[Archived] Nikola Kalinic

[herbergeehh]

Having watched the highlights, Kalinic snatched at his shots and, as a result, was off balance.

I noticed this too. None of the shots were coolly placed, they were snapshots- the focus on power alone seems like a clear indication of nerves to me. What I liked best about him, was his ability to scrap and come out with the ball - his first chance being a prime example.

I really think this is a player capable of scoring a lot of goals for us. He looks like a poacher, so hungry every time the ball is loose - Benni's crossbar header for example. His finishing let him down, but I think we'll see two goals against Gillingham on Tuesday.

[Rovermatt]

I didn't see MOTD due to work but you're post has really angered me, not you personally but the content which I completley agree with your opinion. Some people might think were over reacting but I'm getting fed up with the constant negativity from the media that surrounds our club. The BBC seem to be the main culprits but they are certainly not on our own.

1. We didn't give Ince enough time, how long did they bang on about that for. I don't see anyone else giving Ince a job other than a league 1 side which is only because he did decently with them before when they had a team which was too good for the division. I don't want to start an Andrews debate on how good he is but surely we can all agree at League 2 level he must have been one of if not the best in the league.

2. Under Hughes all we did was foul people, about 800 a game I think we used to make, deserved at least 4 or so red cards a game

3. All we do under Sam now is hoof it hoof it hoof it, I know we do to an extent but they make Stoke sound like Brazil 1970 when they talk about us sometimes.

4. Plus they always talk about us now as Allardyce's Blackburn and constantly mention what he did at Bolton and how he'll get a team to battle blah blah blah, talk about Rovers for once not bloody Allardyce all the time, there's more to a club than a manager.

5. They constantly mention our lack of support at games. (Sorry for being a club in a small town BBC and having a fantastic proportion of fans compared to population) This really bugged me because last week, or perhaps it was on Sky they were bigging up Burnley's support despite the small town.

6. The Citeh game last week they banged on and on about the debutants for Citeh despite us featuring 4 in Jacobsen Di Santo, N'Zonzi and Hoilett.

7. As you say, lots of talk about the '6m flop' this week but nothing about the '400k bargain' last week.

I think we should start some emails to BBC asking them to at least stop with all the myth's they seem to believe about the club.

Most pundits know very little about the club. All this mythical nonsense they spew compensates for their general ignorance when it comes to talking about Blackburn Rovers. Simples.

[neekoy]

Think he is going to be quality, discounting nerves, I see 20 goals from him for us this year.

[The1mattjansen]

It is quite worrying when you see Kalinic come out like that, whilst the fella we turned down at £2m had a blinder for Hull.

[Miker]

Didn't like the way the clowns on MOTD had a special feature on Kalinic (bear in mind they rarely ever talk about Rovers let alone an individual Rovers player) which basically ridiculed him. A full recap of all the fluffed shot's he took completely falling to mention any of the following:

a.) it was only his first Premiership game

b.) he was thrown on unexpectedly after an early injury

c.) he's probably not fully match fit

d.) he's only young and was nervous about his first game

e.) any of his good moments during the game which people have mentioned

f.) that he got in good postions to have the chances in the first place

g.) some of the misses weren't that bad (see the Jason Roberts catalogue)

Instead a tag with 'six million pound striker' and a collection of clips for them to snigger in unison at. Yet last week they failed to mention the impressive debut performance of N'Zonzi but took special time to highlight the unfornate debut of Kalinic this week.

Only the brightside, like the 90s pop song goes things can only get better and like people have already said he got in the goal-scoring postions he just looked incredibly nervous. For one of the chances he knocked Roberts out of the way only to try attempt a weak header and a flying kick at the same time, then to round things off he deflected Benni's (think it was Benni) shot away from goal from the rebound.

You're kidding yourself if you think Roberts is worse. Last season Roberts grabbed 7 goals in 20 starts for us, which is a pretty decent record. His shots are usually at least close to the goal, or weak attempts at the goal. Kalinic MISSED the ball so many times against Sunderland that I lost count. It wasn't just a case of having bad accuracy with his shots, he just completely miskicked the ball.

Let's not kid ourselves, if he can perform then he will, but against Sunderland it was just shocking. It was a real worry, and there's nothing that can really be said to defend that performance. I honestly saw very little good things that he did, and if he did do something good, then he'd follow it up with five mistakes.

