Who will Yeo replace?

By Nathan Jackson
December 27 2005

It's almost certain that Yeo will start the game against Mansfield Town but who out of the current front 3 should go? In this, we examine each striker's strengths and weakness and determine who should be dropped to make way for Yeo and to be quite honest, there's only 1 answer to that. Bye Derek

Gary Birch is the leading goalscorer for a reason, he's the best striker currently at the club, he's recieved a lot of unfair critisism recently about being "lazy" because he doesn't run for passes that are played 50 yards in front of him, but when it's another player, the crowd don't seem to mind that they can't be bothered to run after it. Birch is actually a very good player and if the fans would pay a bit more attention to his gameplay, they'd realise that we have a player with potential. He may not score a hatful but he near enough always challenges for headers, provides quality balls for other players and has great technique inside the box. Granted he may not have the physic of a ballerina or the skill of Ronaldo, but he's the best all-around striker that we have at the club.

It Keith does drop Birch out of the 3 main strikers, it will prove many people's theory that Keith players his "favourites" rather than those one form. For example, Asamoah signed in March this year and the amount of things Keith lets him get away with, would normally see Keith loan the player out to Spalding Town. Asamoah is the most selfish player in the team, I've lost count of how many times he should have shot when he passed, passed when he should of shot or more often that not, run straight at the defenders with attackers unmarked and try for individual glory and inevitably fail and then having the nerve to blame to the other players.

Everyone argues that Asamoah always sets up chances for other people, yet a lot like the situation with Birch, these people obviously aren't watching the game that's happening in reality. In his 9 months, Asamoah has set up just 4 goals and virtually every single other pass he's made, has gone straight to an opposition player. It's great watching a player weave in and out of 3 opposition players but to just waste the ball as often as he does is just so frustrating and quite frankly, if there was Top 100 of what to waste £10,000 on, he would be straight in an No.1.

In the past, Keith has lot patience with far better players that Asamoah after they haven't produced so this just goes on to prove that Keith plays his "favourites". The best examples of players that have played well and have been dropped for no apparant reason include Chris Ward and most recently, Steve Robinson. These players played really well whenever they were on the pitch and got dropped so why the hell hasn't Keith dropped Asamoah who, if we're lucky, will have a single half decent game in every 10.

The thing that annoyed me about Asamoah was just after the Oxford game, he demanded to be played in his favoured position. Excuse me Mr Asamoah but there are far better players at this club than you (pretty much everyone) that don't play in their prefered position so why the hell should you get to? At least they're half decent in their new position, whereas you don't have a clue what to do no matter where you are on the field.

Asamoah is a very similar player to Yeo, however, the main difference being that Yeo actually does something with the ball when he has it and even when he's not on great form, he still has a presence about him and can help the other players along whereas by comparison, Asamoah is a waste of space.

The game against Boston was a prime example of Asamoah's selfishness on the ball. On 2 seperate occasions, we were 3 on 2 against their defence with Birch and Logan as the other 2 strikers, their 2 defenders came to Asamoah and instead of passing to an unmarked Birch or Logan, he decides to run straight in between the 5cm gap between the 2 defenders and loses the ball. This has happened countless times during his 9 months and quite frankly, it's not good enough. If he isn't the striker who's dropped for Yeo, then there is something seriously wrong at our club.

Out of the front 3, Richard Logan is the man in form and has impressed many fans during his loan spell at the Imps which began just over a month ago. Both his goals have been vital goals and he is the sort of striker that we need in the team because not only does he use the ball well on the ground, but he's dangerous in the air, just like the goal against Oxford proves. There's not much I can say about Logan really because his overall game speaks for itself and I'd be extremely surprised if he's dropped.

Conclusion - Keith, you have one of two options here, you can either drop Asamoah and give us a chance of scoring more goals or you can completely ruin any chance we have of making the playoffs. If you drop Asamoah and have Birch, Logan and Yeo up front, then we have a great chance of winning many more games this season but this will only happen if you have the guts to drop Asamoah, he is easily the worst out of the 3 current strikers at the club and the only thing he brings to our team is pressure on our defence after he needlessly gives the ball away. If Asamoah starts against Mansfield, regardless of the result, the only thing we can hope for is midtable mediocrity.