Sorloth was Roys signing. Sorloth just didn't do enough to merit a place. Apart from a decent spell in Turkish football, he's done little to suggest that he can hack it in stronger leagues.

As for Mateta, he simply isn't good enough. I'm not sure how you arrive at the possibility that Favre or Nuno had anything to do with signing him.

Old, Ungifted and White

Who knows what goes on at Palace, Roy told Parish at Christmas he wasn't renewing his contract, Maybe Favre had verbally agreed to take the job, i have know idea, but it was a strange move

“That’s a joke son, I say, that’s a joke.” “Nice boy, but he’s sharp as a throw pillow.” “He’s so dumb he thinks a Mexican border pays rent” “ “Son… I say, son, some people are so narrow minded they can look through a keyhole with both eyes.”__ Forhorn Leghorn

Buying and loaning players is not an exact science. We were not shopping in Harrods, we were more like in the sale rack at C&A so not all purchases at that standard are going to work at the top level.

From what I saw, neither had what it takes to be successful in the PL.

It really does seem like a Palace specialty, but I suspect fans of a lot of other clubs feel they have a litany of goal scoring failures over the years, just because of how few are actually consistently successful, particularly at Prem level.

This season's no exception so far: Benteke is currently 13th in the Fantasy Prem points for forwards, and only two of them (Jesus and Ronaldo) are from the traditional top 6 sides. Securing an undiscovered gem that makes their mark as a CF in the Prem is incredibly rare (Dennis being that current rarity), and all clubs are trying to do it, so the logic of numbers says there must be a very large scrap-heap of those who didn't make it.

(On the point of the thread, I concur that Mateta looked terrible and I struggle to see at what level or in what system he might be successful. I always thought Sorloth looked like a good solid Championship striker for a team playing a physical, direct game.)

Edited by antipodeagle (24 Dec 2021 9.07pm)

Can we ever get a striker with a strong work rate? It seems like every one we have disappears for long stretches, and often looks lazy. This includes Benteke, Sorloth, Mateta, Edouard, and even Batshuayi. Other teams' strikers seem a lot more active than ours.

Tosun was the last one in recent memory who seemed to play with some energy, for the one match he played.

2017 Feb. (Van Aanholt) Palace 1 - 0 Middlesboro
2018 Jan. (Sako) Palace 1 - 0 Burnley
2019 May (Batshuayi, Batshuayi, OG, Van Aanholt, Townsend) Palace 5 - 3 Bournemouth
2020 Feb. (Van Aanholt) Palace 1 - 0 Newcastle

When Sorloth played for us he was a yard off the pace of the game. Just not good enough for the PL and I don't believe he is currently knocking in goals. Nothing against the lad but not for us. I've really not seen enough of Mateta to form an opinion. Must admit that I thought the Turkish (?) guy we loaned from Everton (can't remember his name) was probably better than either of them.

Denial is not just a river in Egypt