AJ - Everton's running man
There have been rumblings of discontent around the Gwladys Street recently about all manner of things be it the over the top size of the giant pies to the over the top style of play, but one area of disgruntlement which has caught my mind's eye is the marathon man himself, Andy Johnson.
There is a rapid race to jump on the bandwagon named 'He is not good enough after all' with an entourage of wagons emblazoned 'He runs around with no end product'. Whilst it is clear he has struggled for form and consistency a la Arteta this season, the simplistic notion he has lost all the ability he posessed when he joined the Moyes revolution is surely preventing a cause for his decreased influence on games being correctly diagnosed.
I can not be the only patron of the Grand Old Lady who cringes at the sight of AJ running his legs into a blur, I saw enough of Beattie trying to compensate his severe lack of footballing brain by running blindly at anything to try and fool the fans into thinking he was good enough. This is where AJ is receiving a poor deal as he has the footballing brain, he just isn't permitted to use it by his boss.
Is it not about time that Moyes relieved AJ of his harrying duties and allowed him to do what his pace is best suited for, being the first line of attack and feeding off through balls from Arteta, Manny, Ossie or Pienaar?
If the transfer kitty can stretch to a top quality wide man why not tell AJ he can stay away from the corner flag to stay on the wings of the last defender and not the pitch? We saw the best of him when he played as a lone striker backed up by a five man midfield, the necessity for him to play through the centre for a majority of a game meant he could feed off the midfield in the traditional striker fashion.
The signing of the excellent Yakubu and the loss of Cahill has meant a loss of the five man midfield masterplan that Moyes enjoys utilising so much, even when it has been used the Yak is the man upfront whilst AJ sits on the bench or with Baz Rathbone watching daytime television.
Maybe Everton have moved on as a team, past the need for the 'runner' people think AJ is, I would say we need to start realising we have a proven striker in our squad and it is up to Moyes to figure out how to get the goals out of him that we all know are there.
On one point I must concur with the majority of Everton fans. Since when has having a pie at the match necessitated the need to both remortgage the house and draw up a strategy as to how to tackle such a mammoth task, and Moyes thought he had all the tough decisions to make on a Saturday.
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Tay;
to be honest I think Johnson has lost what made him dangerous, his bursting pace, probably due to injury, and now he always hesitates before chasing a ball down.
He was never a natural finisher but he got through enough times to sooner or later grab a goal, due to his pace, which is now eluding him.
Fernandes fed him an inch perfect ball on Sunday to put him clean through, one on one with the keeper, and sure enough, straight at the keepers legs! You can bet the Yak would have slotted that.
There is definitely a dangerous goalscorer who scares defences in there somewhere, we saw it when he first joined, but his complete lack of confidence is keeping it hidden. I don’t think he’s responded to well to the ‘diving’ criticism. He almost seems apologetic when being fouled now, and won’t appeal for anything. Even Moyes has come out and said he needs to drop the nice guy act as it isn’t working.
He is a good player on his day, even when he isn’t scoring goals, a couple of games he’s done well in, Pompey at home when he came on to change the game, for example, but he bottles it too much now.
Look at how Drogba responded to being called a diver by the David Guest alike…he went and slotted two against em and celebrated in front of him….and the diving accusations aimed at Ronaldo don’t seem to have affected him to much!! Rather than respond to the criticism like a top pro and use it to drive him into doing better, Johnson has let it get to him and it’s affecting his game. He tries not to be fouled now, thus bottling out of challenges and runs.