He is the most improved player and starting to leverage his size and strength. Hold up play now very good, more mobile and starting to give defenders a hard time keeping him in check. Now, if only he can head the ball in the opponents box (his defensive heading seems better) and if only he can have that poacher instinct in the six yard box, he would be the real deal. I can't work out though why he doesn't seem to have much chemistry with the Eze, Olise and Ayew - so he gets marginalized. They see him every day in training, so draw your own conclusions.

Had another really good game last night.. you can see he’s been working on his game..and he was unlucky not to score…

It all depends what we're looking for in a striker.

His performance as a target man last night, holding up play, bringing others into it, using his size and strength to unsettle defenders, was excellent.

However, there was more than one occasion where balls were delivered into the box and a forward with that striker's instinct would have been there to convert it. Most notably with the fantastic Olise cross in the second half that went right through the 6 yard area and nobody attacked it, I don't think he has that instinct.

I suppose my concern is that we don't score enough goals as it is and a front four of Ayew, Mateta, Olise and Eze contains two forward players who are more notable for their work ethic and defensive work in the opposition half than they are for their attacking ability.

That's quite a lot given that the team are already set up defensively. At the very least I think we need a poacher to compliment him.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold...

Another good game from JPM.

Feels like he is up for hte fight, understands his role and is playing it really well.

With goals coming from Eze and Olise there isn't the reliance on him to be scoring all the time.

Last night was a really good offensive performance and he was a big part of it

Give us £50m so we can go and buy an upgrade. Meanwhile, Mateta is improving all the time now he has been given his first real run in the team - the whole of 6 league games (previous longest starting run was just 4 games). He also had the first cup game against Everton but was rested for the second one. If he keeps performing as he has been since the Citeh game then I would hope Hodgson will allow his run of starts to continue and we will finally get to see what he is capable of.

As has already been stated, Mateta was involved in all three of our goals last night. It wasn't just the Eze and Olise show.

Edited by doombear (31 Jan 2024 10.10am)

I am not surprised with his performance. He shows up more when we are willing to attack and yesterday was one of them. For sure getting more minutes consistently is also a key. Not my cup of tea to criticize a player who plays only last 15 minutes occasionally.

I am very keen to see both him and Edouard on the field maybe at least when we fail to grab a score we want. If i am not mistaken, we did this against Wolves when he also shined. He is much more hard working than Edouard but Edouard`s goal instinct is also missed. (This offer is applicable when we are willing to attack especially at home games )

For eg i was really pissed off when Roy subbed him with Mateta on Everton game as i was keen to win the game, Roy was conservative and then they scored