Well Wednesday’s 1-0 win over Birmingham, despite not being a particularly interesting game, threw up some interesting footballing vignettes.

Our strikers didn’t have great games with Fowler way off the pace and Bellamy in desperate need of a goal before he tries himself to death. Dudek impressed coming in for his first game in ages, coming off his line swiftly to make three good saves. Zenden put in his best performance of the season after Sissoko was carried off. He’ll be needed in the coming months.

Out wide Pennant is still showing glimpses of what he can do - - if the lad can believe in himself he could be an excellent player for us. On the other side Mark Gonzalez showed lightning pace to win a penalty in the second half. He’s had a stop-start season with a couple of injuries but hopefully this will be the start of a run of consecutive games for him.

Rafa put out a completely changed back four. Warnock provided his usual combative display. Fellow academy graduate Lee Peltier was steady and got forward at times with impressive pace. Daniel Agger was composure personified as he’s been all season. He seems to play the game at a different speed to everyone else, always having time on the ball. Which brings us to the blog’s favourite new player:

From Argentina
30 stories high
Heads crosses clear
He’ll make your strikers cry
Paletta Paletta Paletta

and Dan Agger …

Gabriel Paletta showed immense promise I thought. Powerfully robust and unafraid of a tackle he has the look of a real find. Yes he’s raw, and yes he’ll have to be careful with those shoulder barges, but as the game went on and Brum pumped more and more high balls into the box it was invariably the head of Paletta that got there first. It was like watching a Hyypia masterclass in clearing the danger. As his English improves his communication with other defenders will improve, and it’s comforting to know he’s getting a great education from defenders of the calibre of Sami and Jamie.

This Argentine could be breathing fire in red for years to come.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 10th, 2006 at 9:19 pm and is filed under Matches, Players. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.