I was more making the point that dropping him to play with no recognised centre forward wouldn't be a risk worth taking.

If Sorloth looked fully fit and reliable of body, that's an altogether trickier proposition and on balance I too would drop Benteke in that scenario.

If I were Palace, I'd train the bollocks off Benteke in the summer and go on a pre-season tour like Coppell used to do where we're going to win every game 8- 9- 10- nil and he's going to remember the feeling of scoring goals.

If you want to live in a world full of kindness, respect and love, try to show these qualities.

He was injured and suspended, but still played a lot of games. We coped as mentioned in previous posts, we played Andros and Wilf up front to great affect....

The only game that worked with was the chelsea game. The other games we tried that it didn't work very well at all....

I don't post a lot on here, but feel this needs to be said.

It is not a simple case of sell him, don't sell him.

As mentioned his game is fantastic everywhere except finding the back of the net.

If I was Roy I'd be putting him through more drills based around finishing and getting him back to where he was last season with us and three seasons ago with Villa.

He has the ability, just not the mindset at the moment.

But I regret to say, like the De Boer situation. How long is too long...

The fact of the matter is, he is prem quality and he suits our play-style. I can't think of a replacement who would do his job better for his price-tag and wage bill. If you can I am all ears.

Unfortunately all we have is an unproven giant from Iceland who has come in for a big price and you guessed it, he is injured just like the other 50 percent of our first team. Don't get me wrong, I have big hopes for Sorloth, he looks fantastic from what I have seen so far. But he has something to prove. Benteke proved it last in many seasons prior.

Edited by jimboslice (05 Apr 2018 11.03am)

The service thing is a red herring. As mentioned earlier, he has missed more "big chances" than anyone else in the division (yeah, I know, lies, damned lies, and statistics). If he'd scored even half of these good chances, he'd be on 11-13 goals, and we wouldn't be having this conversation.

His confidence is shot, but how you rectify that is anyone's guess. As you say, though, his impact aside from goal-scoring is decent, and we certainly don't have anyone better available

I think both things are true. He's missed chances he should have scored, but the service hasn't been as good as last year, or the same as last year.

I've mentioned it before, but if you look at the goals he did score last year, many of them were from us getting early balls into the box, allowing Benteke to get in between two defenders. Think of Boro or Everton away last year.

That's where his goals against Leicester and West Ham came from as well, and where he has come closest with chances, the header against Utd for example.

It's something we haven't done as much this season. Yes, he should still have scored more goals, but it doesn't mean that we aren't necessarily playing to what we know his strengths are.

Employee of the month is a good example of how someone can be both a winner and a loser at the same time.