Rate the Signing: Uche

[GrimsbyBoro 1,968]

Rathe the signing 

[Essuuaitch 330]

a positive 6 from me, based on him actually being less useless than i thought. he chipped in with a few goals and did what i said on the tin, in the game at cardiff he had his best performance for us and in all honesty the tv pundits were adamant we should have subbed him around half time as he was close to getting a red. as with the other signings weve commented on he "didnt let us down" infact he offered something alternative and had a small impact in some games so henceforth he edges past the meduim line of 5 imo.

[LBP 3,035]

4 - Likeable but ultimately nowhere near the level of player we want for our ambitions and only suits a particular style of play that thankfully got ditched by the club 

[Bruce 1,565]

An odd one this. Seemed like a Warnock signing and started well but Warnock was soon saying that he was never intended to be a first choice forward and he was bombed out of the team as soon as Sporar signed. Wilder clearly never fancied him. Went on loan to Cardiff but couldn't get into the team ahead of Hugill.

At first he looked destined to be a cult hero but three managers in the same season didn't fancy him. He's a victim of a really confused recruitment process this summer. As a player he probably gave us a solid 6/10 when he got pitch time but as yet another piece of botched recruitment, he probably only rates around 3. 

[wilsoncgp 9,283]

A player brought in as Warnock's supposed '3rd choice', got given the #9 and asked to lead the line. Uche had some qualities in a striker but they weren't scoring goals and they weren't necessarily holding the ball up either. He was a juggernaut when he got going but his ball control wasn't particularly good. I don't even think he was that well suited for what Warnock wanted, never mind what Scott wanted.

Seems a very good lad who gives his all (and what a strike in the cup by the way) but whatever fee we paid was too much. The revisionism that surrounded his being allowed to leave on loan because of how crap the strikers we brought in ultimately were was spectacular though.

[Neverbefore 10,942]

2.

Easily the worst of all the strikers at the club last season and will be playing league 1 or sat on another championship clubs bench next year if he's lucky. Awful signing.

[Rob 4,505]

random signing, puzzles me people want him back instead of looking elsewhere but hopefully finds his place elsewhere in the league 

[Denzel Zanzibar 6,972]

5.

Asked to lead the line which he was never going to be able to do. Dropped once Sporar became slightly more effective and never got a look-in after that.

Didn't really do much at Cardiff either save for a few goals at the start.

[Tom 2,492]

I gave him a 3. Certainly better than the likes of Connolly and Lea Siliki, but was never going to be good enough for a side going for promotion. I do wonder what would have happened if Wilder had a bit more faith in him when he came in, but won't really be missed when he's moved on this summer.

[Changing Times 12,347]

3/10

I put him slightly ahead of Hernandez, Payero, and Connolly, but slightly behind Balogun by way of a comparison.  For a permanent signing, and without the excuse of injury, to total fewer than 700 mins isn't a great look.  Hall and Hernandez got more minutes than him for example.  He did at least have a bit of an impact when he played with a couple of goals, and an assist, which is worth something.  He was essentially crapped on and then discarded by Warnock for whatever reason.  Bit odd really as he had at least done something in the first few games he'd played in.  I wonder if he was one of the naughty boys at Coventry who didn't eat their breakfasts cos after that game he barely started again until shortly before Warnock left - or was it rumoured that Warnock had been told to select Sporar for a period of time?  As a signing I don't think it was ever going to work, and it didn't really.  I wouldn't fault him for that however, he was exactly what we knew we were buying, we're just in the habit of making poor decisions or we were.

[RiseAgainst 3,793]

I gave him a 7, based on how much we paid for him (TransferMarkt lists his value at around £720,000, even though his signing fee was officially undisclosed), the fact he was by all accounts a really likeable guy who helped the youngsters develop (no Pally Park pork-swordery here), but mostly for the fact we absolutely DID NOT play to his strengths, either literally or metaphorically.

