Roman Bednar challenged to fire up Leicester
Wednesday 24th November 2010, 11:29AM GMT.
Roberto Di Matteo today challenged Roman Bednar to revive his Albion career by helping to fire Leicester up the Championship table.
The popular targetman was today poised to move to the Walkers Stadium until the New Year after slipping down the Hawthorns pecking order.
And Di Matteo has urged the double promotion-winner to rediscover his goal touch during six weeks in the East Midlands.
“He’s going to Leicester until January 3, with a recall after 28 days,” revealed Di Matteo.
“With strikers it is all about confidence and goals and hopefully he will play and score goals and we’ll review the situation when the loan is over.
“I’ve noticed his frustrations and Leicester are signing some players to try to boost the team and are investing in the club.
“You would expect to see Leicester winning some games and that should suit him. Hopefully he’ll score goals to help them and help himself and everybody.”
Di Matteo all-but ruled out further loan moves away from The Hawthorns despite reported interest from the Championship in full-backs Gianni Zuiverloon and Joe Mattock.
Bednar will join fellow striker Chris Wood and Luke Moore, defender Leon Barnett and midfielder Sam Mantom in leaving Albion on loan.
And Di Matteo said: “We haven’t got anybody else left. We need to keep our players because we can’t loan in.
“I wouldn’t expect anybody else to go.”
However, the Italian is willing to extend the loans of Moore and Barnett at Derby and Norwich respectively while he has sanctioned Mantom’s move to League One side Tranmere.
The 18-year-old from Stourbridge made his Rovers debut at home to Hartlepool today and today his talents received a glowing endorsement from his boss at The Hawthorns.
Di Matteo said: “Sam is a very talented boy and has a bright future.
“But we need him to play competitive games.
“League One is a nice league to start with at his age.
“We’ll see how well he does and then we’ll review it.
“He’s grown physically stronger over the last 12 months and technically he was always good.
“He’s 18-and-a-half so he just needs to be a bit more robust.
“He’s got the tackling ability and the understanding will come with experience.
“I have high hopes for him.”
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i dont understand rdm letting bednar go out on loan, cause apart from odemwingie he is the best striker we have , he should have sent fortune out instead to a lower league side so he wouldnt have as much of a problem scoring , cause from what i can see he will never score in the premier league as he just isnt go enough he has no qualities at all
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i think the saying . a player should never go back to a former club , is very much the case in this instance
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With all our injuries and players leaving on loan the song ten green bottles comes to mind. Might see JP on the bench at Ipswich.
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1 & 2
I seem to remember that Fortune has scored this season but his appearances have been limited by the one up front policy. Perhaps Odemwingie may revert to his advanced midfield role for the next home game or play up front with Fortune. We know Fortune can play from his last spell at the club so don’t be too hard on him.
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1 s24wba – Fortune has already scored in the Premier League this season!
Looks like our Management Team’s assessment/opinion about Bednar is similar to mine!
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Bednar needs games – end of. He could not come on in the prem and play to his top level at the moment – so its St peter, with Cox and MAF to back him up – but we need our midfield to keep scoring
We aint a team that relies on its forwards to score all the goals – I think St peter as 1 up front is ok – MAF did well out wide but RDM doesn’t seem keen to play him at the moment – I thought Cox coming on against Stoke was significant.
I also thought the decision to play Thomas & Barnes from the start was brave – and I thought they did enough to show it could work, but we need bodies in the middle so Brunt or Dorrens is needed to make it work.
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Correct me if I’m wrong but fortune has only scored once and even Scott Carson could have scored that one . And you can’t blame him being up front on his own as rdm knew we were playing this system so should have bought someone in more appropriate
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i can understand all the sentiment towards bedner as he plays with a smile on his face and he appreciates the support we give him, but i dont think he pushes his body to the limit this i believe his own self doubt on his injurys he seems to pick up. over the season fortune will be imo the player who will fit into rdms tatics. i wish roman a happy stay with sven
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I have to agree with s24wba on this, he left us for the bright lights of Celtic, and should have stayed there, I don’t believe he has any intrest in the club other than the money.
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I see the recall period on Bednar is 28 days which means that if either Odemwingie, Fortune or Cox gets injured or suspended over the next month, we have to play with only 2 forwards in our 18 man match day squad. As it is, the three of them now know that there is no pressure on them as they will automatically be either in the team or on the bench. We are crying out for a change of personnel up front at the moment and this move just limits our options.
I understand the need for players to have proper match practice but as I have said on previous posts, this move just doesn’t make any sense to me at all.
(I haven’t included Miller in this analysis as he is unlikely to be match fit – a much better candidate for a loan spell IMHO)
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I see none of our Laughing or Lonely friends have been on yet telling us about their latest trialist. 31 year old striker, scored 1 goal in 23 games in French League last year.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
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S24wba
Fortune has scored 6 goals in 24 games for Albion, that equates to nearly 10 goals a season in the Prem. Last season Anelka got 11 and Berbatov got 12.
That aside, we didn’t buy him as a goalscorer, it’s the other things he brings to the team.
Scott Carson could’ve scored 90% Michael Owen’s career goals, it doesn’t mean he would have. That’s about Owen’s movement much as Fortune’s goal against Fulham was about where he was when he received the ball.
RDM’s made the decision to loan out Bednar, he sees things we don’t on a daily basis and he’s got most things right so far.
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