Kanu comes in for a lot of stick, and in all fairness a fair bit is deserving, but at the same time this is not always down to him, this blame must lie at the door of Harry Redknapp quite often and the way he chooses to use him.
But credit where it is well and truly due, he came on at the weekend with about 20 minutes or so to go and he did change the game, he made a difference with that bit of magic that he has and his unbelievable control created more time, space and potential openings. For me I think he might have had his best appearance of the season in that cameo run out, which was almost a carbon copy of his debut performance against Blackburn, again a cameo for the final 20 minutes or so…
Using him from the bench is the way that I feel we should have been using him all season – as I have often said, he offers so much more that way, starting him, and more often than not in a 4-5-1 just is not the way to utilise his talent.
I have always liked Kanu but my biggest gripe has been the whole ordeal last summer over his new contract, the demands that he made and our counter demands never really meant anything and just all seemed threats that neither backed up. He had no pre season yet still walked – almost quite literally – back into the starting line up after others had gone through this, so the fact that regardless he almost always plays has left me with some resentment towards the fella.
As said he showed at the weekend why he is worth having, and how is best to use him – so I do hope that this is the way we will be using him more often than not for the rest of the season. Yep, it does look like we will be keeping him next season and I do have thoughts on this, but those are for another day…
PLAY UP POMPEY!
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