Gary Hooper (Norwich player)

* baldy bent *

 

I remember how excited I was when we signed gravesen :smiley-laughing002:

Talk about an anticlimax

 

I know I might seem naive here however...on the yahoo transfer window live, someone asked if Hooper will be a part of the Norwhich team this year and spoke quite highly of him, saying he was excited. To which, the transfer Bot said it was unlikely because (and i paraphrase) why would he leave a big club, winning titles and playing champions league football, to then go and fight it out in the doldrums of relegation? However he will go next year!

Bearing in mind Yahoo Sports have offices all over Europe - they are in the know!

Must sound like an absolute fruitcake, however I'm certain he will stay.

 

Was only about 12 when he signed and the media were going apeshit over it because we were signing a Real Madrid player. :smiley-laughing002::smiley-laughing002:

My young, naive self was fooled from the off anyway...

 

Gravesen could have been quality too if Strachan ever stopped playing 4-4-2.

It really summed up how bad a manager Strachan was and is that he signed players who couldnt play in his team. Every single game he played two up front and two attacking wide players yet he constantly signed centre-mids who couldnt play in a 2man midfield. Was * hilarious just thinking about it... Brown, HArtley, Robson, Jarosik, Donati, Gravesen, Sno fuckinhell.

 

Everyone seemed to be.The day he arrived in Glasgow was the day that TalkCeltic had the record amount of users active.

 

He is, for me he's no different to Alex McLeish. A really average manager who plays boring football, signs decent players but doesnt know how to use them.

To think we could have had a team like

Boruc
Hinkel Caldwell Balde Wilson
Donati
McGeady Gravesen Jarosik
Nakamura
Vennegoor

That team could have probably played really good possession football and Naka, Gravesen and Jarosik could have scored for fun from midfield with a bit of freedom to roam around and get forward.

But he never played Bobo and goosed all the centre-mids he ever signed by making them sit deep and barely move yet he didnt even sign players who actually done that naturally he always signed attacking players or guys who liked to float about and use the ball.

Naturally Donati liked to sit deep and spray passes about but in our 4-4-2 with Brown, he couldnt as we had ZERO movement in the middle of the park, the only thing we did was go down the wings and get balls into the box, the two centre-mids werent even allowed forward. So Donati was hampered. Brown natural game was to roam around, same as Gravesen from back to front, attack and defend, go out wide but they both again were played in the middle were they werent allowed to. Jarosik naturally played as an attacking midfielder, we used him on the wing because he couldnt play in the middle at all, basically a £30k a week quality attacking midfielder became a bench player because we couldnt play him in the team. Sno a poor mans Donati and Hartley and Robson were robust and hardworking enough to be decent in the centre of midfield but they were not the 15-20 goal a season attacking midfielders fans thought we signed.

All that could have been fixed and these players could have played and played well if we suited the tactics to their styles, instead we went ahead with basically

Boruc
Hinkel Caldwell McManus Naylor
Brown Donati

Nakamura--------------McGeady

McDonald Vennegoor

Absolutley no invention, style, quality or nothing. Just dour, boring 442, Chuckle Brothers to me to you, 1 dimensional nonsence season after season. With McGeady running down the left and crossing balls in or Caldwell punting balls up for Jan and McDonald.... after him and McManus had spent 4 and a half minutes passing it back and forth between themselves.

Strachan must have been incharge of about 220 matches and I bet we played 4-4-2 in atleast 200 of them. The only time he ventured outside a 4-4-2 was a few times he played 4-4-1-1 which was still basically a 4-4-2 when Scott Brown played off a striker in games against Benfica and AC Milan, a couple of games where Maloney played off Samaras, the Cup final where McGeady played off the striker and then a few European away games were we played a flat 4-5-1.
​

 

That actually looks like an amazing team ! :smiley-laughing002:

 

quite a good argument tbf, but he was a very successful manager for Celtic. would you rather we played better football but won nothing(ie. mowbray)?

 

Id rather he signed players to suit his team or suited his team to the players he signed, id have preferred better football.

Under Mowbray we never actually played that good a football, we wanted to and were trying to. But we never even made it mid way through the clear out or through the changes before we flung the towel in. So the job never got completed or even half completed.

It never worked as the "old guard" of Strachan players thought they were being cast aside(which they were) and obviously downed tools or werent happy and the new guys had no older established guys to bed them in as they were all in a huff that they were going to be punted asap(Caldwell, McManus, Naylor, Hartley, Robson, McDonald), it ended up a shambles.

 

WGS is a good manager, he gets every ounce of effort and commitment out of his players

What he isn't is a good tactical manager but that doesn't mean he isn't a good manager.

 

Stay on topic please guys. People come here expecting to read about Hooper not other topics.

 

okay, i think hooper sign a new contract, stay until he gets to 100 goals, then sell for a healthy profit

 

So what do you think would be a fair wage to pay Hooper?

Give him £25k, the same as Brown?
Make him the highest paid player at the club and give him £30k?
Give him what he wants within reason, £40k..ish?

There is the argument that paying him more will then create a domino effect within the rest of our squad and they will all also want a wage increase...

 

Offer to match him in wages with Brown, or even close to it.

 

Highest paid player at the club. If we can afford it, around £35k.

By far the most important player in our team for me.

 

Agree. As much as Wanyama (and probably Forster) is a better player, Hooper is much more important to us. A goal scorer is essential, a DM isn't.

 

Id be delighted if he signed but I cant see it