Fonte

[Barrett487]

If you're a good player you produce it, you can't rely on history.

Fonte's new to the team, his understanding will come with experience. The fact that we won tonight will help his confidence and let's hope that setting up the goal will offset his penalty miss.

Just maybe we can support our players now and again?  The guy has talent, let him blossom,  perhaps too many want him to fail?

[WayneKerrins]

Not the 1 in our preferred 4231.
Deputy for Cairney or slower wide player in Piazon mode.
Decent but not a wonder signing and given 4231 system wonder why we signed him. Guess the stats guys don't look at formations and the players required in them.
Would be perfect as the withdrawn striker in a 4411 from hodgsons days.

[ChesterTheTabby]

Fonte clearly has class and a great touch. The lad missed a penalty kick (abysmally), however, we still won and he set up the assist for the winner. He is gelling to a new team, a new style of play, and in a league that is still unraveling to him. Our hero and savior, Cairney, as well as Aluko both missed their PKs last year against QPR...we can't be too critical. Should a PK ever be missed? In theory professional players should always score 1v1 from 12 feet away unless the goalkeeper makes a save, but that's just not realistic. I think he will come good, and I think he and AK47 will form a wonderful partnership. AK will be our out and out striker while Fonte plays off him and scores speedy goals rather than with brute force. Only time will tell.

[Matt10]

He just doesn't get the ball enough. Ojo dancing and falling down at any given moment ruins all momentum. Rui set up the winner, blasted the penalty and his own chance. He is resilient in defending as well. I think we just need to get him involved a lot more. Problem is when you have the likes of Ojo who loves to hold onto the ball for gobbles amount of time, Fonte's strength in getting open are out of sync.

We have this collective problem of making terrible decisions in the final 3rd. We have to be more clinical, and that starts with players, like Fonte, who will keep it simple to distribute the ball.

[One Martin Thomas]

Good player

A touch player not a battering ram.

Give the guy a break

Ruiz had enough chances and I fear Fonte is the same kind of player. He'll be given time and rightly so and I hope this works for him.

[davew]

Terrible performance I'm afraid,and the  6 inch run up for the penalty...Looked like an £8 player tonight and not £8 million...Still he did set up Stefan so I'll leave it at that.

+ 1

[ffcne]

Woeful performance at Forest as well .Should have been subbed in the first half.
Have my doubts. If he is not an out and out striker ,why did we spend all that money,because that is what we need .

[colinwhite]

not his best night. But he made at least 3 decent runs into the box tonight and didnt get get the ball played in from the by-line. Had that happened he may have scored a couple. He fights and has an excellent touch. Lost possession too easily at times in their final third with flicks and the like which could have cost us on the counter.

[Mince n Tatties]

not his best night. But he made at least 3 decent runs into the box tonight and didnt get get the ball played in from the by-line. Had that happened he may have scored a couple. He fights and has an excellent touch. Lost possession too easily at times in their final third with flicks and the like which could have cost us on the counter.

not his best night. But he made at least 3 decent runs into the box tonight and didnt get get the ball played in from the by-line. Had that happened he may have scored a couple. He fights and has an excellent touch. Lost possession too easily at times in their final third with flicks and the like which could have cost us on the counter.

I'm not saying the lad is a bad player,just a bad performance last night.
You can see he is a Continental player some of the flicks and that,its not the Championship, different ball game altogether, hopefully with games he will come good and more adjusted to Championship football.

[@jolslover]

Goood player, Bad game last night but even still if we replaced him with a classic number 9 they wouldnt have had the skill to pick out johansen for our second goal.
Saw Mcdonald put his arm around Fonte after that and give him a talking too. Showed good mentality to keep his head up after pen miss..

[Deeping_white]

So what we're saying is, that after each game where our striker doesn't score, we're going to rotate a thread bashing them. Two weeks ago everyone was saying that Fonte was our only striker and that Kamara wasn't up to it, and laughably its now the other way around? So what Fonte missed a penalty, we still won, and there were plenty of players who missed them last season. He's just come back from injury, been played out of position against Forest and even though he provides some intelligent movement and link up and sets up the second goal, he's now being slagged off for not being a proper striker. I'm glad that people don't overreact and judge players after such a short amount of games. Maybe it was too much to expect for people to stop doing that after Kebano came good after a run of games...

