Current Player #39 Gatlin O'Donkor

As others have said in the matchday thread, I just really don't think he's up to it, not for the first time he looked disinterested when he came on, the very least we should expect is hard work, and sadly that was very much missing

Needs to go out on loan in January if we can sign someone to replace him, quite incredible to think that Perkins, with his pedigree, can't provide more than GoD
 
Carpy said:
As others have said in the matchday thread, I just really don't think he's up to it, not for the first time he looked disinterested when he came on, the very least we should expect is hard work, and sadly that was very much missing

Needs to go out on loan in January if we can sign someone to replace him, quite incredible to think that Perkins can't provide more than GoD with his pedigree
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I don't think the way he's being used is helping, unfortunately.
 
greatunclekip said:
He's a very talented player. Needs 90 mins week in week out.

Manning hasn't got much wrong but he has got the forwards massively wrong.
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Do you mean he’s got the forwards wrong in using Harris over O’Donkor and Perkins or he’s just got the forwards wrong, as in the wrong personnel ? I think it’s clear he’s misjudged the capabilities of all three and it was a huge mistake not to sign a more natural finisher - like Marriott for example. I said it at the time that it will cost us and we need to limp through to January with these two or three and then chuck the whole budget at a proper finisher.
 
dickwalton1964 said:
Do you mean he’s got the forwards wrong in using Harris over O’Donkor and Perkins or he’s just got the forwards wrong, as in the wrong personnel ? I think it’s clear he’s misjudged the capabilities of all three and it was a huge mistake not to sign a more natural finisher - like Marriott for example. I said it at the time that it will cost us and we need to limp through to January with these two or three and then chuck the whole budget at a proper finisher.
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We're hardly limping through!

We've scored plenty of goals this season, and whilst Harris hasn't got as many as anyone would have liked, he has hassled and hurried the defence and created opportunities for others.

GO'D had an off game, but who's to say that he wasn't also suffering from illness. He wasn't alone in looking sluggish. But only a couple of games ago it was him chasing lost causes that got Leigh the chance to score, or set Tyler up to kill the game at Barnsley. He also dug in to help us hold on to results against Carlisle and Derby.

I'm not saying that anyone gets a free ride or that we shouldn't look to improve in all areas. But I'm not sure that we should be giving up based on today.
 
Couldn’t agree more with Scotchegg. I assume the reason ODonkor’s performance was so sub-par today was that he was suffering from the illness that ravaged the squad and shouldn’t really have played. It seems Perkins may be injured so there was no one else. I haven’t seen every game this year but I’ve never seen O’Donkor look as laboured as he did today so I think it’s far more likely he was ill rather than he wasn’t interested.
 
I've not looked to see if it's been mentioned in any off the other threads, but I thought he was perhaps trying to hard when he came on and kept dropping to far back and didn't give us an outlet. We kept clearing the ball, I think at one point he even cleared it on the edge of our 18 yard box. But it just kept playing into their hands and they just kept coming back at us.

Wasn't just O'Donkor though, all the subs didn't make any impact on the game and those last 20 minutes we just couldn't get hold of the ball. Would be interesting to see the how much possession they had in the last 20 mins
 
Scotchegg said:
We're hardly limping through!

We've scored plenty of goals this season, and whilst Harris hasn't got as many as anyone would have liked, he has hassled and hurried the defence and created opportunities for others.

GO'D had an off game, but who's to say that he wasn't also suffering from illness. He wasn't alone in looking sluggish. But only a couple of games ago it was him chasing lost causes that got Leigh the chance to score, or set Tyler up to kill the game at Barnsley. He also dug in to help us hold on to results against Carlisle and Derby.

I'm not saying that anyone gets a free ride or that we shouldn't look to improve in all areas. But I'm not sure that we should be giving up based on today.
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We are ‘limping through’ in terms of goals from our three strikers - one can’t get a game, another can’t get a goal and the one who did look alright now can’t even manage a shot on goal.
 
Canadian_Yellow said:
Couldn’t agree more with Scotchegg. I assume the reason ODonkor’s performance was so sub-par today was that he was suffering from the illness that ravaged the squad and shouldn’t really have played. It seems Perkins may be injured so there was no one else. I haven’t seen every game this year but I’ve never seen O’Donkor look as laboured as he did today so I think it’s far more likely he was ill rather than he wasn’t interested.
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If he was that ill that he couldn’t manage 15 minutes of chasing then he should have informed the manager or let the manager know within a few minutes of coming on when we could have subbed him. He looked dead on his feet the minute he stepped on the pitch, it was shocking communication between player and staff if illness was the issue.
 
Canadian_Yellow said:
Couldn’t agree more with Scotchegg. I assume the reason ODonkor’s performance was so sub-par today was that he was suffering from the illness that ravaged the squad and shouldn’t really have played. It seems Perkins may be injured so there was no one else. I haven’t seen every game this year but I’ve never seen O’Donkor look as laboured as he did today so I think it’s far more likely he was ill rather than he wasn’t interested.
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To be fair he was also sluggish and slow when he came on away to Stevenage. As a fresh sub closing opponents down should be a bare minimum. Not sure what's happened to Donk when he's come on off late?
As Scotchegg has mentioned some of his cameos earlier in the season were excellent.
 
