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Ajose

John William

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May be time to put Sonny Cox on the subs bench?
I was thinking the same. Give him 10 minutes if we are winning comfortably (not that the latter seems likely at the moment, but you never know).
 

Grecian Max

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I mean it's good to finally hear Taylor talk about the situation but it doesn't really help.

Also, whenever this has come up, some people have been claiming there is no rift - and I had sort of accepted that as a purely professional reason - however the language leads me to believe otherwise

“Every player is part of my plans if they adjust themselves accordingly,” Taylor said. “Nicky’s not been unlucky, he had his injury and then couldn’t quite get himself going last season and his game has struggled."
MT clearly not impressed with how Ajose has applied himself and then the first dig about it not being unlucky (so therefore the player's fault)

“Let’s be honest, he was brought in for his dynamic movement and his threat against the opposition backline and we didn’t see that consistently enough last season. Then we made a conscious decision as a club to back the likes of MJ (Matt Jay) and Ben Seymour, hence why Nicky has fallen behind them."
Firstly, the Ajose I saw for Swindon was a fox in the box, not a Stanno runner. Clever movement, yes, and not slow but I wouldn't have signed him for his dynamism...

I think the second part is fair - and MJ has benefited massively from being a starter this season so perhaps that was a gamble I could get behind but Seymour hasn't worked out and continues to disappoint. This is where you have to question decision making because Seymour has had opportunities and it's not worked, so basically there was no way back for Ajose whatever he did

“With the way that we’ve been playing, with pacy players, we need a physical presence at the top end of the pitch, so you can say he’s been unlucky, or not taken his opportunities when they have been presented.
But wait! We changed system and there wasn't an obvious spot for him (again, fine we play better with that central CF) - and suddenly he IS unlucky?! So which is it?? As for opportunities taken, he's been consistently of a higher standard than Seymour.

“He is not comfortable on there but, sometimes, you have to catch a manager’s eye by training well and he is not having the opportunity to do that at the moment.”
And the astro turf dig - which is thinly veiled. As others have pointed out this would have been known when signing him. This isn't an excuse I'm afraid, it's well known that players with knee injuries can struggle on astro.

A bizarre episode that is hopefully over soon. Please be a 2 year contract so we can move on.
 

C j phill

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I wonder how expensive this has been over the past two seasons. I assume MT means Ajose staying with us for the remainder of the current season, rather than extending in to next season......
 

Grecianpasty

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I mean it's good to finally hear Taylor talk about the situation but it doesn't really help.

Also, whenever this has come up, some people have been claiming there is no rift - and I had sort of accepted that as a purely professional reason - however the language leads me to believe otherwise


MT clearly not impressed with how Ajose has applied himself and then the first dig about it not being unlucky (so therefore the player's fault)



Firstly, the Ajose I saw for Swindon was a fox in the box, not a Stanno runner. Clever movement, yes, and not slow but I wouldn't have signed him for his dynamism...

I think the second part is fair - and MJ has benefited massively from being a starter this season so perhaps that was a gamble I could get behind but Seymour hasn't worked out and continues to disappoint. This is where you have to question decision making because Seymour has had opportunities and it's not worked, so basically there was no way back for Ajose whatever he did



But wait! We changed system and there wasn't an obvious spot for him (again, fine we play better with that central CF) - and suddenly he IS unlucky?! So which is it?? As for opportunities taken, he's been consistently of a higher standard than Seymour.



And the astro turf dig - which is thinly veiled. As others have pointed out this would have been known when signing him. This isn't an excuse I'm afraid, it's well known that players with knee injuries can struggle on astro.

A bizarre episode that is hopefully over soon. Please be a 2 year contract so we can move on.
As you say, it's good that MT has spoken about the situation. For me though it leaves more questions than answers. If he had a prepared statement this would have benefitted him. He doesn't have a responsibility to tell the fans that he isn't training, so it has to be a personal dig at him.
 

IndoMike

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The simple answer is that Matt took a big gamble on Ajose rediscovering his Swindon form of around 5 years ago and overcoming his injury problems but it didn't pay off.
You could say it was quite a big mistake, but Matt can hardly say that when the player is still at the club.
So Matt is caught between a rock and a hard place and when asked about it he's a bit snookered.
To be fair, football at all levels is littered with cases like this: even Sir Alex made some big mistakes signing some players. Brian Clough signed Trevor Francis for
a record transfer fee and then didn't play him for ages etc etc etc.
 

memoman

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Ultimately it's Taylor's record with signing strikers which is why we're still in League Two. Bowman's the only one who's been half-decent.
 

Grecian Max

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Ultimately it's Taylor's record with signing strikers which is why we're still in League Two. Bowman's the only one who's been half-decent.
Forte was a good signing. He'd been doing a great job up until a career ending injury. We'd had Stockley at the beginning of his first season so wasn't like he was going to bring anyone else in within the August window after Abrahams with with MJ around too. Replaced with Bowman which as you say was decent business. He's not actually signed that many strikers tbh so think this comment is a bit off.

I also think that's a pretty simplistic viewpoint, remember we were 4th with a number of games to play and 3pts behind Argyle (with the derby coming up) before the season was taken from us. Had it been a week or so before and we'd be in L1.
 

Grecianpasty

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With having Signed stubbs I truly believe that whatever signing MT makes up top will define our season. Bowman really needs some competition to maintain consistency In either players performances.
 

memoman

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Forte was a good signing. He'd been doing a great job up until a career ending injury. We'd had Stockley at the beginning of his first season so wasn't like he was going to bring anyone else in within the August window after Abrahams with with MJ around too. Replaced with Bowman which as you say was decent business. He's not actually signed that many strikers tbh so think this comment is a bit off.
Yes I forgot about Forte - he was a good player and we were unfortunate with his injury - but apart from those two it's not been great. Lee Martin was disappointing, as are Fisher and Ajose. Wilson and Abrahams didn't pull up any trees either.

I also think that's a pretty simplistic viewpoint, remember we were 4th with a number of games to play and 3pts behind Argyle (with the derby coming up) before the season was taken from us. Had it been a week or so before and we'd be in L1.
I don't really buy this. We were in poor form (one win in five) and our 53 goals were considerably less than the top three. Had our much-hyped marquee signing of that pre-season proved successful, we'd have scored enough goals to go up. Instead it was left largely up to Bowman with others chipping in and we fell short.
 

Grecian Max

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Form is form, I still think we would have been up for and beaten Argyle. Villa stayed up after the restart - they looked dead and buried so you really can't predict.

We'll never know.
 
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