[SuffolkWhite]

I think Fonte will be better once Cairny is back. He makes runs and finds space but does not always get the ball played to him, and I think Cairny will see the pass that can be made.

I'm not unhappy with him yet to see him dropped, or Ak for that matter as they are new players bedding in. Would be interested to see a 4411 with Fonte playing behind AK though.

[hovewhite]

Have been impressed with his touch a great finish at ipswich and think he will do well long term for us and of course still adjusting to championship football.

[PokerMatt]

It's funny. Fonte and Kamara have both had a similar amount of game time. Fonte has 1 goal, 1 assist and Kamara has 2 goals, so similarly effective. Fonte scored his goal first so initially he was "class" and Kamara was apparently a League 2 player. Now the roles are reversed... Kamara has scored in more recent games so now we love him but Fonte is being compared to Ruiz and Marlet. I already feel sorry for whichever of them fails to score against Ipswich.

This was my exact observation. After Ipswich we were told Fonte was showing AK what to do. Now suddenly AK is flavour of the month because he had a great game then was out of the next.

Both are very different options and that's what everyone was crying for last year, so really the club can't win.

Fonte was poor I agree. And atrocious penalty. But he did find some good space especially first half and he just didn't get the ball he was expecting. Flashed a shot over when he should have hit the target but that at least shows confidence.

[andyk]

I watched the game on telly and thought Fonte did ok. He spent a lot of time pressurizing the QPR back four when they had possession. He made some good runs, got into scoring positions a couple of times, at least had the decency to say "I'm the striker, I'll take the penalties " and made an excellent forceful pacy run down the wing, precision pass to Stefan for the goal. He managed to stay focused after the miss and get himself into the position to set up the goal.
That turned out to be the winning goal, so well done.

[Robbie]

I think he could be brilliant for us but is just taking time to settle. The Pen was a howler but his reaction was brilliant and he completely made the SJ goal. 
Ojo was the horror show last night.

[Twig]

I think Fonte will be better once Cairny is back. He makes runs and finds space but does not always get the ball played to him, and I think Cairny will see the pass that can be made.

I'm not unhappy with him yet to see him dropped, or Ak for that matter as they are new players bedding in. Would be interested to see a 4411 with Fonte playing behind AK though.

I think you make a good point, it will be interesting to see how he feeds off TC's distribution.

[simplyfulham]

This thread is a bit ridiculous. Football fans? Fickle? Never.

I can't be the only one who thought he played well. Yeah the penalty was a bad miss, yes he could have been a bit more ruthless in going for goal at times.

In a Jokanovic team, the lone guy up top is responsible for holding up the ball, drawing away players and bringing team mates into the game up the pitch. He did that pretty well in my view.

He's never been a great goal scorer, his career highlights that. He may find his shooting boots at some point, but that's only about half his job - if that.

Remember guys.

[Woolly Mammoth]

I like both Kamara and Fonte. I am positive they will get even better. The good thing is that they are both very different to each other, one thing they have in common is that they both press the ball and defend from the front, and I like their workrate.
But because they are different they could play together.
Whatever happens there is now more options for Jok.
Which should give him more game plans from A-Z.
I am sure they will both have important rolls to play which should make us a dangerous outfit.
As for last night, there are many different ways to win a match, and last night was one of them.

[Mince n Tatties]

This thread is a bit ridiculous. Football fans? Fickle? Never.

I can't be the only one who thought he played well. Yeah the penalty was a bad miss, yes he could have been a bit more ruthless in going for goal at times.

In a Jokanovic team, the lone guy up top is responsible for holding up the ball, drawing away players and bringing team mates into the game up the pitch. He did that pretty well in my view.

He's never been a great goal scorer, his career highlights that. He may find his shooting boots at some point, but that's only about half his job - if that.

Remember guys.

If you think he played well then all I can say is God help us...He was terrible,not the same player I saw at Ipswich,but that might come again once Tom is back as has been stated by Suffolk White.