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| 'not that arsed' |
It seems a childish luxury to have a favourite player these days. There's a breed of football journalism which reduces everything to statistics. This has bred a type of football fan who sees things like 'character' and 'personality' as secondary to the heat map data and the truth of the spreadsheet.
Last week's game led me to a really strange epiphany. I really like Gary Madine. I've never especially disliked the Goal Machine, but seeing his name on the sheet last week, something clicked.
I haven't made this choice deliberately. It just happened. Like falling in love.
Madine is unlike most of the rest of the squad. He's not an athlete, he's not someone who we've signed on the basis of his future potential. He's definitely not anything like any of the current Liverpool line up.
To all intents and purposes, it seems like he ended up playing on Saturday, largely by accident.
This is a squad that's been designed by transfer committee, by head coach, by a footballing ethos, by data, scouting and influenced by knowledge of elite level youth football. Nowhere did anyone think 'lump it to Big Gaz' was the master plan.
The Goal Machine fits none of the criteria by which we seem to work now. The only way to explain him is as a punt last year in the hope he could replace Super Armand when the misunderstood football genius inevitably went on to greater things. He's a signing straight out of the Larry book of football - a classic big lad up front, a throwback to days of yore, when the game plan of every team was more or less the same - get it to a big lad as often as you can and see what happens.
He's good at winning flick-ons. That's got its own reassuring quality to it. Seeing a league one striker leaping and winning it against his centre half is like hearing music from your youth. Something familiar in a sea of strange formations, goalkeepers passing the ball to full backs at goal kicks, subs benches as big as the team itself and false 9's (whatever they are)
He's got the aura of a proper striker, surly and insouciant, He's a tank of a man, someone a defender has to grapple and wrestle with to control. He plays the game at a trot, not a sprint, giving off a vibe that he'll work when it's worth working. There's something of a 'fuck off' arrogance about him which suggests he'll close down when he wants and nothing any coach tells him will make any difference.
Like all my favourite players, he's imperfect. Sometimes he has the touch of a brick, sometimes he looks like he's playing with his hands in his pockets and sometimes he misses from 6 yards. But there's the other side of him. He's got a radar like few I've ever seen and he can pass like Pirlo when he gets it right. When he's good, he's fucking great. Coming deep and winning the ball, holding off a defender and then threading or lifting it over the top with a precision that the rest of the team can only envy despite their pedigree. He plays with instinct.
Leaping in the box and actually heading it somewhere, a skill that barely anyone in the squad seems to have practised, let alone mastered. For all that his control can, on occasions, look like a ping pong ball hitting a concrete wall, there's other moments when he's got the ability to coax the ball with the delicacy of a snake charmer, killing it on his chest, or pulling it down with his feet like he's wearing carpet slippers.
He can shoot from distance, take a free kick like he means it and move around the pitch without being told where to go. In a squad of inexperienced players whose main thought is 'follow the plan', )regardless of the outcome), his free thought might appear to be insubordination but it's an essential element of any side, players who contribute to the decision making process. It's the difference between senior football and seniors pros and their youth counterparts - the ability to process the events of the game and adapt accordingly.
I'm no purist. I just like football. I like quick, swift passing, but I also like blood and thunder, I like goals scrambled home after three rebounds and I like thirty yard pile drivers. I'm not clever enough to appreciate the arguments about why Madine makes us a worse team by being obviously the best player in his position in the squad. I just like the moments in games where it feels like something might happen. The Machine might not have the stats or the attributes to be who we need him to be in order to play the way the manager wants. I don't really care - when it comes to him, there's a sense that something other than another well coached pass might just happen. It might be shit, it might be great, but it's something unexpected. He might even shoot!
I don't really care if we play like Liverpool or not to be honest. In fact, if anything, I love the way football chucks up the improbable and the unlikely. Who knew that Madine, who looks like both a truck and a truck driver, who is a weird blend of brutal strength, brilliant awareness and frustrating fallibility would be the fulcrum of the attack? I can't actually think of a less 'Critchley' type player if I tried.
I can never shake an image of him leaning on the goalpost in training, chewing a toothpick, looking like he couldn't give a fuck and whilst some might hate him for that, I can't. If anything, it makes me feel just the opposite.
