Elmander signs for Galatasaray

[BWFC_Insane]

I gather that, but will Coyle play him? Looks as though he'll have no other choice. We can't go killing academy kids by pitting them against a midfield containing a mix of Silva, Vieira, De Jong(?), Barry, Johnston, Milner and Yaya Toure..

The poor feckers'll get butchered and probably won't recover!

Marc Iles from the BN said that Elmander was injured for Saturday's game at Blackpool but was there to watch.

So I imagine if he's fit Elmander will be involved.

too bloody right he will - we've paid him - it's his fecking job!!!!

Aye but to be fair you can see the argument that as he's definitely offski its a chance to give someone else a chance to earn a contract, who might stay. Or a young lad some experience at least from the bench.

I'd like him to play though, simply because I slated him for 2 years but this season he's proven me wrong and I'd like to applaud him for his efforts for BWFC and thank him for his time here.

[TKIZ!]

He won't be a Galatasaray player until 1st of June, Sampions Lig Basterds

[Bijou Bob]

i feel sorry for Elmo in some respects. Looking at his Youtube clips it was clear that he's a striker who likes a ball on the floor played between the 2 centre backs that he ran onto and through. Since campo left, we've not had a midfield player who could pick out that ball through the middle. In effect, he's ben wasted because we've never played to his strengths.

At the beginning of this season, he started to get the ball he needs much more often as a result of Coyle changing the way we played. result, he gets into double figures.

Thanks from me but no sentimentality, let's move swiftly on.

[TKIZ!]

I certainly won't be booing him on Sunday and hope he at least tries to sign off by scoring a hat-trick against the Blue s****

[HMX]

Had a dream last night that I was at the last match and we all cheered, clapped and sang his name as he left the pitch.

Clearly a dream.

[m_taylor]

I gather that, but will Coyle play him? Looks as though he'll have no other choice. We can't go killing academy kids by pitting them against a midfield containing a mix of Silva, Vieira, De Jong(?), Barry, Johnston, Milner and Yaya Toure..

The poor feckers'll get butchered and probably won't recover!

Marc Iles from the BN said that Elmander was injured for Saturday's game at Blackpool but was there to watch.

So I imagine if he's fit Elmander will be involved.

too bloody right he will - we've paid him - it's his fecking job!!!!

Aye but to be fair you can see the argument that as he's definitely offski its a chance to give someone else a chance to earn a contract, who might stay. Or a young lad some experience at least from the bench.

I'd like him to play though, simply because I slated him for 2 years but this season he's proven me wrong and I'd like to applaud him for his efforts for BWFC and thank him for his time here.

[Whookam]

I can't see him putting any kind of effort in if he plays as he'll want to stay fit. An injury could mess up his move.

[Tombwfc]

Hard cold fact is that Elmander is our top scorer this season despite being totally shite, uninterested and useless and playing in midfield for half the season.

I do wonder what that says about Kevin Davies who has had the luxury of playing up front all season and taking the penalties!

It says Davies is pretty shit in front of goal as far as strikers go, which we've all known for years. Davies rarely gets himself in goalscoring positions, despite being a striker, I'm not sure it's even really his job to be in those positions, his role in the team is surely creating chances.

You could spin that round and say when you're playing alongside Kevin Davies who statistically creates more goalscoring chances than any player in the Premier League (think he was about 20 chances ahead of 2nd placed Malouda at the last check) then should Elmander not be scoring significantly more goals? Sturridge manages it and he's not had the luxury of two years learning how to play alongside Kevin Davies.

I think the difference between the two is that Davies has other elements to his game, Elmander works hard and misses a lot of chances. Sure he put some in and is our top goalscorer, but still not at the rate you need your goalscoring striker to be firing them in at- which is why he was moved into midfield.

10 in 36 is just about acceptable. But it's the same that I'd expect most half-decent strikers in the Premier League to come in and get 1 every 3 and a half games, too.
His previous seasons of 5 in 30 and 3 in 25 are obviously shite.

Davies has (I'm not sure how they calculate it) apparently created more goal-scoring opportunities than anyone, but he's still credited with the same number of assists. In terms of linking up with Sturridge, Davies has yet to be credited with an assist for a goal scored by Danny, while Elmander has set up two (although I'd say Davies had more than a hand in creating Sturridge's first against West Ham).

