ARTICLE: Striker Hountondji joins the Clarets

[BleedingClaret]

You can tell we lost yesterday, can't you?

Yep could see it at 2pm

[boatshed bill]

Totally agree. Take 5 mins and look at the u tube video of his best bits.
He can’t play football at this level. I don’t know what Burnley were doing signing him for 4m … crazy

Presumably they saw something they feel they can work with and develop.
Generally decent strikers fetch a lot more than £4m. Give the lad a bit of time, please.

[Cooclaret]

That’ll be why Arsenal,Chelsea,Man U ,and Aston Villa haven’t brought in a decent striker then , or they actually have staff who know how to process the results.

Exactly that, they haven’t found the right profile of striker for their system or they think they have better in their academy and don’t want to buy a player that will block a development pathway on say two years time.

You can’t just take a world class striker and pop them in any teams system. You have to match them, or they need to match the coaches system.

[ecc]

"the attitude"?
Look at Cardiff's best chance last week, when they hit the post.
Don't worry about what he did wrong, just explain what he did right.

Well, huge relief for you. You won't have to watch him anymore now.

[Longsidelenny1882]

I’ll put my neck on the line he will be a decent centre forward for us uptheclarets

[Casper2]

I’ll put my neck on the line he will be a decent centre forward for us uptheclarets

Based on ?

[Longsidelenny1882]

Information I have received uptheclarets

[Rowls]

I have to say I am completely dismayed and even feeling physically sick to read the number of posts writing young players off after what amounts to a couple of minutes.

Nobody is going to claim that Hountondji had a great game the other day but neither did anyone else. It was a flat and listless performance all round. We didn't muster a single decent effort on goal. Hountondji however, did get into position to squander our best chance.

It isn't that players should be above criticism. It's not that at all.

It's that there isn't an iota of intelligence or understanding in the slating of him on here. It really is brainless and spineless stuff laying into a young player after what amounts to only a few minutes on the pitch.

We can all see the turmoil in terms of comings and goings at the club. Have any of you half-wits who are laying into the young man wondered how it feels to rock up in a foreign country, be trying to settle into a new job, to be meeting 30-40 new faces, trying to remember names etc, only to have half the people you might have started to form friendships with shipped out of the club.

Do we imagine a club where apparently half of the players don't want to be here is going to represent an easy atmosphere to settle yourself into?

Have any of you considered that Hountodnji has been thrown completely into the deep end?

Have any of you tempered you criticism with the idea that the young man might not even speak English particularly well and will also have learning a foreign language on his plate at the same time as all this.

Do anyone of you who have laid into him without holding back an inch know if he has a family or not? Are they with him? Are they also having to settle into new surroundings? I haven't got a clue. Maybe he's single, but he'll have family somewhere and maybe they're not here with him.

Have any of you who have plastered this thread with unmitigated castigation of this young lad even considered the basic and simple idea that he might be reading this himself?

Did any of you even engage your braincells to think what your harsh and ill-considered slagging off of our young player will do to his confidence?

Some of the posts on here are frankly shameful and disgusting. You are doing the work of B*stard Rovers fans for them. You are moronic, mindless idiots of the highest order.

Nobody is going to claim Hountondji had a good game against Sunderland but nobody else did. Whether the lad has it in him to be successful at this level isn't clear but by God I hope he proves you twerps and simpletons wrong.

[Longsidelenny1882]

uptheclarets

[ecc]

Excellent post, Rowls.

Totally agree with you.

Let's give him the time he needs. The men who count most are SP and his staff, closely followed by his teammates. And then, the fans.

Give the man time.

[Papabendi]

I have to say I am completely dismayed and even feeling physically sick to read the number of posts writing young players off after what amounts to a couple of minutes.

Nobody is going to claim that Hountondji had a great game the other day but neither did anyone else. It was a flat and listless performance all round. We didn't muster a single decent effort on goal. Hountondji however, did get into position to squander our best chance.

It isn't that players should be above criticism. It's not that at all.

It's that there isn't an iota of intelligence or understanding in the slating of him on here. It really is brainless and spineless stuff laying into a young player after what amounts to only a few minutes on the pitch.

We can all see the turmoil in terms of comings and goings at the club. Have any of you half-wits who are laying into the young man wondered how it feels to rock up in a foreign country, be trying to settle into a new job, to be meeting 30-40 new faces, trying to remember names etc, only to have half the people you might have started to form friendships with shipped out of the club.

Do we imagine a club where apparently half of the players don't want to be here is going to represent an easy atmosphere to settle yourself into?

Have any of you considered that Hountodnji has been thrown completely into the deep end?

Have any of you tempered you criticism with the idea that the young man might not even speak English particularly well and will also have learning a foreign language on his plate at the same time as all this.

