There’s a lot of “Yeah but, no but, yeah but” going on here. A few too many people desperate to point out that they still think he’s shit even though he scored. What do you think will happen? That he’ll be offered a ten year deal on the back of that goal? Jeez. Everyone calm down. He scored a goal. That’s good. He’s still not Erling Haaland. That’s to be expected. But maybe that goal will help his confidence and his strike rate. Who knows? Nobody is saying he’s a world beater, and he hasn’t set the world on fire since his return to us, but he plays for us until the summer, so I don’t see the benefit of constantly digging him out.
It's because Charlton's contract renewal process is based purely on the balance of positive and negative comments on social media and people are petrified that any positive comment will be used by the club to extend his contract. 😉
If Leaburn stays Kanu and Chuks ( who I can’t see leaving ) will be the other forwards. I wouldn’t want to go into another season with Bonne as the 4th striker . He brings very little to the table so with Chuks and his track record only likely to play a handful of games we need better.
Who is better that would be prepared to be 4th choice and only olay a handful of games?
I’d argue we shouldn’t be signing a 4th choice striker. We should instead sign one or two (depending on the formation we’re looking to play) 1st choice strikers to challenge/play alongside Leaburn with Kanu, Chuks and other youngsters as back up.
Same goes for most other positions. Improving our starting 11 has to be the focus.
If Leaburn stays Kanu and Chuks ( who I can’t see leaving ) will be the other forwards. I wouldn’t want to go into another season with Bonne as the 4th striker . He brings very little to the table so with Chuks and his track record only likely to play a handful of games we need better.
Who is better that would be prepared to be 4th choice and only olay a handful of games?
I reckon we couldn’t get one worse for the dough he’d be on
If Leaburn stays Kanu and Chuks ( who I can’t see leaving ) will be the other forwards. I wouldn’t want to go into another season with Bonne as the 4th striker . He brings very little to the table so with Chuks and his track record only likely to play a handful of games we need better.
Who is better that would be prepared to be 4th choice and only olay a handful of games?
I’d argue we shouldn’t be signing a 4th choice striker. We should instead sign one or two (depending on the formation we’re looking to play) 1st choice strikers to challenge/play alongside Leaburn with Kanu, Chuks and other youngsters as back up.
Same goes for most other positions. Improving our starting 11 has to be the focus.
Not so bothered about the goals, personally, although he does obviously need to be scoring fairly consistently to justify his place in the squad. I want to see more contribution from him linking play, holding up the ball etc. In that regard, I actually thought he had a good game on Monday and subsequently deserved his goal. In his post-match interview, he seemed to allude that he was getting fitter and getting his confidence back. Holden also seems to think he is being helped by being in a more positive and supportive environment.
I am a long way off thinking we should keep him, but the Bonne we saw on Monday is more like the player that did well for us in the Championship and could be useful at this level. The question is, who is the real Macauley Bonne - are they Monday's Bonne or are they the complete waste of space that was turning out for us before Leaburn returned to the team? He's going to have to play well in every match for the rest of the season to convince me we should keep him, but I'd genuinely like to see that happen and have him prove me, and most other fans, wrong because then we'd be getting a good player for no money.
We have five games left. Where we finish, ultimately, doesn't matter so long as we are using those matches to give some clarity as to who should be staying and who should be going. Bonne is one of many where the jury is still out so why not give him that run in the side? We know all about Leaburn after all. Equally, it gives a chance for the Manager and coaching team to assess whether there is a way or system where both can play together on a regular basis.
Bonne might still not be good enough but the one thing we do know is that 20 goals a season strikers do not grow on trees. And certainly not for the sort of money that we might be prepared to pay for them. He did actually manage to score 10 times in the first 12 games of last season at this level. And then something went wrong. It might be confidence, it might be arrogance and not working at his game or it might be the system. There's really only one way of finding out.
Can't imagine that "the jury is still out," he's useless. My grandmother could have scored his recent goals.
As I say he scored 10 in 12 at the start of last season. He then went on one of his barren runs for whatever reason. Your grandmother might well have been able to score some of these but not all I suspect:
I don’t think I could stand a whole season of having to watch MB play. Saying that I’m sure some numpty in our recruitment dept will give him a three year deal.
At present we only have Miles that I’d be happy to start next season with. Bonne isn’t good enough and we’ll never see Chuks for more than a handful of games. If we’re targeting top six we need Miles plus at least two more. One of those to be considered our top striker. Anything less and we won’t score enough goals.
Simply not good enough. If we keep him we will continue on a downward spiral and fans will just drift away. Big season coming up, we need to be challenging because otherwise the decline could be terminal.
Bonne getting a contract for next season will send out the message we are trying to do things on the cheap. It will also have an impact on people considering renewing their season ticket.
Not good enough Need better if we are serious about promotion.
Can't imagine that "the jury is still out," he's useless. My grandmother could have scored his recent goals.
As I say he scored 10 in 12 at the start of last season. He then went on one of his barren runs for whatever reason. Your grandmother might well have been able to score some of these but not all I suspect:
Before that, when he was with us, he couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo, we were happy to get good money for him when we would have been happy to just wave him goodbye.
There’s fickle and the there is just deluded!! One half decent game in a dead fixture and suddenly the “maybe he’ll be on as a cheap solution” gang are out in force. Unbelievable. Bonne is National League standard if that. He has an absolute track record that’s says so. If he is in our squad for next season then I for one (and there will be many more than me) will be having a sabbatical until sanity returns.