10 in 36 being 'just about acceptable' doesn't seem right really, considering I think only four players in our history have scored 10 goals in a Premier League season (Anelka, Ricketts, Davies, Taylor). A whole host of strikers haven't managed that and presumably they didn't spend the entire second half of the season playing in midfield.

He was never worth £8.2mil, but that money is long gone. He was an important part of our team this season and it's a blow that he's decided not to stay. Whatever his faults, he's always worked hard and tried his best for the team. He doesn't deserve the negative reaction nice people (who don't want him to stay anyway) will give him on Sunday.

[HMX]

Hard cold fact is that Elmander is our top scorer this season despite being totally shite, uninterested and useless and playing in midfield for half the season.

I do wonder what that says about Kevin Davies who has had the luxury of playing up front all season and taking the penalties!

It says Davies is pretty shit in front of goal as far as strikers go, which we've all known for years. Davies rarely gets himself in goalscoring positions, despite being a striker, I'm not sure it's even really his job to be in those positions, his role in the team is surely creating chances.

You could spin that round and say when you're playing alongside Kevin Davies who statistically creates more goalscoring chances than any player in the Premier League (think he was about 20 chances ahead of 2nd placed Malouda at the last check) then should Elmander not be scoring significantly more goals? Sturridge manages it and he's not had the luxury of two years learning how to play alongside Kevin Davies.

I think the difference between the two is that Davies has other elements to his game, Elmander works hard and misses a lot of chances. Sure he put some in and is our top goalscorer, but still not at the rate you need your goalscoring striker to be firing them in at- which is why he was moved into midfield.

10 in 36 is just about acceptable. But it's the same that I'd expect most half-decent strikers in the Premier League to come in and get 1 every 3 and a half games, too.
His previous seasons of 5 in 30 and 3 in 25 are obviously shite.

Davies has (I'm not sure how they calculate it) apparently created more goal-scoring opportunities than anyone, but he's still credited with the same number of assists. In terms of linking up with Sturridge, Davies has yet to be credited with an assist for a goal scored by Danny, while Elmander has set up two (although I'd say Davies had more than a hand in creating Sturridge's first against West Ham).

10 in 36 being 'just about acceptable' doesn't seem right really, considering I think only four players in our history have scored 10 goals in a Premier League season (Anelka, Ricketts, Davies, Taylor). A whole host of strikers haven't managed that and presumably they didn't spend the entire second half of the season playing in midfield.

He was never worth £8.2mil, but that money is long gone. He was an important part of our team this season and it's a blow that he's decided not to stay. Whatever his faults, he's always worked hard and tried his best for the team. He doesn't deserve the negative reaction tw*ts (who don't want him to stay anyway) will give him on Sunday.

That's the way I see it, too.

[hisroyalgingerness]

His previous seasons of 5 in 30 and 3 in 25 are obviously shite.

But is that his fault or his previous manager's?

Megson, do keep up dear boy

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Interesting how many rule out the "first two seasons". Coyle came more or less halfway through Elmander's contract.

Anyway, I'm sad to see him go mainly because he'll be hard to replace in what's already a big summer. He's the kind of player we need around the place: versatile, intelligent and hard-working. He never recovered from the expectation his pricetag brought because he so seldom threatened to live up to it – how many times did he look like an £8m player?

I never agreed with the barrackings, and I don't even hold the semi-final against him. Some players have been known to storm out if they don't play in their preferred position; that's not Elmo's style, as has been proven for years when shunted out wide by Sweden. Central midfield has been a bridge too far, especially in a 4-4-2, but I did think that he could have been an important bridge in the tactical flexibility we will simply have to employ if we're ever to win away again.

He'll be hard to replace, and those who would jeer him - after BWFC had withdrawn from negotiations, mind - need to remember that.

[BWFC_Insane]

I still think the 8M in comparison to lots of other players signed isn't bad value. Ok he was poor last season and struck by injuries first season but this season he's shown his ability and potential. Lets put it into perspective, Torres cost 50M so more than 5 times what Elmander did. His return in one of the top sides hasn't even matched Elmanders dissapointing first season! So I don't think his fee was that ridiculous in the grand scheme of things. For a club like us he was probably the wrong age to spend that sort of money on. And in the future I doubt we'll spend that kind of money again, but that doesn't mean based on the market we "massively overpaid" for Elmander!

