Sorry to bring a third Simon Church thread to the forum in the space of 3 days, but I got engaged in a discussion with another lifer who felt Simon was getting unfairly criticised. Out of curiosity, I asked him to start a Simon Church support thread to see what reaction it gets. I can't wait that long, so here it is, a thread for all those who want lifers to lay off Simon. Over to you....
2
Comments
However, that doesn't stop me thinking he's utter rubbish.
That's what a forum is about isn't it?
Seem to remember Palace used Danny Butterfield as a standin and it worked.
I am not being dramatic or rude when I say that we have absolutely no strikers in our squad that are worthy of the Championship, Church and Pigott wouldn't cut it in league 1 either.
I'd rather see us try something then have the rubbish we currently have up front.
;-)
Similarly, when we had the likes of Francis, McCormack and Mooney, all of whom were rubbish for us, I didn't think it was right to boo them because it wasn't their fault that they were the best we could afford.
Putting aside the rights and wrongs of it, it's so utterly counter-productive getting on your own players backs as it adversely affects their performance. The Simon Francis who played against us for Bournemouth the other week looked a whole lot better than the one who turned out for us - wonder if that's got anything to do with not having his own supporter's constantly telling him how crap he is.
Thats how we do it right?
this
I don't rate him at all, but if he plays there won't be anyone wanting him to score more than me.
Same applies with church, no matter what you think of him he's certainly not sitting at home all week figuring out how he's going to play badly at the next match. No matter what it looks like I'm sure he's trying to play well
If you really don't think he should be on the pitch then your problem should be with Riga and previously Powell. The player himself however should get 100% support every time he pulls on the shirt
Now, he has played a lot of games recently – but what did Jacko do on Saturday. He put in a couple of awful corners – didn’t get up at all and I don’t recall him completing a pass. Was Church worse than him on Saturday? Harriot didn’t take anybody on – he was surely in the team to beat players, but instead checked back and passed, posing no attacking threat whatsoever – did he play better than Church?
The photo on this site showing him going for a header with Spongebob’s head superimposed – well that was actually one of our better moments in the game and a decent header! I’m just calling it as I saw it.
We have previous as a club for getting on the bandwagon and scapegoating a player and it achieves absolutely nothing. So if Church was sold, I wouldn’t be protesting – but as long as he puts the effort in and wears the shirt – he has my support. Yes, I might prefer him not to be picked, but if he is picked, I’ll support him. And so should everybody else.
Churchy has received way too much stick, should never be ridiculed on the pitch and to be fair he is a good pro with many strengths.
Its just that scoring goals from nothing is not one of them and that is what we desperately need now for survival.
I think that's why he is singled out. If Sordell, Obika or anyone was scoring and Churchy was putting in a good shift and offering the odd assist no-one would care. But we need goals when we create little and we have all seen him miss those few chances we do create with weak and lame attempts.
The only player who might just create something from nothing, is not afraid to shoot and has more confidence in his own ability that anyone else in the stadium is Reza. If we gave him 100% support it might actually result in a goal or two where as 100% for Churchy would only be out of kindness and loyalty.