Is Robbie Keane Useless?

L

Lex Foutish

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I've never regarded Robbie Keane as a quality player. I think a lot of Irish people think highly of him just because he's Irish and probably wouldn't give him a second glance if he wasn't. He's been guilty of some terrible misses during his career.

Last Saturday's miss against Blackburn was woeful. If he'd scored, West Ham's chances of staying up would have increased greatly. But, on the positive side for West Ham, they probably won't have to pay him the million pound bonus that he was looking for, if he'd helped to keep them up! :rolleyes:
 
I don't think he is useless. I think he has had quite a good career, albeit he probably has from club to club more than he would prefer. That said he probably doesn't have the same level of mobility and acceleration that he used to have 7 or 8 years ago. Everyone misses easy chances from time to time.
 
So let me see, the player who is not only our top goalscorer, but who has actually scored more than twice the number of goals that the next on the list scored, and who captains the team, is he useless? Ehhhh maybe it's the Roy Keane slant rubbing off on you there Lex! Certainly he's past his best, but credit where it is due, his record may never be broken.
 
Not totally useless. Seems to be a big game player - has scored a lot of goals in important Internationals, but seems to cruise through routine games.

He could be better - seems to have a bad attitude on the pitch at times - you often see instances where he falls about looking for a penalty/free kick and moans at the ref where he could have scored if he'd just kept playing and shot at goal.
 
Well if he is he earned a hell of a lot of money being useless.

Personally I think he has been a good solid 6 out of 10 most of his career. Never a world beater, but slightly better than the average player.

Now well past his sell-by.
 
Ceist Beag said:
So let me see, the player who is not only our top goalscorer, but who has actually scored more than twice the number of goals that the next on the list scored, and who captains the team, is he useless? Ehhhh maybe it's the Roy Keane slant rubbing off on you there Lex! Certainly he's past his best, but credit where it is due, his record may never be broken.
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I dont' disagree with you about the football side of things, but he is captain because of profile. He has grown into the role over time, but it didn't make much sense to make him captain at the time and still doesn't.
 
not totally useless, but if you take out his penalities, then his goals per game rate is nothing to write home about. He's just a middle of the road striker who has never played for a major club.
 
callybags said:
So Inter Milan, Spurs, Liverpool and Celtic are not major clubs? :confused:
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Well, he didn't do anything at Inter or Liverpool. Celtic might be a big club (it's all relative) but they play in mickey mouse league. He was a good player for Spurs and is a good player for Ireland. Was never a great player. He is also a very good professional to be fair to him.
 
Mpsox said:
not totally useless, but if you take out his penalities, then his goals per game rate is nothing to write home about. He's just a middle of the road striker who has never played for a major club.
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How can he be seen as anything even remptely close to useless? The man has scored over 100 prem goals.
Take away his penalties? Roberto Baggio, Shevchenko, Anelka were all great players but penalties weren't their forte, pk taking is a vital skill and a good pk taker is important to every team.
 
Robbie had a great season with Spurs in 2007-2008 , his partnership with Berbatov was a joy to behold with both players alternating between midfield & up front to great effect.

Robbie for Ireland was incredibly frustrating as he debated every decision & ran around like a headless chicken at times due I always felt to his passion for playing for Ireland ( he seemed to turn up for every fixture whether competitive or otherwise ) however his goal scoring instincts were sound as evidenced by the fact that he is our top scorer by a country mile.

A talented footballer with annoying habits offset by passion & commitment - yes , a great player - no.
 
I think he is a good player but over the years I feel I tried too many 'flicks' or tried to win free kicks or penalties when he have just played the ball.
He was only at Inter for 2 matches and it didn't work out at Liverpool but he has a good goal scoring record for Wolves, Coventry, Leeds, Spurs and at international level.

I think he was the highest scorer in the Premiership for the calender year 2008 or 2009 when with Spurs.
 
Sunny said:
He is also a very good professional to be fair to him.
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Didn't he have major issues on the training ground with at least one Spurs manager which ultimately led to his sale (to Liverpool I think?)
 
He was too young and unproven going to Inter. He wasn't wanted by the manager at Liverpool, a knee jerk reaction purchase by the owners. I'd agree Celtic play in a two horse race mickey mouse league, like the other Keane, its a good place to play out the last mile of your career. I thought he was doing well at spurs until he fell out of favour with Harry.

I remember reading through this article:

http://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/its-time-to-say--thank-you-robbie-keane-1937601.html
 
Lex Foutish said:
I've never regarded Robbie Keane as a quality player.
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Me neither. He tends to run into the box, maybe handle the ball, then fall over and look for a penalty. He falls over a lot. Also, I'm not sure he scores many crucial/winning goals.
 
michaelm said:
Me neither. He tends to run into the box, maybe handle the ball, then fall over and look for a penalty. He falls over a lot. Also, I'm not sure he scores many crucial/winning goals.
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He has scored his fair share of crucial goals for club and country, and with all due respect, your first line would suggest you don't watch the sport much or at the very least have an understanding of it.
 
Useless, maybe, at managing his career.

After 10 years as a Premiership footballer, he now seems more concerned about maintaining his income, than being afforded a chance of first-team football.

He strikes me as a player whose ratio of chances to goals is too high, e,g, he needs about 5 chances to score one goal. In tight games, such as important international games, you can't be that profligate with chances.
 
I think the Vincent Hogan article linked to above captures the view on Robbie quite well. I can't understand why Robbie gets so much criticism when the likes of Kevin Doyle gets lauded in game after game where he has (once again) failed to score. Don't get me wrong I think Doyle is a good player, but quite why he gets so much credit while Robbie gets so much criticism is beyond me. Goals win games and Robbie puts the rest to shame in that regard. I don't care how many he misses, it's how many he scores that counts. We should be hailing Robbie as one of our best ever (note I'm not saying most talented ever here!) given his record and yet here we are discussing is he useless or not - that's pretty sad really.
 
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