[thebish]

He'll be hard to replace, and those who would jeer him - after BWFC had withdrawn from negotiations, mind - need to remember that.

Bruce will be throwing fruit - and (classy gourmand that he is) - it'll be in cans!!

[officer_dibble]

I think, given the lad has been used in midfield since Chungy f*cked off to South korea (December) he's done pretty well scoring as many as he did this season.

Waste of space before it mind. Still I think we all know how badly he was utilised by the ginger one.

Its a shitter he's going because (a) we never got £8 million worth of usage out of him, and mainly (b) cos he's another to replace (so thats 2 new centre forwards we need to play with either each other or 1 of the 2 elder statesmen next season).

I can't say I wish him the best of luck, cos if he does perform miracles in Turkey I'll be bloody pissed off...though happy enough for our favourite turkish visitors I guess. I don't really care how he gets on when he leaves truth be told, he aint going to a rival and we'll never see him back at the Reebok again so why worry?

Who's in next?

Would kill for the elk back if Sturridge has dis lodged him from the pecking order there.

[jimbo_bwfc]

I still think the 8M in comparison to lots of other players signed isn't bad value. Ok he was poor last season and struck by injuries first season but this season he's shown his ability and potential. Lets put it into perspective, Torres cost 50M so more than 5 times what Elmander did. His return in one of the top sides hasn't even matched Elmanders dissapointing first season! So I don't think his fee was that ridiculous in the grand scheme of things.

Comparing the Elmander deal as not being ridiculous in comparison to possibly one of the worst pieces of business made in the history of modern football* doesn't say much!

*Although the big difference is Torres has proven his pedigree at a top level and will probably eventually go on to do the business. Elmander hadn't really done anything before he came to Bolton to suggest he was an 8M player (or more importantly a goalscorer- which is what we needed at the time).

Not that the two deals are really comparable. Chelsea can probably afford to blow 50M on the chance that Torres would rediscover his best form, can we just write off 8.2M plus another 7-8M in wages? Judging by our crippling debts, it probably wasn't the wisest of moves!

I take your point about him not being overpriced in comparison to other players in a similar sort of range as him on the continent though. Although it's probably worth remembering Elmander was also beginning the last 12 months of his contract with Toulouse too which theoretically should have added to our bargaining power.

I'm not sure how much effort went into scouting him because he certainly wasn't in the right mould for Gary Megson BWFC both technically or mentally. The season before he joined us, presumably the season which confirmed to Gartside/Megson that we should spend all our money on this guy, he was outscored by David Bellion, surely then alarm bells should have been ringing not to be throwing all our eggs into one basket.

(For the record I'm not blaming Elmander for all of this- I think he has to be held partly responsible for his performances on the pitch but the board who sanctioned the amounts paid, Megson/the board who identified the signing and Megson again who mismanaged him and ground down what little confidence he had to begin with are culprits who share big chunks of the reason that the deal failed on such a huge scale)

[Lord Kangana]

So in short, we overpaid for him and the damage was already done before Coyle could really get to grips with him. And theres no way we could match the over inflated wages somebody saw fit to give him with a contract extension.

In a nutshell?

[truewhite15]

So in short, we overpaid for him and the damage was already done before Coyle could really get to grips with him. And theres no way we could match the over inflated wages somebody saw fit to give him with a contract extension.

In a nutshell?

Sounds about right, yeah.

[Athers]

I've been pro-Elmander all the way through and can't be bothered with a passionate defence of him as this argument will probably run on forever, but to sum up:

Bad value - yes.

Bad player - no.

[AimsHolden]

Just thought I'd chirp in and say I'm absolutely over the moon with this news. Granted, Johan was 'The one to watch' at the start of the season but noone can forget his first season at Wanderers. He did nothing. infact that's possibly an understatement and now he's gone back the same way. He's lazy and I really don't like him! What's the deal with this signing anyway?

[HMX]

See, I never thought Elmo was lazy - I thought he usually worked his socks off but could have been stronger.