1. Andriy Shevchenko (Chelsea, £30.7 million) Carlos Bocanegra 5, Andriy Shevchenko 4. The West London shootout is being won by Fulham's American defender who, though not even a set-piece specialist, is outscoring Britain's costliest player in the Premiership. At Chelsea, the callow Salomon Kalou has struck almost twice as often. Shevchenko's occasional high-class finishes - such as his FA Cup goal against Tottenham - only heighten the exasperation with a player of undoubted quality. Sublime in Serie A, he has been poor in the Premiership. Missing the Champions League semi-final second leg, exactly the sort of match he was signed for, hardly helped but when Jose Mourinho referred, in his indictment of the players who had cost Chelsea a third successive title, of those who would fail to garner a single vote in the club's Player of the Year voting, he surely had their biggest buy in mind SOCCERNET.COM
I think the thread title is deceiving. It compares the fact that Boca has scored more League goals than Sheva, and talks about it being a "West London Shootout". It doesn't say anything about Boca being a bad signing.
that is awesome. "not even a set-piece specialist". that's the funniest thing i've read. our Yanks are really becoming a regular part of the EPL. i love it. they're using Boca's goals stats to slag Shevchenko. awesome. this is not about Boca at all. they're just using him as a means to slag Sheva.
Sheva's presence took a defender away from Drogba in Chelsea's new 4-4-2 and that resulted in the guy almost winning the PFA Player of the Year Award. Ballack was sacrificed for Lampard and played a lot deeper than he did at Bayer and Bayern. Corradi was a center-forward who got no service. If ManCity had any sort of flank play, he would have been dangerous, as he was when Pearce tried 5-3-2/3-5-2. Plus, he cost very little. Mascherano is going to the Champions League Final match with Liverpool and Pardew is going ... (hint), so this isn't really an Argentine midfielder's fault. Upson, of course, got hurt again. That was a stupid list.
Um, how would a loan signing for the worst defensive team of the "major clubs" possibly make the list? He didn't cost any money, and he hasn't exactly made their backline any worse, since that wasn't possible. McBride leads Fulham in goals every year, and Dempsey just scored the goal that ensured Fulham's place in the EPL for next year. If you include Tim Howard, Brad Friedel, Clint Dempsey, Boca, McBride, Spector, DeMerit, Onyewu, Gibbs, Hahnemann and Convey, the only two that you could say were busts were Gibbs and Onyewu (and its really only Gibbs, who is injured). Thats 9/11 at worst, most likely 10/11, and maybe even 10/10 if you exclude a team signing a chronically injured player in Gibbs and getting exactly what they should have expected. That's a pretty good success rate in my book.
Forgive me, but what do they mean by set-piece specialist? Of late, Boca almost always comes up for set pieces and has a tremendous knack to either give his teammate an opportunity through a well-placed headed pass or to finish himself. Plainly he has a knack for putting himself in position to score on set-pieces for both club (obviously this year with multiple examples) and country (several examples over the years but none sticks out to me more than than an early goal against a Kaka-led Brazil in the Gold Cup Semis in Miami). In current form, Los is almost certainly the most dangerous USMNT pool player to get onto the end of a set-piece . . . period. Congrats to Boca for a bigtime year with Fulham establishing himself as a must-start over the second half of the season.
I'm not sure what sense they meant by "set piece specialist" (possibly they meant in the sense of a specialist at taking close in set piece shots on goal), but Bocanegra certainly is such in the sense that he's always a threat to score from the service of a set piece. The only thing surprising about his scoring is that it's taken this long for Fulham to make serious use of him.
Talk about damning with feint praise. Even AMERICAN DEFENDER, Carlos Bocanegra, a mediocre talent on set pieces, scored more goals than Sheva. I love the British.
I assume they are saying he is NOT a defender who adds to his goal total by taking FKs ala Roberto Carlos,which is taking even more of a shot at Sheva.
I was just coming over here to the YA boards to post this until I saw this thread. Definitely put a smile on my face to see Bocanegra repped in the article. I believe Carlos Bocanegra leads the Premiership in goals among defenders. Does anyone have any stats to back this up?
I think in terms of value for money - no yanks should even be considered for this award. All of the transfers listed there are two million pounds or above - the exception being Bernard Corradi - but they again, they had to put a Manchester City striker in there somehow. Onyewu has failed to live up to the hype generated by US fans - but he is by no means one of the worst signings in the premierhip. BTW - I agree that Shevchenko is the #1 worst signing of the season. Yes, he made space for Drogba but he forced Mourinho to shift to an unsuccessful 4-4-2 formation. He cost 50 million dollars!!! That's a lot of money to pay for a 30 year old. Chelsea were looking for a 20+ goals per year player and 4 Premiership goals + a couple vs. Wycombe in the carling cup was not exactly what they brought him in for. I'd say Chelsea should seriously consider bringing in "set piece specialist" Boca to partner Drogba next year.
It has been ages (or earlier today, I can't remember which) now since someone posted on the thread in this forum that deals specifically with this issue... https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=532640
Thanks for the information, Scaryice. I think that's a great honor for Bocanegra, to be the top scoring defender in the Premiership. I know you're kidding and all, but John Terry is actually one of their "set piece specialists" I believe.
Set piece specialist usually refers to someone who takes free kicks, not someone who gets his head on the end of one. As noted, R Carlos could be expected to get a fair number of goals because he's taking free shots a couple times each game. Boca has to fight in the middle of the group to get a head on the ball (or a foot), so he's not expected to have chances on goal, he has to fight for them... Not diminishing the importance of the free kick taker, just saying expectations are different.
I think they meant the guy taking the free kick. But the way I read it was the penalty kick specialist because that's free goals a-plenty.
Onyewu,for a guy who was quoted as saying " Wants to redefine how the centerback position is played" , has frequently looked totally clueless from the matches I've seen him play in the EPL. He looks very slow reading the game. Gets out of position quite a lot and doesn't seem to be on the same page as his teammates. Maybe it's a team problem thing, but I expected more from a US Nat starter. I've never seen him play for his Belgian team but his form with Newcastle is schockingly bad. I hope he gets a second chance with another EPL team.