Do anyone of you who have laid into him without holding back an inch know if he has a family or not? Are they with him? Are they also having to settle into new surroundings? I haven't got a clue. Maybe he's single, but he'll have family somewhere and maybe they're not here with him.

Have any of you who have plastered this thread with unmitigated castigation of this young lad even considered the basic and simple idea that he might be reading this himself?

Did any of you even engage your braincells to think what your harsh and ill-considered slagging off of our young player will do to his confidence?

Some of the posts on here are frankly shameful and disgusting. You are doing the work of B*stard Rovers fans for them. You are moronic, mindless idiots of the highest order.

Nobody is going to claim Hountondji had a good game against Sunderland but nobody else did. Whether the lad has it in him to be successful at this level isn't clear but by God I hope he proves you twerps and simpletons wrong.

Sadly it's this board all over at the moment and spreading to some of the more sensible and established posters also..when it comes to the running of the club. People have to accept where we are, why we are here and then put a reasonable front foot forward. Toxicity is a waste if time.

And one thing is for sure our nearest rivals will sense it on Saturday if we are not with the club 100%.

[CrosspoolClarets]

Rowls is right, this kid was 21 until a few weeks ago, he has only played in Ligue 2, no idea what the biggest stadium is, but he was suddenly thrown into a debut in front of 40,000 rowdy Mackems, playing out of position by necessity, after a week when the squad had a landmine put under them by all accounts. We should and can write off that performance completely. It's a learning experience.

Andreas, you are more than welcome, and the vast majority of us will give you a fair chance.

[GetIntoEm]

Should be no surprise rowl, same message board that slagged Trafford, amdouni, O'Shea off last year and now cry about them leaving.

Middle aged blokes should know better

[boatshed bill]

Well, huge relief for you. You won't have to watch him anymore now.

Hardly a huge relief.
I just didn't rate him as high as some posters.
I have no reason to think Worrall won't do at least as well.

[Casper2]

I have to say I am completely dismayed and even feeling physically sick to read the number of posts writing young players off after what amounts to a couple of minutes.

Nobody is going to claim that Hountondji had a great game the other day but neither did anyone else. It was a flat and listless performance all round. We didn't muster a single decent effort on goal. Hountondji however, did get into position to squander our best chance.

It isn't that players should be above criticism. It's not that at all.

It's that there isn't an iota of intelligence or understanding in the slating of him on here. It really is brainless and spineless stuff laying into a young player after what amounts to only a few minutes on the pitch.

We can all see the turmoil in terms of comings and goings at the club. Have any of you half-wits who are laying into the young man wondered how it feels to rock up in a foreign country, be trying to settle into a new job, to be meeting 30-40 new faces, trying to remember names etc, only to have half the people you might have started to form friendships with shipped out of the club.

Do we imagine a club where apparently half of the players don't want to be here is going to represent an easy atmosphere to settle yourself into?

Have any of you considered that Hountodnji has been thrown completely into the deep end?

Have any of you tempered you criticism with the idea that the young man might not even speak English particularly well and will also have learning a foreign language on his plate at the same time as all this.

Do anyone of you who have laid into him without holding back an inch know if he has a family or not? Are they with him? Are they also having to settle into new surroundings? I haven't got a clue. Maybe he's single, but he'll have family somewhere and maybe they're not here with him.

Have any of you who have plastered this thread with unmitigated castigation of this young lad even considered the basic and simple idea that he might be reading this himself?

Did any of you even engage your braincells to think what your harsh and ill-considered slagging off of our young player will do to his confidence?

Some of the posts on here are frankly shameful and disgusting. You are doing the work of B*stard Rovers fans for them. You are moronic, mindless idiots of the highest order.

Nobody is going to claim Hountondji had a good game against Sunderland but nobody else did. Whether the lad has it in him to be successful at this level isn't clear but by God I hope he proves you twerps and simpletons wrong.

Classic bedwetting

[Wembley09]

Should be no surprise rowl, same message board that slagged Trafford, amdouni, O'Shea off last year and now cry about them leaving.

Middle aged blokes should know better

They moaned about said players not being good enough for the PL.. which to be fair they weren't, like most of the squad.
But now we're in the Championship there's no doubt they'd be brilliant for us at this level (Trafford aside, still doubt him even at this level) look at Zaroury and Benson, they had fans on the edge of their seat during the promotion season. But then couldn't get into our PL squad.

So why would they be happy at selling players that would help get us out of this league? Unless we are guaranteed to get other top Championship players for cheaper and get them to gel quickly..

We saw last season ripping a team apart and rebuilding doesn't help. Even VK's first season most of the deals were done before the season started, built his squad and kept it going. In terms of outgoings that summer I can only remember McNeil being sold after the season started, and Benson & Zaroury added after it started.

2 weeks after this season has started and the spine is being ripped out.

