David Gold has never made any secret of his admiration for Pedro Obiang privately but has chosen to put that on the record for the first time.
The co chairman has never previously mentioned the player publicly as being deserving of a place for fear of allegations that he is trying to pick the manager’s team for him.
But he has freqently told CandH how much he likes the player and that is hopeful he gets a real chance to prove himself over a run of games.
Obiang drew plenty of plaudits after an outstanding performance against Middleborough and Gold wasn’t slow to join the chorus of approval.
Speaking on Twitter he declared: “Pedro Obiang returned to the first team, producing a performance full of composure, resilience and maturity. He was outstanding. dg”
Obiang has certainly put himself in the frame for inclusion after the international break and that will be one of the more pleasant headaches facing manager Slave Bilic.
Agree entirely with DG and Matt – work rate , challenge , pressing opponents and speed all exceeded Nobes ( who was unfortunate not to score ) but on balance it’s Obiang for Nobes and find a place for Lanzini , who , when he came on , added something special . Jim , DG can’t ” suggest ” in every tweet , blog etc who Slav picks ( as Chairman) but he can praise a player when he does a great job – like we all should ! Yesterday special mention for Reid – I have been saying we need an ” inspirational skipper commanding from the back , a Terry , Adams , Bruce ” well . . . my view is give the armband to Reid permanently and hope he stays injury free , tell the squad he’s the man to lead us ON PITCH and tell them to LISTEN and FOLLOW his instructions on field when Slav is out of instructing range . On the ” failures so far ” it is obvious who they are and must be to Slav . Time to move Oxford and Fletcher up the pecking order and get Fernandes off the bench as second half impact / replacement for midfielder. Feghouli is a worthy sub but not first choice when our best players are fit . I am optimistic now about the season BUT there are NO muppet teams in the Prem – you have to be on your best to beat anyone . COYI ⚒
Agree with a lot of what you say Brian, I thought Ginge had a decent game as well although that was one of Reids best performances for the club, Obiang looked good on the left side of defensive midfield, Nobes has to sit some out, he looks more leggy this season for whatever reason, Fernandes should at the very least get an opportunity as s sub although I would like to see him replace Kouyate for a game and put Nordveidt on the right side of defensive midfield, with Antonio and Payet on the wings and any of our forwards up top, it’s quite a defensive set up but Fernandes is more than capable of breaking forward and is s very good passer. If we learned only one thing from Saturday’s game it is that when we moved the ball quickly with one and two touch passing we caused a lot more problems, we did that for about 5 minutes just after Dimi scored but as soon as we slowed down we became easy to defend once again.
OK – The same Obiang we were prepared to get our money back on during the transfer window? I mean no disrespect to him here – Just shows we invested in quantity and not quality over the summer and players who couldn’t get a look in last term are now looking like a shoe in. Why hasn’t DG commented on Tore or Zaza? Or maybe Moses and Song were better than we all thought?
I dont know about you but i saw little more than press speculation about him leaving.Maybe i missed something.
Yes, I agree with Gold. As I wrote yesterday, the team seems to be more balanced with Obiang. I’d like him, Kouyate and Lanzini in the miedfield. I think the best thing for Noble rght now would be some rest… 7 or 8 games would be enough… lol 😉