Current Player Thread Gatlin O'Donkor

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39.Gatlin O'Donkor

Position: Forward
Nationality: England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿
Departed: DATE
Previous Clubs: Bristol Rovers (Loan), Barnet (Loan), Oxford City (Loan)
Instagram: gatlin._
 
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Unsure what’s happened to O’Donkor, is it injury ? I think it was under Manning where he was getting a bit of a reputation for coming on late in games, when we had a slender lead, and doing a really good job at shielding the ball and taking it into the corners to see games out. OK, you can’t carve a career out of doing that but I thought it was all part of his development and a sign of growing awareness in his game, allied with an important aspect of any strikers armoury - backing into defences and retaining possession. He was improving game by game and looking a bit of handful but then he goes out on loan and pretty much never seen again by us fans. Strange one.
 
dickwalton1964 said:
Unsure what’s happened to O’Donkor, is it injury ? I think it was under Manning where he was getting a bit of a reputation for coming on late in games, when we had a slender lead, and doing a really good job at shielding the ball and taking it into the corners to see games out. OK, you can’t carve a career out of doing that but I thought it was all part of his development and a sign of growing awareness in his game, allied with an important aspect of any strikers armoury - backing into defences and retaining possession. He was improving game by game and looking a bit of handful but then he goes out on loan and pretty much never seen again by us fans. Strange one.
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Only if you consider taking a ball into the corner and shielding it for a couple of minutes - and very little else - is a required skill for a Championship striker.
 
TailsWeWin said:
Only if you consider taking a ball into the corner and shielding it for a couple of minutes - and very little else - is a required skill for a Championship striker.
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You seen Mark Harris ? Could O’Donkor have scored more than two this season or one in three quarters of a season last campaign ? We will never know the answer to that but I think he’d have gone close. I did say he can’t carve a career out of taking it into the corners, my point more was that it was an aspect that was an improvement in his game - something to work on and look to kick on in other areas of his game.
 
saw him play up front in an academy or u21 game at the training ground, in the early part of this season. IMO he was head and shoulders the best player on the pitch, went off injured in the 2nd half ( if memory serves was tag team clatered by 2 opponents), it didnt look that serious, albeit I wonder, in retrospect, if that was when he picked up this (apparrently) long term injury?
 
Sarge said:
saw him play up front in an academy or u21 game at the training ground, in the early part of this season. IMO he was head and shoulders the best player on the pitch, went off injured in the 2nd half ( if memory serves was tag team clatered by 2 opponents), it didnt look that serious, albeit I wonder, in retrospect, if that was when he picked up this (apparrently) long term injury?
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I just think he could be a decent alternative up front. If we took any of our strikers out of the equation then we aren't really going to miss the goals. Harris doesn't really hold the ball up either so what do we miss ? The much heralded press maybe. If I was the manager I'd be trying everything with every forward on the books to try and get a tune up front. You can see with us that sometimes we just need, in the nicest sense, a bit of a lump up there to create a bit of discomfort for defences. Lankshear is a good player and can finish but he can be a bit headless too, hence Saturday. Not suggesting O'Donkor is yet anywhere near the answer in the long term but would he have been any less productive than Bradshaw was in his 15 minute cameos.
 
I’m sorry but GOD isn’t anywhere near the standard that we need. Not this year, not next year if we get relegated.

He needs to be released and build his career back up. Loan isn’t the answer; he’s not a kid anymore.
 
Finlandia said:
I’m sorry but GOD isn’t anywhere near the standard that we need. Not this year, not next year if we get relegated.

He needs to be released and build his career back up. Loan isn’t the answer; he’s not a kid anymore.
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I find it amazing when fans just write off a young player's career. it's a bit like when people said Bradshaw wasn't good enough to get another club in the football league only to then sign for Barnsley in league 1.
 
Steve Gilbert said:
I find it amazing when fans just write off a young player's career. it's a bit like when people said Bradshaw wasn't good enough to get another club in the football league only to then sign for Barnsley in league 1.
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I don't think most people are writing him off, more saying that he needs to play and develop at a level appropriate to his current abilities and experience, and then hopefully work his way up again.
 
Steve Gilbert said:
I find it amazing when fans just write off a young player's career. it's a bit like when people said Bradshaw wasn't good enough to get another club in the football league only to then sign for Barnsley in league 1.
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Where does he go? He’s in his early twenties; had loans and not impressed. Comparison to Bradshaw isn’t in anyway relevant. He’s had a good career at a high level, GOD hasn’t.
 
Steve Gilbert said:
I find it amazing when fans just write off a young player's career. it's a bit like when people said Bradshaw wasn't good enough to get another club in the football league only to then sign for Barnsley in league 1.
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I think Barnsley were signing a known quantity, who has been a good player for them before and might be good enough for L1 still.