We've got a lot of (very competent) session musicians in the squad. The goal machine is a Rock n Roll star.
Without a front man, it's never gonna work.
I haven't made this choice deliberately. It just happened. Like falling in love.
Madine is unlike most of the rest of the squad. He's not an athlete, he's not someone who we've signed on the basis of his future potential. He's definitely not anything like any of the current Liverpool line up.
To all intents and purposes, it seems like he ended up playing on Saturday, largely by accident.
This is a squad that's been designed by transfer committee, by head coach, by a footballing ethos, by data, scouting and influenced by knowledge of elite level youth football. Nowhere did anyone think 'lump it to Big Gaz' was the master plan.
The Goal Machine fits none of the criteria by which we seem to work now. The only way to explain him is as a punt last year in the hope he could replace Super Armand when the misunderstood football genius inevitably went on to greater things. He's a signing straight out of the Larry book of football - a classic big lad up front, a throwback to days of yore, when the game plan of every team was more or less the same - get it to a big lad as often as you can and see what happens.
He's good at winning flick-ons. That's got its own reassuring quality to it. Seeing a league one striker leaping and winning it against his centre half is like hearing music from your youth. Something familiar in a sea of strange formations, goalkeepers passing the ball to full backs at goal kicks, subs benches as big as the team itself and false 9's (whatever they are)
He's got the aura of a proper striker, surly and insouciant, He's a tank of a man, someone a defender has to grapple and wrestle with to control. He plays the game at a trot, not a sprint, giving off a vibe that he'll work when it's worth working. There's something of a 'fuck off' arrogance about him which suggests he'll close down when he wants and nothing any coach tells him will make any difference.
Like all my favourite players, he's imperfect. Sometimes he has the touch of a brick, sometimes he looks like he's playing with his hands in his pockets and sometimes he misses from 6 yards. But there's the other side of him. He's got a radar like few I've ever seen and he can pass like Pirlo when he gets it right. When he's good, he's fucking great. Coming deep and winning the ball, holding off a defender and then threading or lifting it over the top with a precision that the rest of the team can only envy despite their pedigree. He plays with instinct.
Leaping in the box and actually heading it somewhere, a skill that barely anyone in the squad seems to have practised, let alone mastered. For all that his control can, on occasions, look like a ping pong ball hitting a concrete wall, there's other moments when he's got the ability to coax the ball with the delicacy of a snake charmer, killing it on his chest, or pulling it down with his feet like he's wearing carpet slippers.
He can shoot from distance, take a free kick like he means it and move around the pitch without being told where to go. In a squad of inexperienced players whose main thought is 'follow the plan', )regardless of the outcome), his free thought might appear to be insubordination but it's an essential element of any side, players who contribute to the decision making process. It's the difference between senior football and seniors pros and their youth counterparts - the ability to process the events of the game and adapt accordingly.
I'm no purist. I just like football. I like quick, swift passing, but I also like blood and thunder, I like goals scrambled home after three rebounds and I like thirty yard pile drivers. I'm not clever enough to appreciate the arguments about why Madine makes us a worse team by being obviously the best player in his position in the squad. I just like the moments in games where it feels like something might happen. The Machine might not have the stats or the attributes to be who we need him to be in order to play the way the manager wants. I don't really care - when it comes to him, there's a sense that something other than another well coached pass might just happen. It might be shit, it might be great, but it's something unexpected. He might even shoot!
I don't really care if we play like Liverpool or not to be honest. In fact, if anything, I love the way football chucks up the improbable and the unlikely. Who knew that Madine, who looks like both a truck and a truck driver, who is a weird blend of brutal strength, brilliant awareness and frustrating fallibility would be the fulcrum of the attack? I can't actually think of a less 'Critchley' type player if I tried.
I can never shake an image of him leaning on the goalpost in training, chewing a toothpick, looking like he couldn't give a fuck and whilst some might hate him for that, I can't. If anything, it makes me feel just the opposite.
We've got a lot of (very competent) session musicians in the squad. The goal machine is a Rock n Roll star.
Without a front man, it's never gonna work.
UTMP
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