStyleOfPlay
This is the most dismal match report I have ever seen.
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how ? its based on what I saw
You are obsessed with Woodrow.