The financial circumstances and the lack of strikers meant Ngog was thrust into the limelight a lot quicker than he would have otherwise been. Still, the Frenchman never shook his responsibilities, and in a very similar way to Lucas Leiva quietly went about his business without responding to criticism from certain quarters.
It must be said that for a team looking to challenge for the title, having Ngog as backup to Torres demonstrated the glaring weakness in the squad during the 2008/09 season, and it is hard to not think about what might have been if the Reds had a player on the bench who could have had more of an impact to turn just turn three of those 11 draws, into victories. This is hardly Ngog’s fault, rather the owners and to a smaller extent the manager who clearly made the wrong choice in finalising the move for Robbie Keane.
Still, this is no time for looking back on past regrets, and neither should we when thinking of Ngog. Ngog has the required attributes to succeed in the Premier League if he is given more first team chances. A bit more power and aggression would do him a world of good and Bolton manager Owen Coyle has demonstrated in the past, with both Daniel Sturridge and Jack Wilshere, he is willing to give young players time to play so they can learn from their mistakes and gain experience to become better players. If Coyle manages to get the best out of Ngog, then good luck to them both.
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personally 4 mill is to cheap he is still young and I have a gut feeling we are going to regret selling him. He just needs regular games and a bit of confidence, like you said he was thrown in at the deep end very early on.
re Dan:
I quite I agree. He has not exactly set the world alight but let’s be honest here, he was compared to Torres throughout & thrust into the lone striker role every time Torres was injured – rather often in the last two seasons. It was simply sink or swim and the service from the middle and the wings was not that great either (gerrard often injured & the lack of out and out wingers).
Ngog would be happily given a farewell in my book IF he was part of the deal to sign Cahill.
4M on a single sale is a little low….he just needs support, patience and a dose of aggression…
This season we’ve been all about bringing in young talent with loads of potential. Not necessarily the finished article yet, but showing flashes of brilliance and with years ahead to mature. And we’ve paid huge sums of money to secure that talent while they’re young.
Ngog is right up that alley. If he wasn’t a Liverpool player, he’d be the type of person we’d want to buy, not sell! Maybe in an exchange for Cahill, perhaps our need for a good centreback trumps his potential. But really, just offloading a good young talent with Premiership experience for 4-5m? That goes contrary to everything Daglish and Comolli have been trying to do with this club.
You just got it wrong completely.
wats ur argument
He aint english.
spot on LOL 🙂
Lord knows I’ll rather have Ngog playin as a out a lone striker than Kuyt.
kill me now
We should look at a Bojan type deal for him. Sell for say 3 mill, insert a clause that says we have the option to buy him back in 2 or so years for around 5 mill. We don’t really loose out on him if he succeeds, as we buy him back, and leave him there if he doesn’t come good. Just a thought.
I read about that Bojan deal and thought it was a fantastic idea.. saves the Fabregas type sage coming back and biting you in the arse, and means you get best of both worlds.
As far as N’gog goes (say that fast and it sounds welsh…) i’d take the 4-5 mil plus cahill deal anyday of the week, he always seems a bit lightweight to me, but without the pace or trickery to counteract it. He’s scored a few for us, i’ll always remember his goals v Scum and the ‘Arse but the rest have mainly been in Europa League ties against opposition we should have been tearing apart anyway.
Definitely need to have a back up striker on the cards tho, would be nice to see Adam Morgan thrown into the mix a bit, although we need to be careful not to put too much pressure on him, as he could be a big one for the future…