Anthony Stokes

Not his biggest fan at all but his 2nd goal tonight was sensational, brilliant build up play and skill from Sammy initially also.

 

20 goals.

Still a possibility?

I think he'll do it ... right on the number.

What do you folks think?

 

6 goals to get in the 7 remaining games, not sure he'll play in all of the games left either.

Can see the likes of Pukki, Balde and Fridjonsson being tried out.

 

I look for a few more against Ross Co. on Sat.

 

On behalf of Anthony Stokes I would just like to post a huge GET IT RIGHT * UP YE YA SHOWER A FANNIES to all the posters that have hounded him on here in recent months.

:bbpd:

 

It's not like he was getting unfair criticism mate.

He was poor, for a large chunk of this season, it's good to see him now claw back some goals.

 

He was given PLENTY of unfair criticism.

 

Not really? He had a lengthy spell of hardly any goals or assists, even in just the league.

If he wasn't for that spell I'm confident he would already be well over 20 goals this season.

 

He was.

He was getting stick on here when he was assisting goals because he was not scoring.

 

I think it was on the Celtic players stats thread that I mentioned it,

"He went from late September to mid January in the Scottish Premiership (12 games) where he scored 2 goals and assisted 1. Wasn't having a good time of it at all. That's why his record isn't what it could've been this season, those bad 4/5 months he had."

There's also quite a few CL and domestic cup games in between all of that.

 

And in the majority of that spell he was deployed as a lone striker.

Low and behold (like umpteen of us were so defensive about) - stick him beside a partner and you will see the best of him.

Justified.

 

The thing is for me though is that every player is going to have bad patches, I mean come on Commons went a season scoring 1 or 2 goals and never received the crap Stokes get.

Even Matthews who has been stinking since his return hasn't got any crap from fans, admittedly they will say he ain't playing well but if it was Stokes returning from injury he would be completely hounded for displays.

Stokes has always been a great player to me and providing he stays I see no reason why he can't reach the status of legend at this club.

 

Lets not kid ourselves, when he scored on the very first day of the season, to win us the game, he got labled greedy for taking it on. There is plenty of unfair criticism landed Stokes' way, without doubt. It's ridiculous.

 

He's a decent player, nothing more and nothing less. He can't cut it in Europe and is inconsistent on the domestic stage, but he does provide us with plenty of goals and assists on the domestic stage so he's worth keeping for that alone.

If we want to do anything in Europe then we need better, we probably need better than Griffiths as well if I'm honest but he hasn't been tested in Europe yet so that remains to be seen.

My criticism of Stokes or any Celtic player for that matter is purely down to my desire of wanting better for Celtic. I want to see Celtic reaching the last 16 of the CL again - can I see that happening with Stokes and Griffiths as our front men? I wish I could say yes, but it isn't going to happen in my opinion.

Delighted with Stokesy last night though. His second goal was a belter.

 

Not to cause an argument but how can he be inconsistent but provide plenty of goals and assists?

 

Yes to both!!!!

 

It might seem like a contradiction but it really isn't, the lad has as many bad games as he does good games. Scoring and assisting goals for Celtic isn't really that difficult to do if you're that type of player as you'll always get plenty of opportunities to do that so you've got look beyond the statistics and look at his overall play and that's where I get frustrated with him because I think he has really good footballing ability and I just don't think he shows it enough. Funnily enough, I don't think he's been that bad this season although he seems to have came in for a lot of stick this season.

It depends what you're looking for in a player, not to compare Stokes with Boyd as they're different types of player but Boyd offers virtually nothing apart from goals and that's alright at the level he can do it, but Boyd can only play at a certain level of football and I believe that to be the same with Stokes. Stokes can do what he does in the Scottish League and it's overall a benefit to us, but it's pretty obvious the lad is limited and that's down his complete lack of physical attributes which is why he needs somebody to play off and it's why he can't play up on his own.

He's not strong, he hasn't got pace and he's generally not an athletic player which is fine in the Scottish League because the Scottish League isn't filled with athletic players so he gets to showcase his footballing ability and playing for Celtic in the Scottish League only helps that because he gets plenty of opportunities to be on the ball. Stokes is to me what Samaras is to a lot of Celtic fans, I find him to be an extremely frustrating player but I can understand it because I know what his faults are and that's why you don't see me in this thread every other week having a go at him.

I don't want to be seen to be picking on Stokes as a lot of our players go through good and bad spells. My main concern is European football, I'm happy enough with Stokes in domestic football although I wish he would be more consistent in his play, but pretty much all our attacking players are the same. We don't have that quality player up front anymore that will turn it on in most games he plays. Maybe I am setting my standards a bit too high.

 

See the funny thing is, he got slated in Europe this season but I think he was our only attacking player whose ability on the ball when he actually recieved it wasn't shown up. From putting Zapata on his * to skinning Ajax players to win a penalty.

He's not a man to lead the line up front but for link up play, I have absolutely no worries, he has that arrogance about him where he's not afraid to play his usual game. Even in the San Siro the only goal threat we had from open play was him going wide and crossing to Samaras, something none of our usually composed players could do. Lustig, Izzy, Matthews, Sammy and co were all hitting the first man.

I don't think he can be judged this year on Europe, I've never saw us so bad in an attacking sense. We just couldn't work the ball into the box for a chance.

 

Our biggest goal threat in the San Siro from open play was Samaras when he went on a solo run and put one just past the post. That was probably our best chance I would say.