Give him a new contract? You have got to be joking.
The case against Tomasz Radzinski
6 May 2004

Give him a new contract? You have got to be joking.

To start off with I would like for everyone to ask themselves the question; what is a striker's role in the team?

Now you have thought about that, you can surely see how useless Tomasz Radzinski is to our side. "But he works his socks off each game" is all I hear when I say how rubbish he is and that is just a joke. If I was being paid about £20k a week and got to play for Everton, I would try my hardest every game but that doesn't make me a good player does it?

I mean look at David Unsworth. He is nowhere near a Premiership class defender yet people say; "he is a Blue through and through, therefore he deserves a new contract." People seem to then forget that he has no pace, no quality and basically not a player we should even have in our squad.

At Wolves Radzinski missed a hatful of chances and they weren't half chances. They were easy chances; one-on-one with the keeper from close range and with time to think. Now fair enough, if this was a one off then I would be more forgiving but it isn't a one off and everyone knows it. Like it or not, Tomasz is awful in front of goal and if he isn't scoring the goals then its put the pressure on you know who — Rooney.

Another side to the argument is that apparently Radzinski does a lot for the team. What exactly is it that he does though? Runs at the defence and scares them with his pace? He is quick, of that there can be no doubt, but how many times do you see him sprint away and then put a decent cross in or feed a pass through for Rooney? Too many fans base their opinion on Tomasz by what he has done in a few games and not what he contributes to the team over a season.

Southampton at home last season when he dramatically scored 2 goals in the last 10 minutes to give a crucial three points would have gone a long way towards giving him the "hero" status in Goodison Park but this season he has done basically nothing. He has played started 29 games and came on as substitute 7 times. His goal tally; 8. If that is enough for Moyes to feel he deserves a new contract then, bloody hell, it's no wonder we are in such a dire predicament.

The boss even reckons that Tommy Gravesen deserves a new contract and I won't even start on him. Just how many good games has Gravesen had this season? (That should be all that needs to be said on the matter of Gravesen and whether or not he deserves a new contract).

If we want to score more goals then Radzinski is not the man. Creating chances has not been that big a problem. It's been putting them in the back of the net that has been the trouble this season but if you had put Nick Chadwick in the positions that Radzinski has had this season how many more goals would we have scored? Chadwick is a more "natural" finisher and quite what he is doing at Millwall is beyond me.

Rob S.

This is an unbelievably harsh assessment of Radzinski's contribution to the past couple of seasons. He wasn't voted Player of the Season last year for nothing; his absence at the end of the campaign cost us a European place. Yes, he is profligate in front of goal but, along with Rooney, he is the best striker we have. Even at the age of 30, he remains a key component of the attack and it's no surprise that when the service dried up, his goals went the same way. And don't forget the old adage, you have to be in the right place in the first place to score goals. — ToffeeWeb

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