[ClaretTony]

I’ll say what I tried to say further up this thread. Hountondji was awful on Saturday, and not the only one either, but he’s a young player, starting his first game for a new club in a new country. To top all that he was out of position. I wouldn’t judge a player on one game but I wouldn’t be judging anyone forced to play out of position in what was a shocking team performance.

[ClaretTony]

Even VK's first season most of the deals were done before the season started, built his squad and kept it going. In terms of outgoings that summer I can only remember McNeil being sold after the season started, and Benson & Zaroury added after it started.

2 weeks after this season has started and the spine is being ripped out.

We signed 16 players in the window two years ago. Vitinho was the ninth and signed the day before Huddersfield and I think came on as a substitute.

Signed after the season started were
Benson
Tella
Churlinov
Franchi
Zaroury
Dervisoglu
Beyer

Dwight signed for Everton on the day before our first game. Cornet was the one who left later.

[ecc]

Hardly a huge relief.
I just didn't rate him as high as some posters.
I have no reason to think Worrall won't do at least as well.

I think Worrall is just what we need. He's an old-fashioned pro in the positive sense. He'll relish every battle and will be a true leader whether he wears the armband or not. We had no leaders on Saturday. Presuming he does play on Saturday - unless he's injured I can't imagine him not doing so - he'll give us a huge boost.

[claretspice]

I’ll say what I tried to say further up this thread. Hountondji was awful on Saturday, and not the only one either, but he’s a young player, starting his first game for a new club in a new country. To top all that he was out of position. I wouldn’t judge a player on one game but I wouldn’t be judging anyone forced to play out of position in what was a shocking team performance.

Exactly right Tony. Noone can sensibly judge Hountondji on that evidence.

What I would add, having only seen thr highlights is that whilst he fluffed his finish for the chance that fell to him, the movement to pull off into space seemed pretty intelligent to me and exactly what you'd want from a young striker. It was a lovely cross from Vitinho but he was the only man in the box and he worked the space for himself.

[Wembley09]

We signed 16 players in the window two years ago. Vitinho was the ninth and signed the day before Huddersfield and I think came on as a substitute.

Signed after the season started were
Benson
Tella
Churlinov
Franchi
Zaroury
Dervisoglu
Beyer

Dwight signed for Everton on the day before our first game. Cornet was the one who left later.

I see. I already mentioned Benson and Zaroury.. didn't realise we'd signed Tella and Beyer afterwards. Apart from Churlinov who played a small decent roll before injury at West Brom.. I personally don't remember the others.

Let's hope this season is as successful as that one, but we've already lost more after the start of this season than that one.

[MDWat]

Exactly right Tony. Noone can sensibly judge Hountondji on that evidence.

What I would add, having only seen thr highlights is that whilst he fluffed his finish for the chance that fell to him, the movement to pull off into space seemed pretty intelligent to me and exactly what you'd want from a young striker. It was a lovely cross from Vitinho but he was the only man in the box and he worked the space for himself.

His movement in the first half was actually very good. I’d rather look for the beacons of light from that performance than anything else.

[claretonthecoast1882]

Exactly right Tony. Noone can sensibly judge Hountondji on that evidence.

What I would add, having only seen thr highlights is that whilst he fluffed his finish for the chance that fell to him, the movement to pull off into space seemed pretty intelligent to me and exactly what you'd want from a young striker. It was a lovely cross from Vitinho but he was the only man in the box and he worked the space for himself.

You could also say nobody sensible would judge Hountondji on the evidence of Saturday's game. Luckily the sensible ones haven't, the entitled ones however .......

[Pearcey]

You could also say nobody sensible would judge Hountondji on the evidence of Saturday's game. Luckily the sensible ones haven't, the entitled ones however .......

Agreed. There’s fans of a certain age that see us as an established premier league club so their expectations are higher than they should be. The lad himself said he wasn’t perfect so hopefully he progresses well.

[KRBFC]

I feel like there was a time when Burnley fans understood that someone being crap in their first proper game might not mean they weren't a real professional footballer. Maybe I'm romanticising it.

You mean like Nimani and Dane Richards?

Why did nobody make excuses for those two like they do with Foster. New league, new team, new country and all that. 18 months of poor performances simply brushed under the carpet.

Where was the same excuses for Tresor, Trafford and Amdouni actually?

Also why is Jay Rodriguez getting an easy ride? 2 goals (1 penalty) in the last year?

[bumba]

You mean like Nimani and Dane Richards?

Why did nobody make excuses for those two like they do with Foster. New league, new team, new country and all that. 18 months of poor performances simply brushed under the carpet.

Where was the same excuses for Tresor, Trafford and Amdouni actually?

Also why is Jay Rodriguez getting an easy ride? 2 goals (1 penalty) in the last year?

Jay Rod has been stealing a wage for 18 months, legs have gone