Don Pacifico almost everything if I'm honest. His touch never looked top, but I expected it to be a bit more consistent. Physicality wise I was expecting a monster who could bully most premier league defenders on a regular basis and brute force his way to goal. That was basically his Mr Bane thing, right? Shoulder barge, turn, run and gun... I've maybe seen him win 3 physical duels of note, and there was no associated direct end product for him (one was the chance which came off the post for Martinelli tap in). His hold up play for his size (and musculature ) is ew.
Finally and most importantly, his aggression and attacking instincts have very disappointing. If you looked at the stats back then they called out his run repeatability and how often he ran the channel to try to get in behind the defence off the shoulder of the last defender. He was miles ahead of every striker in the whole of Europe in that category. Since he's been here, it seems he can't get away from his marker due to a lack of pace so he doesn't seem to try as much. I place a bit of blame for this on our midfield/wingers/style of play as we don't really service those runs when he used to try to make them. But I don't expect him to stop, and I expect him to be a little less clunky in and around goal. For such a prolific goal scorer you ought to be able to get your shots off a tad quicker than most. You have to be able to sniff out and attack the danger areas and take the advantage. That should be instinctive - the essence/super power of a top center forward. That's what we were basically all clamoring for when we brought him in. And then you open up your toy on Boxing day and find out hey this model only comes with the basic features.
The positives I see from the signing are that :
1, at least we've had a body out there to occupy the spot in the absence of Havertz (who isn't exactly inspiring either),
2, reportedly he gave up some money to accommodate the transfer fee, and
3, we likely don't have to pay Sporting full value, ie any of the performance based bonuses, as he likely won't be hitting the numbers that would trigger them (hopefully they aren't just appearance based!)
