No bombshells then.
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No bombshells then.
His career before and since suggests that there was a lot more to him than we ever saw. The management have to take some blame for not getting the best out of him.
We didn't play to his strengths at all. And by the time he was back from his ankle injury we were pretty dysfunctional as a team.
And yet, he's played in Serie A, Ligue 1, the Champions League and played in a World Cup Finals tournament for a top ten in the world team - not sure any of the City youngsters who were ridiculing him five years ago have managed that yet.
If I remember rightly, Cornelius may well have been our first signing of the summer of 2013, so I don't think it was panic which drove Mackay to go after him - he was a disastrous signing who was completely wrong for what we needed at that time, but I think his subsequent career has shown that he's not as bad as he looked most of the time while he was here.
He's proved he's not a top level striker. He flopped at Atalanta, and he's not scored for Bordeaux. According to Bellamy, he had a bad attitude and there's a reason he came to us and not a bigger club, something Fulham are finding our now about their "star signings". I've also heard stories about him being a figure of ridicule amongst the kids, which is why Mackay changed his tact about him being "one for the future". Good luck to him but we certainly haven't missed him. His "header" against Man City is still the worst/best thing I've ever seen for City.
Still, he's ahead of Zohore in the Denmark striker rankings, which says a lot more about Ken's form than it does about Cornelius.
I seem to recall the Fulham manager (was it Martin Jol?) saying around the time that they had looked at him and that they thought that he had some potential. However, he believed that something nearer £500k was a more realistic price and was astounded at what we paid.
It's amazing how history has been re-written regarding the signing Cornelius.
When he arrived at Cardiff, as the first signing of the 2013/14 season, he had just turned 20 year of age. He had finished the previous season as top scorer in the Danish League with 18 goals, he'd scored for Copenhagen in the Europa League and he'd already made 5 appearances for the Danish national side, scoring in a 3-0 World Cup qualifier victory over the Czech Republic. He'd won the Danish League's Player of the Year award and the Danish Young Talent of the Year award, ahead of players such as Southampton's Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg (who was at Bayern Munich at the time) and Chelsea's Andreas Christensen.
He'd previously been linked with Everton and Stoke and was given glowing recommendations by that great judge Ole Gunnar Solsksjaer, who reckoned Manchester United should take a look at him.
I can remember how excited some of the contributors on this board were when he signed as they believed Mackay had bagged one of Europe's most promising youngsters. I also remember being told I was an idiot who was merely bitter about the re-brand when I dared to suggest the reported fee of £8.5 million was a bit steep for a player with his lack of experience.
He got 3 league goals last season. I was looking at some out of date figures but he's scored 1 goal in nearly 400 league minutes this season.
Clearly he is better than what we saw, he didn't look like he should be getting paid to play! He's certainly not one that got away either.
The same ones who used to slate him left, right and centre are probably the same ones that sing Danny Ward's name religiously whilst he's warming up. Couldn't make it up!
No, I am counting his substitute appearances.
If you add up all of the minutes he played last season and divide it by 90 it comes to just over 13. So he played the equivalent of 13 full games.
It is the only sensible way to look at that kind of data for players who are on the bench a lot.
He flopped, he's not the first and won't be the last.
But I still think the club and Tan were completely wrong in releasing that press release about him.
Exactly, he was a teenager, probably away from home for the first time in his life and, apparently, he had kids his own age at the club taking the piss out of him - unless he said to City I'm not signing for you unless you pay me 45 grand a week I don't think I'll be joining in with those who still want to slag him off even after all of this time.