its preseason joel, form is a second to fitness. Form will come with the season, right now Bolton desperately just need to get everyone fit as they have a REAL thin squad and can't afford not to be able to play everyone. Besides Joel, hes only 19, give him some time to become more consistent. For example, Henry at Monaco: 105 appearances and only 20 goals. And look at him now.
The Bolton squad returned from Spain yesterday flying out of Faro. Ricardo has stayed on as he has been called to the Under 21's
I hope he Gets some playing time. If he does, he will tear it up and I know all he needs is confidence, once he has that in himself, He will explore his true talents. "THE GREAT VAZZIE"
Ricardo in the squad for the opening game of the season tomorrow against Tottenham at 17:15 GMT. This game is being shown on Sky in the UK so I guess it will shown on the web somewhere.
he has been starting most of the pre-season, albeit on the wing, so i expect him to start. also, without gardner at left-back, they will want someone pacy to be able to track back and help cover lennon, so expect vaz te to be playin the left wing come gametime.
Although on paper he will be played on the wing and will definitely play from the left hand side, look at it more kind of like how Arsenal play Henry or how Rikjaard sometimes plays his strikers. They start from the left, but tend to move in towards the middle, which is a tendency Vaz Te shows all the time, hence why we always seem to find clips of various chances in each of his games. The more he plays, the more he can become composed and less anxious at this level, and with that will come the ability we have been longing for him to show at this level that he did with such ease in the reserves: finishing.
Bolton are leading 2-0 on Goals by Davies/Campo. Vazzie was in Front of that header. I was impressed by Vazzie's passing skills and defensive prowless. He works hard off the ball and as a Midfielder, I don't buy him Fitting in that role, He is best suited as a striker.
this is true, they have him playing as a wide forward along with diouf, with kevin davies in the center and he played well today, just not too much comming off for him offensively commentators praised his work ethic as he came off in the 80th minute.
What I do find interesting is when they get the ball forward he moves more into the center of the pitch. Still, this long ball this is annoying sometimes, you could tell that he rather the ball on the floor.
i thought ricardo played a great team game today against a very solid opponant. and showed that he was willing to help out the team in whatever way the manager needs him to. this will also ensure that allerdyce keeps finding room for him on the field, like today even at the expense of gianokopolous. who scored a lot of goals for bolton last year. obviously we all want him to score a ton of goals.... but you can never have enough guys who bust their balls for the team like that. it brought me a whole new apreciation of his overall game.
I was at the game yesterday, and can honestly say that he really did put in a team performance. He worked hard, and seemed to have more energy than last season. Although we didn't see so many of the attacking runs, his passing was excellent and he did have to track back with Lennon quite a lot. I see that you have been discussing the position he played. Bolton will play Kevin Davies as an out and out striker, but he is more of a player that flicks the ball on and tries to make things happen for the other 2 front men. Yesterday Spurs were putting 3 defenders on K.D which opened up space for Diouf and Rico. The front three swapped positions all day, and although this wasn't a fantastic performance they had too much for Spurs. This really did look like a first competitive match of the season. I will be travelling down to Fulham (London) for the game on Wednesday evening as my son is the Bolton Mascot. My son will have 20 VAZ TE on the back of his shirt. Will be nice to shake Boa Morte by the hand too. Lets hope Rico retains his starting position (which I am sure he will). There is still a lot of talk in Bolton that Borgetti is due to leave the club any day now. He wasn't even on the bench yesterday. The only front men on the bench were Stelios, who replaced Ricardo with 3 or 4 minutes of the game remaining and Johan Smith who is an academy player.
Nice shot fro Vaz which smashed against the bar with the keeper beaten. What was going on in Latvia with the lights....I guess they didn't pay the bill. I just got back from Portugal tonight..hopefully he will continue as first choice striker for the under 21's against Poland on Tuesday in Vila Nova de Guaia.
Why? Both Djalo and Varela were much better than him. He had that shot to the post and one nice dribble, that was all he did. He started like he'd actually do something, but then it seemed like he was almost scared to play up front. He doesn't have the confidence to be a goal-scorer.
Avs, hes 19 and you want him to be completely polished already. Not everyone can fulfill a vast amount of their potential as a teenager. Look at Henry, only 20 goals in over 100 appearances for Monaco. Luca Toni was nothing until his mid twenties. Ribery, who really emerged only last year and is now considered one of the hottest youths in Europe, is already 23. The list goes on and on...confidence will come as players become more accustomed to this level, give him some time before you dismiss his ability.
?? What's your point? I'm saying he got out-played by guys the same age. I'm not saying he needs to be polished, but after all the hype and rave half the people on here have made about him, you'd expect a little more. It's not about being polished, not at all, it's about people realizing that maybe he's not as good as people think. Be it his current capabilities or potential. We're not talking about him playing at Ligue 1 or the EPL, I'm talking about playing a U21 team like Latvia, where he basically was not a factor, every time he had the ball he gave it up. It's not a matter of playing more experienced players like Henry with Monaco. Luca Toni was nothing until his mid 20's because he spent his whole time playing in lower leagues. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a player of immense talent like that in Portugal stuck in the lower divisions. Look at Maybe I'd expect less if people would hype him less. I think that's quite fair.
The way you said he doesn't have the confidence to be a goal scorer made it sound like you believed that would be a permanent state for him. I just wanted to make the point that sometimes guys can just click and have it all come together so it might not be wise to dismiss him right away. Yes, I understand that he has been hyped to no end, but he can't help that. He has shown a great deal of potential at times, but he doesn't yet have the consistency no matter who the competition is, which is quite normal for his age.