Reflections on Cookie's Departure

Bit of a false coating. You cant exactly paint the picture that we were promoted without Cook, which "proves" we are successful without him, without also saying he was our top scorer in a promotion season and didn't play for half of the season. We wouldn't have been near the auto slots without his contributions in the first half of last season. Cook is only mentioned on the back of the lack of the Jan window strikers adding virtually sod all to our end product.

We are 3rd, but lets face it we are 3rd because the rest of the pack struggle to put any form together to knock us off rather than us cementing 3rd spot. Since January when Cook was phased out until a move happened, we've played 20 L1 fixtures and gained 28 points from 60, with 9 wins, 1 draw and 10 defeats in 20 games. Not many 3rd placed teams will lose 10 games in 20, ever. Form table of the last 18 games, which starts at the Cardiff game, has us 11th.

Humphrys has the odd goal in that spell, a few off the bench in losing conditions. Swan had one at Blackpool, if you clutch at straws Jackson scored in his striker start but played right wing before than and has since his injury which kind of says that's where GA sees him playing when fit. The main reason that Cook is mentioned is because we've had 10 losing outings since he was phased out, with many of those games having pretty awful striker play in there. I'm not saying Cook would have changed all those games, but a proven striker rather than an off the boil Wheatley might bag one or two of his chances at Luton and we get a point. How many chances did we fluff at Reading? Felt like a fair amount and that game should have been put to bed. Mansfield at home felt similar, Burton away too, there must have been 7 or 8 times in both those games with our forwards having a pop to nothing. Again, not saying that Cook would have rescued us, but a competent striker might have made a loss or two into a draw or two, maybe even more and the play offs are already sealed then. Replacing a proven scorer and a dressing room leader, with Wheatley and Mullin in hindsight has been a shocker of a move.

 

It would have been great to have Cook to bring on when we were chasing the game. But let’s not forget we won promotion largely without him and are third in the league without him.
He will want a contract in the summer and will probably get one with Grimsby he wouldn’t have with us good luck to him he might win promotion again

 

We brought in 3 strikers to replace him and between all 3 they have one goal ..............now folk csn alude to him being past it ????? Can alude to his injury can alude to GA not wanting him but put money on he would outscore all so called better player that where brought in ...............even the 3 goals he got this season came out of nothing hardly sitters that some of his replacements have missed ...............i know it gets boring when his name does get brought up when he scores and when we lose but i think thats down to folk thinking we actually fooked up January big time .............

 

Put it this way had Cook not played from August till Jan we would have been in any kind of posistion to challenge last season ?????? His goals where a major factor on us being anywhere near the playoffs just before xmas and lets be right the two games after the Notts C game showed huge signs ( PV and Chesterfield ) that the tide was turning and both included Cook with him scoring a goal out of nothing yet again.

 

Largeĺy ????? He played 4 months didnt he ???? got 12 league goals didnt he ?????
Sorry but his contribution from August to Jan gave us the step to go on and do what we did because frankly no Cook during them months and i bet the outcome would have been a lot different

 

Like you say he may not have made a huge difference but i bet some of them losses would have resulted in different outcomes with him in the side ......... Saturday a prime example when we need a horrible bastard in there to put there defence under pressure he would have been perfect but all they had to do was see off a piss poor hardly scoring strike force ..................

 

Putting everything else to one side, I was mightily impressed with his apparent new found turn of speed at the weekend, and really happy that his recovery has gone so well.

He's a great striker and I hope he gets another season or two to smash some records for Grimsby or wherever else he may end up. Forza Cooky Monster

 

As I said, I wish we had given him more of a go before we let him leave, but that's not what the manager or the club thought and to be fair to them, we're third punching well above our weight, so I guess my point of view is they have credit in the bank and had their reasons, both financial and tactical. He might have wanted to go as well. We don't know.

Tbf, he didn't score any league goals when he did play this season, so I'm not sure we can say either way if we'd have done better or not, although I don't disagree that games like Stevenage I'd have love to see him coming off the bench instead of Mullin. Whatever, us arguing about it won't change it now. We all know we need more attacking quality in the summer window whichever division we'll be in and that Januaries gambles haven't paid off like we'd have hoped.

 

How does it help financial wise if we have paid more out in wages for the 3 brought in ???? As for league starts appearances the team was doing well during his appearances so there was no real pressure on him while others where scoring .............its now when we need a forward to pull something out of knowhere and we simply aint got a forward to do that Cook may have done that because hes the one who has pulled a rabbit out of the hat on so many occasions ............look at his performance on Saturday a fooking pain in the arse and scored and set up a tsp in for the other.