[Steve Moss]

I thought Kalinic showed a lot of potential. And Roberts did well too, all told. Is there a problem between Roberts and the ref? He seemed to get called for the weakest of reasons.

[Iceman]

You're kidding yourself if you think Roberts is worse. Last season Roberts grabbed 7 goals in 20 starts for us, which is a pretty decent record. His shots are usually at least close to the goal, or weak attempts at the goal. Kalinic MISSED the ball so many times against Sunderland that I lost count. It wasn't just a case of having bad accuracy with his shots, he just completely miskicked the ball.

Let's not kid ourselves, if he can perform then he will, but against Sunderland it was just shocking. It was a real worry, and there's nothing that can really be said to defend that performance. I honestly saw very little good things that he did, and if he did do something good, then he'd follow it up with five mistakes.

Most stupidest post ever. One of the best strikers in Shevchenko failed in this league, as did Pizzaro. If you honestly think a young lad should just enter this league and bang them in, then you must be crazy. His movement off the ball was good. I thought maybe he was just too eager to impress, and this just made him lose focus.

[philipl]

Good old MoTD- at least Rovers fans will be 100% behind Kalinic after all that garbage.

[Big Fat Sam]

I thought Kalinic showed a lot of potential. And Roberts did well too, all told. Is there a problem between Roberts and the ref? He seemed to get called for the weakest of reasons.

Roberts creates his own Problems with Ref's, he's always moaning about decisions or not getting them. Ref's don't like it and since he seems incapable of not moaning it will continue. Just get on with it Roberts if it goes your way great if not dust down and go again.

[Hughesy]

Didn't like the way the clowns on MOTD had a special feature on Kalinic (bear in mind they rarely ever talk about Rovers let alone an individual Rovers player) which basically ridiculed him.

It annoyed me too - im just hoping Nikola can shove those words down Hansens throat and then they can do another feature on him.....

[S15]

You lot are either too touchy, or just insanely stupid.

Do you expect them to do a bloody five minute focus on ''oh look at the potential shown to get on the end of this knock down, just a shame the shot hit the corner flag.''

The bloke cost £6m, which is big bucks for us, so they are going to be interested in how he looks. First impressions weren't great, so thats what was shown.

It's not media bias or any of this crap, MOTD have spent many a long hour showing us how crap Berbatov has played, or Veron back in the day, and Drogba used to get a right slating when he first signed. Morientes at Liverpool too used to get a right raping off some of the pundits.

All the responses on here, as per, are embarassing. The media don't hate us, they just don't give a @#/? about us, in exactly the same way we couldn't give a @#/? about Hull, or Wolves, or Stoke etc etc.

IT'S NOT HATRED!! Some people need to get over themselves, it gets to the point where if Lawrenson, who I think is a good guy, predicts us to lose, it's all ''OH MY GOD LOOK AT THIS TURNIP, HATE THEM LOT AT THE BEEB, THEY SO HAVE IT IN FOR US.''

The irony is chaps, he's right more often than not.

Didn't like the way the clowns on MOTD had a special feature on Kalinic (bear in mind they rarely ever talk about Rovers let alone an individual Rovers player)

The post that started all this too, started with an innaccurate slur as over the years, MOTD have done focus' on alot of our players, when they are FEATURE worthy. This includes drooling over Friedel, Tugay, Jansen, Dunn, Duff, Bellamy, Pedersen, Bentley and Santa Cruz as well as ridiculing the obsured such as Davies and Grabbi. Infact, I can think of more instances where they have spent time praising our players, as opposed to slating them.

[den]

I have every faith in the manager on this one, he took his time and got his man, so lets sit back and see how things pan out.

I think it was more that we hadn't got a clue who we were going to replace RSC with, even though we had months to sort something out.

Kalanic's name appeared in the newspapers when he rejected Pompey, I wager that's the first time we knew anything much about him.

[Hughesy]

Kalanic's name appeared in the newspapers when he rejected Pompey, I wager that's the first time we knew anything much about him.

Nope. We knew about him before the friendly we played - they had watched him before that too!

[alexanders]

I think it was more that we hadn't got a clue who we were going to replace RSC with, even though we had months to sort something out.

Kalanic's name appeared in the newspapers when he rejected Pompey, I wager that's the first time we knew anything much about him.