This was always going to be the problem. This is big school and sauntering around the place against a top-end side thinking we’ll get through this regardless of his efforts is extremely costly. He needed to learn these things on somebody else’s time. Hard to see what his ceiling is at the moment but something needs to click if he’s going to cut it even in the EFL. He looks like he needs to drop some muscle weight and work out what his game is.

Hard to be critical of Manning and Waldron as we had so much to do in the summer and I’m sure this wasn’t a lack of effort that found us here. Perkins isn’t working out, that’s clear. Need something lined up for first week of January or a free agent.
 
I think Perkins will be in squad this week or play Bodin in the forward roll if Harris comes off.
 
GO'D didn't look fit to play. Probably illness related. Definitely needs to go on loan to an NL club. He's not L1 standard atm. Not sure he ever will be either, but we'll see. LM needs two high end L1 forwards in January, and hopefully not loaners. But he'll be well aware of that, I'm sure.
 
Northernyellow said:
GO'D didn't look fit to play. Probably illness related. Definitely needs to go on loan to an NL club. He's not L1 standard atm. Not sure he ever will be either, but we'll see. LM needs two high end L1 forwards in January, and hopefully not loaners. But he'll be well aware of that, I'm sure.
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Loanees
 
I hope it was illness related because we were essentially playing with 10 men the moment he came on the pitch. My biggest question mark with GO'D is he always seems to be a second or two behind the play when attacking. A great cross will come in and he's not even started his run yet - where you see decent strikers already on their toes anticipating.
Watched the extended highlights - https://www.oufc.co.uk/ifollow/latest-videos/ and right at the end you can see if he'd been up with play he might have gambled on a cross coming in. This might be a harsh example but there's been maybe 4 or 5 this season where if Harris was on the pitch we'd have expected a shot on target.
 
I’m amazed that people think O’Donkor not running particularly hard is unusual. He will chase the ball and fight hard if he thinks there’s something in it for him, which makes it more noticeable in the process, but he won’t do the more ‘boring’ chasing and closing down of space. He won’t do shuttle runs. Never has.

Any player coming on for 20 minutes at most should give you the ability to press almost constantly. They don’t need to conserve their energy in the same way as someone playing from the start. If you’re coming on after 70, and especially after 80, you shouldn’t be trotting.
 
Someone said he needs to be playing more full games ,if he was playing more he still would be scoring enough .I don't think he will be playing league 1 in a few years time.
 
RyanioBirdio said:
I’m amazed that people think O’Donkor not running particularly hard is unusual. He will chase the ball and fight hard if he thinks there’s something in it for him, which makes it more noticeable in the process, but he won’t do the more ‘boring’ chasing and closing down of space. He won’t do shuttle runs. Never has.

Any player coming on for 20 minutes at most should give you the ability to press almost constantly. They don’t need to conserve their energy in the same way as someone playing from the start. If you’re coming on after 70, and especially after 80, you shouldn’t be trotting.
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I really noticed this a few weeks back, he saunters between centre backs even when they've advanced in our half, if O'Donkor is 15 yards or more away when they receive the ball, and he usually is, they've got plenty of time to use it how they like.

I get people want to like him because he's a young local lad but he doesn't give us anywhere near enough and it's another case of where our standards as a fan base should be a lot higher. He had a couple of impressive cameos when he was fed the ball into the corner and he could use his strength to hold it up for a bit but if, like yesterday, the rest of the team is too knackered to support him then he needs to affect things himself. He barely laid a glove on their defenders. When he had starts last season he was absolutely blowing after an hour or so so perhaps fitness is an issue that needs working on.

He's young and has time to improve but I commented at the end of last season that his finishing was really poor and cost us plenty of points. If he can't score, can't link play, doesn't press well and can only hold the ball up in a specific set of circumstances then we need to come up with a different plan. He may have been ill yesterday but as Ryan says his lack of pressing isn't a new thing. I said at the end of the window one of the main benefits of us signing another striker would have been being able to loan him out to non league so he gets regular starts and maybe some goals. Him coming on for 10 minutes is doing no good to anyone at the moment.
 
The trouble in this division is that if we did play with a natural finisher type, we would lose out on the pressing and runs that create space for others and we would have to adjust the midfield. Bodin up top is what I would go for if you wanted to drop Harris (which is fair enough based on the past couple of games.)

As long as goals are being scored it doesn't matter who scores them, it's simplistic to say strikers need to score goals. There's no way on earth Leigh is scoring all the goals he has had Marriott been playing up top.

What we're missing at the moment more than anything is Edwards/Browne on the left. Tyler is too young to be relied upon and nobody else is explosive enough.
 
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