Catching up: Andranik

Right, catching up on what is, to most of you, very old news.  Let’s start with Andranik, the Iran midfielder picked up on a free.

Incidentally, I’ve seen him before: Iran v Angola, Leipzig, World Cup 2006.  We were there, baking in the German sunshine.

Anyway.  He looks quite good on YouTube (doesn’t everyone?) and the official site stressed that he’s in for defensive midfield cover.  That’s important because Leon Andreasen is plan A for that role and plan B was, until this signing, probably Danny Murphy or Moritz Volz, neither of whom are best in that role.

Before we get too excited, it’s instructive to look at what Bolton fans thought.  The consensus seems to be that there is no consensus, thoughts can be summed up as:

He showed some potential and scored a couple of goals that led some supporters to rate him very highly
He never really got a run of games to show if this potential could be anything tangible
But perhaps this is because he was never that good.  He had four managers at Bolton and none of them gave him a regular role
But he’s a worker with a good attitude and might do alright in the right circumstances

So… I’m guessing we’ve just signed a good squad player.

Clever from Roy, eh?  This is exactly how the wise modern manager has to think:  for every £4million spent on a Steve Davis, £0 can be spent on an Andranik.  And while that might be unfair to Steve Davis, it might not be (most likely scenario is that neither makes much impression at Fulham), and there probably isn’t £4million difference between the two.  If Andranik doesn’t work out you haven’t spent too much finding out.  Sam Allardyce made some bad signings but he had all this sort of thing worked out, getting more for less, finding freely (or cheaply) available talent; Roy seems to be thinking in the same way, which just underlines how lucky we are to have him.