The Mail Bag
The Yak
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I've been looking at the betting sites for next season and have seen that the Yak is 66/1 to be the top scorer. Not bad odds, I think. Before I blow my whole month's pay on this, can anyone tell me if Nigeria are in the African Cup of Nations or anything like that?
James Elliott, Posted 11/07/2009 at 18:36:23
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Thanks for the heads up :)
1) The Yak is still injured;
2) He most likely won't be ready for the start of the season;
3) He will need games to get match fit;
4) The Yak is a confidence player, he goes through dry spells;
5) AFCON;
6) Moyes is unlikely to take risks with the Yak considering he has brought Jo back in;
7) Moyes prefers to play one up front, and can pick from the Yak, Jo, Saha, Vaughan, and Vic, not to mention the kids Agard and Jutkiewicz and Baxter;
8) The plethora of prolific scorers the opposition have.
The 2 cups don’t look much more attractive, 16s for the league cup, 20s for the FA cup. 5/1 to finish 5th is pretty tight too. I haven’t seen a decent season bet yet, anyone else?
Yakubu has never gone through a dry spell in his entire professional career. When he goes say 3 or 4 games without a goal he will always make up for it.
He has one of the best shot-to-goal ratios and is clearly our best striker, and I would go as far to say one of the best strikers in the world. His stats speak for themselves.
This upcoming season he will have the best service he has ever had in his career! (Maccabi Haifa, Portsmouth, Boro).
And finally I thought he had recently said he WILL be fit for the start of the season? IF the Yak is fit, to suggest Saha, Jo, Vic, Jutkiewicz etc will get a game ahead of Yakubu is absolute nonsense.
Yak is in his prime, will have the best service he has ever had and will know there’s other strikers to take his place if he doesn’t score.
I’ll wager you that Jo will have had more starts, more minutes on the park and more goals than the Yak by Christmas. I’m not criticising Yakubu here, just injecting a little reality. He is injured. He has been out for ages. It takes time to get match fit.
Incidentally Alex, you didn’t mention £18m Jo once as a possible strike partner for Yakubu. He, although only on loan, is the most expensive striker on our books. Jo and a fully fit Yak up front, now that could be special.
My thoughts on Yakubu are when he’s fit, and I think he will be. You’re doubting his fitness and that’s fair enough, but the reality is we don’t know.
I don’t think Jo will play more minutes and he certainly won’t score more goals. And based on historical evidence, Yakubu’s minutes-played/goals-scored is odds-on to be better.
You say Jo is more valuable, I think City payed too much in the first place. I consider Yakubu to be worth more — would you rather have Jo or Yak? Would you do a swap?
I agree that a Yakubu/Jo partnership would be interesting, the gamble is how long do we allow them to gel together?
Vaughan + Yakubu is definitely the partnership I look forward to.
We can’t afford to sign any more players that will be missing for up to 6 weeks of the season to go to this. The tournament is ridiculously every 2 years bang in the middle of most European seasons.
As mentioned here:
http://www.southafrica.info/2010/project2010column27.htm
He will be in the World Cup in South Africa 2010 of course, but that is in the summer... :-)
You get my gist though...
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1 Posted 11/07/2009 at 22:55:33
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