ColinLee said:
Surely his last full match that you claim was a 'good performance' was Newcastle away in the CC? He, like everybody else was pretty poor in the first 90 minutes. And since Negredo scored first in a 0-2 win then technically Negredo won us the match. No doubt you'll say he wouldn't have scored without the mighty Dzeko's presence.
Of course you never let any actual facts get in the way of a good delusional post do you?
And I'm pretty sure the cat gif was pointed at you as much as anyone else.
Oh dear, here we go again - I keep promising myself not to get involved (similar to discussions of politics and religion), but having just found a stats site called "WhoScored.com" that shows pretty extensive player stats for every game, I just have to make a few points about the Newcastle game and this ongoing (borderline pointless) discussion (though "disussion" is really far too grown-up a title for it).
1. Reading comments on here during and immediately after the Newcastle game, the consensus was that the whole team was poor, and that Dzeko was probably one of the poorer players out there. In contrast, Negredo did okay and was one of the bright spots of the evening, especially as he won the game for us.
2. When I saw the game later that evening, I was unsurprised to find that in my view the team didn't play
that badly (admittedly, knowing the result probably made me a lot less critical of individual errors) and that Dzeko actually played pretty well relative to the others.
3. If you look at the stats for that game "http://www.whoscored.com/Matches/782334/LiveStatistics/England-League-Cup-2013-2014-Newcastle-United-Manchester-City", Dzeko comes out as the man of the match. This is presumably based on some formula the site has developed involving all the different stats it collects, and is absolutely open for debate, but it is presumably the same formula they use for every game, and wasn't devised by a group of City-hating Bosnian Dzeko fanboys after the fact to make him look good.
4. It's pretty clear to me that Dzeko's performances are now being viewed in a negative light based on people's preconceptions (which may or may not be accurate - that's another discussion entirely). It's the same idea as blaming a woman driver for a car accident based on the preconception that women drivers aren't very good. The premise may or may not be true, but if you want to know who caused a particular accident, you need to look at the circumstances of the accident without any preconceptions - legal systems work like this for good reason.
5. If any good performances he has are always viewed in as negative a way as possible, the poor guy doesn't have any chance to change people's minds. The preconceptions become self-fulfilling.
If any of this makes you wonder if you're being a bit harsh on the lad, try this exercise; when Aguero or Negredo do something wrong (miss a chance, give the ball away, etc.) ask yourself how you'd react if Dzeko did the same. If your immediate response is; "yes, but it wouldn't be the first time for Dzeko, he's always doing that sort of thing", you're already doing it wrong. You have to judge that particular incident on its own. Was it forgivable or was it a bad play? If it was forgivable (a difficult chance, nothing else on, unlucky, etc.) then it should be forgivable for everyone. If it was bad (should've passed, poor technique, etc.) then it should be bad for everyone. And if Dzeko does something good, don't just dismiss it as "that was a great play, but it's the first time he's done it all season" or " not bad, but Aguero would've done better". Instead give him the credit for it. If you do this for a few games I guarantee you'll have a fairer picture of how good or bad our players are. You may still think Dzeko is clearly our third choice striker - I have no argument with you if that's your opinion based on an unbiased assessment.
And before anyone replies with the common refrain; "I only criticize him because of the OTT adulation from annoying fanboys", that's really only a justification for criticizing the posters, not the player. If your dislike for a player's fans makes you unreasonably critical of the player, you're really no better than the people you criticize for being unreasonably laudatory.