Billy Paynter Splitting Opinions

This Was Written January 10th but published late due to technical issues****

Well the first loan signing of the window is deal done and it is six foot striker Billy Paynter, arriving from Doncaster Rovers for the remainder of the season. The forward has already split opinion within the Blades faithful, some think he is just what we need, others think he is a donkey before a balls even been kicked, but before we judge one way or the other lets look a little deeper.
Last season thanks to some last day magic Doncaster went up as champions of the division, Paynter converted thirteen of Doncaster's sixty two goals that season, that rounded to an even number is twenty percent (The actual figure is 20.967741935483872% in case any one is curious) of Doncaster's goals that season. He was an integral part of their promotion and a good strong player, something we lack this season when it is needed most. Our target man is Chris Porter, a player who struggles to make an impact in the air, struggles to control the ball effectively and despite being an honest player he as a target man does not bring enough to the table, Paynter I believe brings all the qualities Porter is lacking in.

Manager Nigel Clough obviously has faith in the loan acquisition having this to say "Billy is a proven striker at this level and he gives us additional options with a busy period of fixtures ahead. He is cup-tied but available for the league games and will be able to share the load with Chris Porter." Now I agree that he is proven at

this level, but sharing the load with Porter is not what I want to see from Paynter. I want to see him picked ahead of Porter, in my opinion he is everything we need in a target man, strong, brave, passionate, when added to his ability to hold the ball  and keep possession, again things Porter seems  unable to deliver. The fans who think he will be an instant flop, I just can't come to terms with their thought process on this one, they bash his goals to games ratio but as I pointed out earlier he scored twenty percent of a division winning teams goals, I think if he were to flop the ones who said it from day one will gain some sense of perverse pleasure in the players misfortune, and take great delight with the "I told you so" comment being bounded around again and again. Whether it turns out to be an intelligent signing or one to add to the large list of January flops is yet to be seen but one thing is for certain, we need players new and old to start performing on a consistent basis.

-Jonathan Gascoigne