Now if GA didnt want him etc etc then the very least you replace him with either similar or better have we really done that ???
How many games have Mullins,Jackson and Wheatley had combined ?????? 28 games and the one goal between them now you telling me that the game time all them have had individualy Cook would have got more ?????

Btw its not just Saturday its many a game since Jan where im sure he would have made a difference

 

Thats what i wanted most a good loan spell leading to a longer deal somewhere

 

I'm not defending them but I'm not sure what we're paying Mullin and Wheatley. Are you? Jackson has come from Championship and has gained promotion from League 1 so I don't see why signing him is criticised. Shame he got injured.

I don't completely disagree with you, though I will point out again that he didn't actually score any league goals when he was given a chance (again, If it were up to me he would have had more chances before he left) and League 2 is a division below btw. I have no idea if Cookie would have scored more or if we'd have been better or worse off. Seems like we're doing pretty well either way.

Why don't we expend the same energy lamenting that Tommy Leigh left when he's impressing for Bristol Rovers and actually probably contributed more for us this season than Cookie did (not overall across their City careers obviously, Cookie will always be a legend for us and Tommy Leigh will not).

 

You think Cooks wages will have been more than Wheatley,Mullin and Jackson ( yes injured but lets get it right hes hardly prolific is he ) put together ????,

Btw do tell me what Tommy Leigh did this season because im struggling ???
Tommy Leigh wa simply not good enough for us he could have stayed here and conributed little could you say the same for Cook ??????

All them tight games when we needed something where we need a bit of chaos Cook would have done something or affected a game ......... Tommy Leigh wouldnt have

 

I have no idea what they are on, that's why I asked.

He scored a goal for one thing. Plus, I'm not actually saying we should have kept him, I don't think he's good enough either, though he started well this season. I just don't see why Cookie is the only one we come on here and cry about every time we lose a game and they have scored a goal against someone in the division below.

And I've said if it were up to me I'd have like to have seen him given more of a go, but it isn't up to me is it. I can just accept he's gone and that's the way it goes sometimes in football. If we were fighting for our lives at the bottom of the league I could understand it but we aren't. We're third and it's difficult to imagine what we could have done on our budget to be better than what we have been after one summer window.

 

i've been one of Cooks biggest critics and even i was surprised at the lack of league 1 time given to him, there are certain types of games cook would have made a massive difference... these are the league-2-esque type of games ie like Stevnage on saturday, Mansfield, Rotherham, Leyton Orient etc, pretty much where teams park the bus and we keep hoofing it up field hoping for the best. BTW having watched Grimsbys highlights.. the assist from cook.. wow i don't think he ever ran that much for us.

 

I think its a lot down to that we had a chance of the automatics and rather than replacing the players that went out of the doors with better upgrades we simply brought in players that have weakened us and the results back it up.
Cook in my opinion should have stayed he would in a fair few games he would have made a difference and Saturdays game may have been one of them

 

I think he may have made an impact in some games for sure, but I think it's a bold claim that we'd have been going for autos had we just played Cook. He did make several appearances off the bench in the earlier part of the season and didn't score any goals afterall.

Do the results back that up? After January I must admit I thought we'd royally fecked it and were probably going to miss out on the play offs, but we're currently 8 points clear of 7th with 4 to play.

In any case, nothing we can do about it is there. It's all maybes and hypotheticals anyway.

 

People really need to move on from Cook. He barely featured for us this season and we’re 3rd. Hardly like we’re having a terrible time without him.

I don’t disagree that the signings we brought up front have failed to deliver but Cook obviously wanted to play regular first team football and he was never going to get that. I would imagine it was as much him wanting to leave as GA not wanting him.

 

GA has a strange approach when it comes to forwards, but its hard to say it hasn't worked overall.

While I think this was an error in hindsight, I can still forgive it. Where we go from here is massive though, regardless of the division we're in.

 

I think how GA uses his forwards is probably why there is and will be until the end of the season a lot of discourse around the striker pack. I pointed out a few weeks ago that the strikers who have the most goals in L1, tend to play 90 minutes more often than not and the top 5 are very rarely taken off before 75 mins..... whereas our strikers rarely play more than 75 mins a game, its usually 45-60 mins from the starter and then his replacement comes on, or another striker for a midfielder usually with 5/10 to go if we are chasing.

It's an odd way, on one hand it's good because a lot of strikers get games and a chance to show what they can offer in small doses, but on the other hand how sharp are you going to be if you are playing at best two thirds of the minutes possible? I think it's probably also because we had 3 years of a main man striker, Cook started if fit and scored at a daft rate. Going from a main man to a rotating pack was always going to bring spikes of criticism when they misfire.