Over Rated – Adrian Patulea
There, I said it. Adrian Patulea was over rated. He wasn’t a bad player and if he’d played more he might have helped push us on, but we do hold him in a higher regard than his ability deserved.
What Patulea did have was guts and fight. He chased everything, he ran endlessly and of course, we all love a tryer. Not one like Kevin Gall, a runner who goes away from the ball, but a proper tryer. Patulea was like you and I, a seemingly normal bloke living the dream. He didn’t read the script that you’re not meant to smash a hat trick against Lincoln United in preseason and lets face it, we all loved the wife on his back story.
Even now, Adrian Patulea will be toasted as ‘one that got away’, a player who lost in a battle with the manager. However, look at it this way. What if he didn’t sign a deal and if he was hunting for a move to London, which he got? What if he didn’t obey whatever instructions Jacko gave in amongst the speeches and bluster? What if, when you look back, he wasn’t actually that good in every game he played. His positioning was average, he awareness was okay and he missed as many as he scored.
He was a decent centre forward, but quite a few nominated him as an all time great….. that is a step too far I’m afraid.
Personally i hate oakes.Pulled a sicky but was fine walking around Burton Waters alittle while later.
I agree with you on all these, except on Patulea. Yes, he missed as many chances as he scored, but he still managed to be our top scorer with 11 goals in his 31 league appearances (14 of which he was only a sub). The best strikers usually miss as many as they score, but at least they get into the right place to do so. Interestingly, we took 47 points from the 31 games he played, and only 12 from the 15 games he didn’t play.
Hmm
Players I’d forgotten, some remembered with a shudder, but take issue with some of the ratings. Aaron Brown? Meh, average at best. Agree Rob Burch was a good keeper, let down by a deteriorating defence under Sutton. Paul Green (Schoey signing) was a good and versatile player blighted by injury.
Kovacs I liked, no McAuley but he ‘laid it on the line’ as they say.
Patulea ‘missed as many as he scored’ but that was John Ward’s modus operandi, the point is they both had the instinctive awareness to get in position to miss, dust themselves down and bury the next one, two very similar players. Patulea’s problem wasn’t lack of talent, it was prima donna tendencies.
Jacko was ‘a good manager’ when Neil McDonald was his assistant. When McDonald left, it all went Pete Tong. Doesn’t take much to suss out why.
No ‘Turbo’ Robinson, he of the open goal miss at Stockport??