Look, despite what the knacker element of our fans think-you know, the uber-fans who sieze on any slight positive about Shinton and say how good he is and crucify anyone who disagrees-it's time to have a proper striker leading the line and not either Joe Shinton or ASM.
Gayle is, despite all his shortcomings, a proper striker. Like most on here, I'm not over-keen on him because he's just not up to it as a Premier League striker. Chimpo, aye, but PL central defenders are, by and large, up to the task of keeping him quiet. Plus, he needs an awful lot of chances to score just once so even when he gets a chance, his conversion rate is poor.
BUT, what he does offer is instinct-he knows where to be and when to be there. We've all seen the clips of Joe Shinton lumbering into the box about half an hour after he should have been there. Plus, for a powerful unit, he shoots like Luuk de Jong used to-weak as piss. I think if we'd been playing with Gayle up front on Saturday, he would have taken one of those chances and we'd have won.
No, he's not the ideal choice-far from it-but he's the best alternative we've got imo.
Mind, the fact that we extended his contract and Bruce said we have enough cover up front-yet he won't play him is...ah, well, that's for another thread. We can slag off Bruce elsewhere-this is intended as a footballing discussion thread. Anyone got an alternative-or is prepared to go to bat for Joe Shinton? ;)