If I'm not wrong - we did play Hajduk Split in Pre-season. Didnt he play then?

[den]

Nope. We knew about him before the friendly we played - they had watched him before that too!

but apparently we didn't want him until Jones, Ghilas etc weren't gettable.

He wasn't our chosen striker Hughesy, until Pompey couldn't raise the cash. I'm not slating the lad, just replying to Gav's post when he says we considered our options then chose him. I don't think it happened that way at all.

[den]

Let's not kid ourselves, if he can perform then he will, but against Sunderland it was just shocking. It was a real worry, and there's nothing that can really be said to defend that performance. I honestly saw very little good things that he did, and if he did do something good, then he'd follow it up with five mistakes.

I can't understand how anyone could come to any other conclusion after the Sunderland game, Miker.

Hopefully he'll bang one in on Saturday and we'll all be singing his praises. We will see.

[Hughesy]

but apparently we didn't want him until Jones, Ghilas etc weren't gettable.

He wasn't our chosen striker Hughesy, until Pompey couldn't raise the cash. I'm not slating the lad, just replying to Gav's post when he says we considered our options then chose him. I don't think it happened that way at all.

Ghilas was ours if we wanted him - we pulled out.

Jones - never actually made a bid for - and was never going to be available for less than £10m (abit of paper talk maybe?)

[S15]

Hughesy are you trying to convince us all he was first choice?

[den]

Ghilas was ours if we wanted him - we pulled out.

Jones - never actually made a bid for - and was never going to be available for less than £10m (abit of paper talk maybe?)

We wanted Ghilas Hughesy, that's why we brought him over. We wanted Jones as well, like we wanted Kevin Davies.

All second hand talk I know, but that's the only way any of us know these things. There's no way, IMO, that we wanted Kalanic until it became public knowledge that he was available. We would have put in a bid earlier for him if that was the case. His club were obviously prepared to sell him.

[philipl]

Didn't Kalinic have only one year left on his contract which triggered the sale at a relatively reasonable price?

[bubblerrovers]

Just watched the whole game on BT Vision and he had a shocking debut, no real plus points at all. I really hope Sam brings him on slowly so he can find his feet, if he has another couple games like that his confidence will be shot and before you know it we have Grabbi the 2nd.

[Torgeir]

Didn't Kalinic have only one year left on his contract which triggered the sale at a relatively reasonable price?

I read that somewhere too, but the fee is a club record fee for Hajduk so the term 'reasonable' is a relative one. The standard of football in the Croatian league is poor as well, so it'll probably take some time before he adapts to the English game.

[dixonbrfc]

Just watched the whole game on BT Vision and he had a shocking debut, no real plus points at all. I really hope Sam brings him on slowly so he can find his feet, if he has another couple games like that his confidence will be shot and before you know it we have Grabbi the 2nd.

he got in good positions! as long as he keeps doing that the goals will come!!

[sloth_frattelli]

At least he was in those positions to miss the opportunities. Once he calms down a bit and gets focussed he'll start banging them in I reckon.

Totally agree with the consensus on MoTD and other media outlets. Last week our match was billed as 'The Man City game' and we'll not be featuring first on MoTD until we play another Big 4/5 club again. Even Sky to an extend come to Ewood for live games and do lengthy features on our opposition. The pundits let on to be concerned about the financial imparity between the Big 4 and the rest then put these clubs on a pedestal at any opportunity. We get no credit for being a well-run, historic, fighting club at all.

BTW, MoTD2 is meant to be a light-hearted version of MoTD1 yet they continue to wheel on the most drab pundits week after week. Lee (Gooner,Dingle,Sky Blue) Dixon, Martin (left my personality at home) Keown, and I even seen Paul Durkin on a few times too. Remember him..?

They should be offering ex-players who were characters of the game a chance to get on and offer a more humoured take on the footballing events. I know Gazza was on recently but more 'Jokers of the Dressing Room' would lift the dreary pitter patter from those mongs.

[spencey7]

I don't think Kalinic should even have played in that game, he clearly couldn't have been ready. Also - and because you all expect it of me - Pogrebnyak would have been a much better signing. (I see he's already off the mark for Stuttgart, and would have been fit and available from Match Day #1.) Expecting a relatively inexperienced 21-year-old from a poor league to come in and provide our main goalscoring threat is asking for trouble.

One final thing:

Most stupidest post ever.