Zohore ... a year on

[Forest Green Bluebird]

Looking back at TOBW's views immediately after the Bristol Rovers defeat last August ...

"Zohore’s career at the club so far has been a mixture of long famines interrupted by the occasional feast which suggests that there might be a player there who can become a quality Championship performer, but it was back to the famine with a vengeance last night.

Some credit should go to the Rovers back three (the best of whom was yet another centreback we decided wasn’t good enough and released in their mid teens!) mind for their clean sheet, but, in truth, they’ll seldom have such an easy game over the coming months. I’ll not accuse Zohore of doing this on the basis of just one game, but we can all probably think of players we’ve had in on loan who let their standards slip once they had the security of a nice, long contract behind them can’t we. As I say, it’s too early to leap to conclusions about Zohore yet, but he cannot afford too many more showings like that."

[Arfur Europe]

Looking back at TOBW's views immediately after the Bristol Rovers defeat last August ...

"Zohore’s career at the club so far has been a mixture of long famines interrupted by the occasional feast which suggests that there might be a player there who can become a quality Championship performer, but it was back to the famine with a vengeance last night.

Some credit should go to the Rovers back three (the best of whom was yet another centreback we decided wasn’t good enough and released in their mid teens!) mind for their clean sheet, but, in truth, they’ll seldom have such an easy game over the coming months. I’ll not accuse Zohore of doing this on the basis of just one game, but we can all probably think of players we’ve had in on loan who let their standards slip once they had the security of a nice, long contract behind them can’t we. As I say, it’s too early to leap to conclusions about Zohore yet, but he cannot afford too many more showings like that."

Summed up a lot of people's feelings at the time. It's been miraculous

[James fox]

NWs influence?

[BlueArmy 86]

NWs influence?

100%

[James fox]

100%

Agreed

[the other bob wilson]

Summed up a lot of people's feelings at the time. It's been miraculous

There was one incident in particular from that Rovers match which prompted me to write what I did. It came when Zohore used that mixture of pace and strength he has to go by two defenders in a run down the right wing and reached the area between the corner flag and the edge of the penalty area, then, with team mates in the centre, ridiculously opted for a shot from a way too acute angle - even a child of ten would have shown more footballing intelligence than Zohore did then.

When he came on early for an injured Rickie Lambert a few weeks later against Derby, Zohore made no sort of impact - he did have the excuse that the team were very low on confidence and playing awfully at the time, but, that night, he looked like someone who be leaving Cardiff, either temporarily or permanently, soon.

Something that never gets a mention in the Zohore Resurrection story is that, before he came on against Wolves and his Cardiff career changed he scored three times in two appearances for the Development team, with one of those goals being the finish of a natural goalscorer - with hindsight, I reckon those goals were a lot more important for Zohore than they seemed at the time.

Therefore, I wouldn't agree that his comeback has been 100% down to Neil Warnock, Zohore deserves some of the credit because the ability was always there and revealed itself intermittently under Russell Slade - that said, I'd say that his revival has been 75% Warnock insoired.