The Machine has done well for us. He’s a powerful and technically gifted centre-forward. If we’re playing long aimless balls (which I despise) to him that’s the fault of the deliverer, not Madine. It suits him to have the ball played to his feet or certainly below head height. Our players need to have the courage to play the right way (as we know they can and suberbly so) whoever happens to be up front.
The notion that Tufty, or any manager, should make a decision now that any player is going to “start every game” is naive nonsense. We had much the same demand at around this time last season in relation to Brooks, who turned out to be anonymous more often than not.
Pele forbid that you lot should ever, ever, ever have even the remotest say in team selection, substitution, tactics or even the half-time oranges.