I genuinely believe that any of our other strikers would have benefited from having a battering ram like Uche alongside them consistently last season, given time to develop a partnership with him. Imagine Connolly not having to win knock-downs, Coburn not having to rely on his strength so much, or Balogun being teed up for a strike from 20 yards. Instead, we ended up with five relatively lightweight strikers, all too similar, all doing the same thing, all conceding possession too easily, all equally ineffective for most of the season and all too easy to defend against. I doubt we made a single attacking substitution last season that made opposition defenders raise an eyebrow, let alone break sweat.

Uche is a limited player whose place undoubtedly lies in the lower leagues. I awarded my 7 on the basis of potential in a Championship squad, not his actual contribution over the course of a season where he was mismanaged and then bombed out during a rapid overhaul of our playing style. If we'd deployed him properly, he could have been a unique threat in the Championship. He'll never be a prolific goalscorer, but as a foil to a more mobile and dynamic 15-20 goal-a-season player, I think he might have become a cult favourite. We might even have had a 15-20 goal-a-season player elsewhere in the squad, if we'd persevered with the big-fella-little-fella strategy.

[wilsoncgp 9,283]

I honestly don't think he was a good mould for anyone in a partnership. People seem to have considered him as this because he was big and put himself about but he was not good at keeping hold of the ball, the only thing his strength did consistently was get him into trouble. He didn't seem to know his own strength, never mind have much control over it.

He was also quite a selfish striker too. Not that strikers are terrible if they're selfish because selfish strikers score goals if they're good at finishing chances. I still remember a chance somewhere earlier in the season when Uche had 1-2 players in acres of space across the box from him and he went for goal himself instead of providing the pass which would have led to an almost unmissable goalscoring chance. So the idea he was putting himself about and the players around him were seeing the benefit of that, I just don't get it.

What some people seem to remember Uche as would have been great for Warnock's system, especially with his strength on top of that, lad was built there's no doubt about that. We did play to the strengths people seem to remember about him and the reason it didn't work under Warnock is because he actually wasn't that good at doing it.

Obviously when Wilder comes in, he's on a hiding to nothing. He didn't have the energy for what Wilder wanted to do with his forwards and Wilder wasn't going to adapt to a player that honestly didn't have much going for him for a striker at this level.

[Leesider 1,076]

46 minutes ago, RiseAgainst said:

I gave him a 7, based on how much we paid for him (TransferMarkt lists his value at around £720,000, even though his signing fee was officially undisclosed), the fact he was by all accounts a really likeable guy who helped the youngsters develop (no Pally Park pork-swordery here), but mostly for the fact we absolutely DID NOT play to his strengths, either literally or metaphorically.

I genuinely believe that any of our other strikers would have benefited from having a battering ram like Uche alongside them consistently last season, given time to develop a partnership with him. Imagine Connolly not having to win knock-downs, Coburn not having to rely on his strength so much, or Balogun being teed up for a strike from 20 yards. Instead, we ended up with five relatively lightweight strikers, all too similar, all doing the same thing, all conceding possession too easily, all equally ineffective for most of the season and all too easy to defend against. I doubt we made a single attacking substitution last season that made opposition defenders raise an eyebrow, let alone break sweat.

Uche is a limited player whose place undoubtedly lies in the lower leagues. I awarded my 7 on the basis of potential in a Championship squad, not his actual contribution over the course of a season where he was mismanaged and then bombed out during a rapid overhaul of our playing style. If we'd deployed him properly, he could have been a unique threat in the Championship. He'll never be a prolific goalscorer, but as a foil to a more mobile and dynamic 15-20 goal-a-season player, I think he might have become a cult favourite. We might even have had a 15-20 goal-a-season player elsewhere in the squad, if we'd persevered with the big-fella-little-fella strategy.

Spot on.

[TeaCider24 12,646]

4.

Very likeable and seems a good guy, but ultimately is very slow and struggled to make much of an impact after a bright start.

I thought we'd signed a gem at the start, but it sadly wasn't to be.

Was never going to fit Wilder's style, but he wasn't amazing under Warnock either.