Whether GoD ever gets to that standard is debatable. Perhaps he needs to restart lower down and rebuild his confidence and his career. He is only 21, but you would have thought that in order for his career to flourish, it probably needs to be somewhere else. Personally, despite really wanting him to be a success (since developing our own youngsters is surely something we need to improve), I have seen very little that suggests he is going to make it at the higher levels of the game. I hope I am wrong.
 
Finlandia said:
Where does he go? He’s in his early twenties; had loans and not impressed. Comparison to Bradshaw isn’t in anyway relevant. He’s had a good career at a high level, GOD hasn’t.
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He has had two loans, did well at Barnet who were doing well in the national league at the time but struggled at Bristol Rovers who were relegated from league one.

Needs to go back to the national league for me, at that stage now where proper game time is the only way forward for him.
 
holdsteady said:
He has had two loans, did well at Barnet who were doing well in the national league at the time but struggled at Bristol Rovers who were relegated from league one.

Needs to go back to the national league for me, at that stage now where proper game time is the only way forward for him.
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Agree that he needs to go out, but if he ends up in the NL, at his age he isn’t coming back to play for us.
 
People seem to have very well defined opinions on O'Donkor.

Which I find really curious, considering we basically haven't seen anything of him for two years. In fact, it's more like three years if we're talking anything approaching significant minutes - and he was only 18 then.

What's more - he looked excellent back then. He really did.

I find it odd that someone who showed himself to be very competent in League One at the age of 18 is now dismissed as a non-league player.

As someone who was only watching Oxford last season (and certainly not moonlighting in north Bristol) I can't call it definitively the other way either - but I'd be wary of dismissing his potential outright (and certainly with anything close to the clarity that others seem to be doing).
 
Finlandia said:
Agree that he needs to go out, but if he ends up in the NL, at his age he isn’t coming back to play for us.
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Thinking more for his career, a good loan could get him a move to a national/league 2 team next season. He is a footballer, at some point you actually have to play football, he is hitting that point.
 
When is he out of contract. Probably would be released I would think as he hasn’t broken through into the first team squad. Harsh but you only get a small window to make it and unfortunately he hasn’t.
 
If he has a long term injury then that would explain not getting a loan to finish this season but he really needs game time to stay relevant so the NL is his only option at the moment (unless Des could make use of him but I've no idea if their window is still open). How about James Henry mentoring him at Aldershot?
 
werthersoriginal said:
I don't think most people are writing him off, more saying that he needs to play and develop at a level appropriate to his current abilities and experience, and then hopefully work his way up again.
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As a young player trying to forge a career in football you would think he would have been banging on the managers door requesting or demanding either game time or a loan out. You would have thought his agent should also have been pushing hard on his behalf as well, but it looks like he is just simply happy to take a wage and run his contract down. No enthusiasm at all.
No time for sentiment, we have to move on.
 
Slade Yellow said:
As a young player trying to forge a career in football you would think he would have been banging on the managers door requesting or demanding either game time or a loan out. You would have thought his agent should also have been pushing hard on his behalf as well, but it looks like he is just simply happy to take a wage and run his contract down. No enthusiasm at all.
No time for sentiment, we have to move on.
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How could you possibly know whether he or his agent has or hasn't been knocking on the manager's door? Although given that he's supposedly injured, it would be a rather futile exercise if he did
 
Boris said:
How could you possibly know whether he or his agent has or hasn't been knocking on the manager's door?
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Presumably (somewhere on a new build estate in the 'shire), O'Donkor, Greg Leigh and Hidde ter Avest are sat, each with a cigar in one hand, bottle of champagne in the other, in a hot tub laughing at us all whilst refusing to play football for anyone, anywhere, because they don't give a flying f*ck.

That, or a combination of injuries/ the current manager not particularly fancying them/ deals elsewhere not panning out have meant they're still here, willing and able - but struggling to be of use - through no fault of their own.

Of course, Option 1 is more salacious.
 
Slade Yellow said:
As a young player trying to forge a career in football you would think he would have been banging on the managers door requesting or demanding either game time or a loan out. You would have thought his agent should also have been pushing hard on his behalf as well, but it looks like he is just simply happy to take a wage and run his contract down. No enthusiasm at all.
No time for sentiment, we have to move on.
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Would be a bit embarrassing if an injured player was demanding game time or to go out on loan when they aren’t fit.
 
MiddleBartonYellow said:
When is he out of contract. Probably would be released I would think as he hasn’t broken through into the first team squad. Harsh but you only get a small window to make it and unfortunately he hasn’t.
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It has never been said if he signed the extension offered to him last summer. We triggered an optional extension through to the end of this season but also offered a longer term deal, but never announced whether it was signed.

So he's either out of contract in May or another year (or more)
 
Sadly out of the Senior Cup again -when did we last win that even with the youngsters
 
GOD scored for the OUFC youth/ young team in last nights Ox Senior cup late 3-2 defeat v Ox City - something MBs first choice first team squad have collectively failed to do in Oxford, since MB has been here!
 
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