When Gonzalo Garcia danced past AFC Wimbledon’s Dan Sweeny, side-stepped ‘keeper Nathan Bishop and coolly slotted home to bag his second goal in two games, it looked like we’d robbed Real Madrid.
10 games later and the picture’s less rosy. But - as is always the case in football - it’s not black and white.
These formative stages of Gonzalo’s FFC career remind me a bit of Bobby Zamora’s, more than 15 years ago. When he first arrived, he couldn’t bag a goal for love nor money (bar one goal against Bolton early on). He copped abuse from the fans in the Hammersmith End, so when he did score, he’d cup his ears in response to his haters.
We came to realise that there was a lot more to his game than just goals. His hold-up play, his eye for bringing others into the game, were just as vital as his ability to put it in the onion bag.
Our relationship with Garcia isn’t as volatile as it was with Bobby in those early months. We understand he’s a young striker with a potentially stifling price tag. And in the modern game, we have a lot more data at our fingertips to see that he’s doing a lot right, and that the goals will come.
The stat doing the rounds on social this week is that Gonzalo is the biggest underperformer so far this term based on the ever-divisive xG metric. I’m not a stats nerd, but this tells me two things: his finishing needs work (the eye test already tells us this) and that he’s getting into good positions.
The latter is a far more important element, for me. Finishing is a confidence issue; strikers, particurlarly young ones in a new league, can be forgiven for lacking some confidence when things start to get a bit tricky. But Gonzalo’s workrate and positional ability is still at a high level. So when he does score, I think we can be in for a purple patch.
And it’s worth pointing out the company he’s keeping on that list. These are not terrible players. They’re not duds. Football ebbs and flows - remember when Igor Thiago was the next R9 Ronaldo?
When Garcia scored on his debut I was so pleased he got that monkey off his back. And when he went two for two, I thought “How refreshing to have a striker that is hitting the ground running?”. But football has a funny way of subverting your expectations. I’ve seen enough believe Gonzalo is closer than we might think to a kicking on. Sometimes, you just need one to bounce in off your arse, right?
His second-half performance against Villa on Saturday gives more reasons for hope - and will hopefully go some way to rebuilding some of his confidence. Some players just need an arm around them. We know Garcia will get that from his mentor Arbeloa - I have a feeling that the collective arms of the Fulham Faithful can help get him over the line.
Nice article, good to see a refreshing positive take on things. I think there were lots of positives to take from his performance against Villa..
I think it’s clear Garcia is a good striker but he just hasn’t had luck on his side recently. If he keeps creating chances and getting into good positions, the goals will come. Starting 30 senior games up front for Madrid is no easy feat and he had an impressive goalscoring record there.
It’s not like Arbeloa is the only one who rates him either. After winning the Golden Boot at the Club World Cup last summer he had several top European sides after him (bids from Dortmund, Juventus, Roma, Leipzig, Sunderland, Villa, Brighton all mentioned)
Thoughtful take, Drew. It's the vibe I'm getting too, so thanks for putting the thinking and the eloquence in. Hope it all changes soon, for all of our sakes, then we could have some fun!