- Jun 28, 2009
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One thing of which we can be pretty sure is that Harry has never been totally sold on Gomes. It's already been pointed out that this is rather odd considering he was a big fan of the similarly erratic James, but do we expect consistency from managers?
Gomes' form last autumn was OK; it fell off markedly over the second half of the season.
It's pretty obvious that Harry brought Friedel in not only because he was unhappy with Gomes, but because he didn't think Cudicini was good enough to take over the No. 1 spot either. From that point on, everything's got to be surmise. We know, insofar as we know anything, that Harry lays a great deal of emphasis on what players have shown in training. If Friedel's shown more, he's going to get the nod. Has Gomes thrown a wobbly? Quite possibly, if Parks thought his head wasn't right.
One thing that Harry won't like (and a lot of SC members don't like) is Gomes' hamming it up over minor injuries. It won't go down too well if he's chucked his rattle out of the pram over being dropped instead of knuckling down in training. No matter how high your stock with Harry, if you fall out of favour for whatever reason it's liable to be Goodnight Vienna, just as it is with Ferguson. See Keane after the "Sure, lads, Harry'll never suspect a thing" 'Golfing Weekend'.
I agree with most of that, especially the notion that Harry has never really fancied Gomes.
I just looked at our results from last season and, in my opinion, it started to go tits up for the big man around the time of the 4-3 defeat in the San Siro last October. Ten days later, he lost his marbles up at Old Trafford. November brought mistakes in a 4-2 defeat at the Reebok and a 4-2 home win against Blackburn, as well as a big clanger against Le Shite. He followed it up with a balls-up against the Chavs early in December.
Then I think he kept a relatively low profile until the first game against Real Madrid and followed it up with 4-5 weeks of utter mayhem.
I had completely forgotten about the theatrics over injuries, funnily enough. Between that, his lack of resilience, his shitty kicking and his clusterfucks, I wanted him upgraded-just not with a geriatric who won't leave his line.