Ayew's on loan and played one game - the jury is still out.

Sorloth has not started really - Benteke has been backed. There is a chance Sorloth could be okay - he is not old.
Benteke is quite old and is certainly not as good currently as FFS so there is a point there.
Wickham may even recover one day - although seems increasingly unlikely he will be any good after 2? years out.

Red and Blue Army!

Look, let's be realistic. When both are at their best, Benteke is a better striker than Murray. What Murray seems to have over Benteke in spades is a consistency of form. You'll always get 7/10 performances from GM. There or there abouts. Benteke will give you 9 and 10...but also 3 and 4. We're in a period of 3s and 4s.

Benteke looked world class for Villa and close to for his first season with us. But we're seeing what role confidence plays, especially for strikers. CB is woefully out of form.

Something needs to change for him. But he hasn't suddenly lost all of his ability (despite what it might look like.)

As for Sorloth, way too early to be writing him off. He hasn't really had the opportunity to play a significant amount of time. For my money, he looks strong, fast, hungry and a great striker. Time will tell.

And if Wickham gets back to fitness, bonus.

As for Ayew, who knows.

Edited by sprites (11 Sep 2018 1.28am)

If the club had come out three years ago and said 'Look, we know we've made a few quid out of being in the Premier League, but our plan is to rely on Glenn Murray as first choice centre forward, we would all have hit the roof.

I'm not sure which Sorloth you've been watching but fast he most certainly isn't.

The most frustrating thing for me is we are still recovering from the massive fcuk ups AP made, whilst that shytecnut swans around like he's the oldest swinger in town.

Anyway... back on point. Hindsight is a wonderful thing there is no way anyone could have predicted that Benheskey would lose the ability to score from two yard, nor that Connor Wickham would spend more time off than Rambo's safety catch.

However... when we sold Murray every Single Palace fan was against it me included. And if we are honest we have never ever replaced his quality in front of goal since we sold him to Bournemouth in 2015, thats three years where we have not solved our striker issues.

We have no adequate cover for Wilf, and if Sakho and Tomkins get injured we are savagely under manned with good replacements at CB.

However we are still in the Prem so the board should be commended for that. However after the losses to Watford and Southampton I think it's a very real possibility, that unless we conjure up someone who knows where the onion bag is we could be in for a very very tough season. I know it's early doors but we where outplayed by Southampton AT HOME, and but for Henessey could have lost by a much larger margin.

I Know with a fit first 11 we can take on and beat anyone on our day, the first 11 is not what worries me, it's the cover for injuries in key areas that gives me the fear. The only real quality we have off the bench is Meyer, and he is being played out of position !!

Anyway I shall still be there next Home game Hopefully Tomkin and wilf will be fit by then, I know it's early doors but Huddersfield away is is now a game we have to get something from.

Benteke has never been world class,or even close. Hyperbole at its best.

He was looking like a useful striker who could score 15 consistently at one point but now that seems to be a world away from the player we have today.

We never have sorted the issues created by Pardew but it's gone way beyond that. The idea of Gayle and Murray with Chamakh was a winner as they were about 20 goals combined. But beyond the end product they were savvy, canny players who either had pace or positional sense to sniff out a goal. But what we have done is while it was clear that Chamakh and Gayle were not good enough long term (Chamakh career was winding down) we have never given ourselves an array of different options:

Benteke - tall, slow
Sørloth - tall, slow
Wickham - tall, slow
Adebayor - tall, slow
Sako - tall, slow

Spot the theme?

Add to these

Remy - quick but unfit
Bamford - not quick nor good enough

It's quite a list of strikers who in truth looked like last chance merchants than actual quality.

If anything we have no plan B or C when plan A (Benteke) fails.

That's the issue, no actual way to change how we attack. Ayew is now our only other option which given his poor returns over the years frankly doesn't give me much hope. I wait to be proved wrong.

Edited by The Saint (13 Sep 2018 1.09am)

"A man may fight for many things. His country, his friends, his principles, the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I'd mud-wrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock and a sack of French porn."

We didn't sell him to Brighton, we didn't sell him for peanuts. It hasn't just been us as a club who clearly didn't rate him as. Prem striker.

Edited by orpingtoneagle (19 Sep 2018 11.10pm)