Can't imagine that "the jury is still out," he's useless. My grandmother could have scored his recent goals.
As I say he scored 10 in 12 at the start of last season. He then went on one of his barren runs for whatever reason. Your grandmother might well have been able to score some of these but not all I suspect:
Before that, when he was with us, he couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo, we were happy to get good money for him when we would have been happy to just wave him goodbye.
I get that we all seem to have an irrational dislike for Bonne, but why are now rewriting history. He scored 11 goals in 33 games, in the championship, for a team absolutely destroyed by the craziest injury crisis I can remember.
That’s really not that bad a return, however those goals came about. Clearly QPR saw enough in that to offer a decent chunk of money, and we thought that offer was good enough return for the investment we made. Thats football.
Totally agree if we go into next season with our current striking options, then we are certainly doing it on the cheap.
But if we continue to play 4-3-3, and keep Leaburn, and invest in another proven goal scorer then if Bonne is 3rd/4th choice and saves us some money to invest more elsewhere (like a JRS replacement) - then personally I don’t really see the issue with that.
Otherwise who do we think would be a suitable 3rd/4th choice and what percentage of the budget are you willing to pay for them (baring in mind I think we need to replace Aneke as well).
If we've learned one thing over the past few seasons for sure it's that the way our luck goes we need three first team strikers not including Aneke. Leaburn has exceeded expectations but he's already picking up injuries. He's also young and will need to be managed carefully so we need a proper striker in to seriously compete with him. We then need a striker behind those two to keep pushing them on and to come in when there are injury issues as there definitely will be. Unfortunately Bonne has failed his audition this time round; when we needed him to step up and there was the slightest chance of getting into the play-offs he didn't deliver. It's a shame but I want us to sign two strikers this summer who will be seriously expecting to be the main man and make them fight over it, not re-sign someone who we know we just play if everyone else is crippled.
We've hit a backwards phase in team development where instead of putting together a serious starting 11 and then getting in new players on top of that to make previous starters backups and then filling out squad gaps we seem to be happy enough getting in players just to be backups before we've even got a starter in place. It's all over the shop. Right now most of our team would make ok backups, we could really do without signing up players who we know will join that cast. Assuming a takeover happens and someone even vaguely normal finally takes over our recruitment I want the likes of Inniss, Morgan, CBT and even Dobson to become squad players because we've got someone better in, not for us to pick up a backup RB in case Clare's legs fall off. No to Bonne, if we are going to look for a free player to pick up as a striker next season let's at least go for someone who might be great, not someone we've established won't be.
Can't imagine that "the jury is still out," he's useless. My grandmother could have scored his recent goals.
As I say he scored 10 in 12 at the start of last season. He then went on one of his barren runs for whatever reason. Your grandmother might well have been able to score some of these but not all I suspect:
Before that, when he was with us, he couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo, we were happy to get good money for him when we would have been happy to just wave him goodbye.
Scored 11 in 39 for us in the Championship.
That's more in a season at that level than any of the following at any of their clubs:
And equal to L.Taylor and I.Vetokele in the same league
I only went back to 17/18 before it became clear, he's not as shite as people think he is, but he's not good enough either. If he could move more intelligently I think he could be good, but it's a bit late in his short career for that.
It's an assumption to say that Bonne is cheap. He's just come off of Championship wages, I doubt he's now a low League One earner.
Yeah this is a good point, though I imagine wherever he ends up he’s going to have to take a wage hit.
Either way, for me, whether our budget is big or small, I’d rather allocate a bigger percentage of it towards a first team winger, central midfielder, centre back, left back, and right back than 3rd/4th choice striker.
Comments
Same goes for most other positions. Improving our starting 11 has to be the focus.
I am a long way off thinking we should keep him, but the Bonne we saw on Monday is more like the player that did well for us in the Championship and could be useful at this level. The question is, who is the real Macauley Bonne - are they Monday's Bonne or are they the complete waste of space that was turning out for us before Leaburn returned to the team? He's going to have to play well in every match for the rest of the season to convince me we should keep him, but I'd genuinely like to see that happen and have him prove me, and most other fans, wrong because then we'd be getting a good player for no money.
If he can't lift his game for thus one then he's never going to.
Bonne might still not be good enough but the one thing we do know is that 20 goals a season strikers do not grow on trees. And certainly not for the sort of money that we might be prepared to pay for them. He did actually manage to score 10 times in the first 12 games of last season at this level. And then something went wrong. It might be confidence, it might be arrogance and not working at his game or it might be the system. There's really only one way of finding out.
It will also have an impact on people considering renewing their season ticket.
Not good enough
Need better if we are serious about promotion.
That's more in a season at that level than any of the following at any of their clubs:
J.Parker
J.Stockley
J.Leko
C.Aneke
N.Ajose
L.Best
J.Magennis
L.Novak
M.Zyro
T.Watt
B.Clarke
And equal to L.Taylor and I.Vetokele in the same league
I only went back to 17/18 before it became clear, he's not as shite as people think he is, but he's not good enough either. If he could move more intelligently I think he could be good, but it's a bit late in his short career for that.
Either way, for me, whether our budget is big or small, I’d rather allocate a bigger percentage of it towards a first team winger, central midfielder, centre back, left back, and right back than 3rd/4th choice striker.