I would rate Hoban highly at LOI level but lets be fair he is no hat stand ;)
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Quoting an opinion and backing it up with considered stats surely doesn't constitute an 'amazing post' - grand if you don't agree.
Hoban is a fine player but his failure in England and his strike rate against better quality opposition surely suggests he has a 'level' goal-scoring wise anyway. That's not to say he won't improve his strike rate - fair enough in terms of sample size 18 games isn't much. I just don't get the hoopla surrounding him. Dundalk are hammering teams they dwarf in terms of budget - Hoban is among the goals in these games as you would expect but he's not exactly banging them in, in the games that really matter.
I agree re Hoban he is a good LOI striker in a team that creates a lot of chances but its a bit like playing for Celtic in Scotland any striker is going to score a lot of goals.
At the risk of upsetting Cork and Dundalk folk in the same post , i think that is the difference between Maguire and Hoban, Maguire scored a lot of goals for Cork who would not have been as good a team as Dundalk were (without him ,i mean) hence his success in England where Hoban struggled.
Just so i can complete the set and upset everyone how about Bohs for relegation next year :)
He was considered for MOTM in that last game in Turners Cross. Shields got it for scoring, but comments from Cork fans were things like 'Hoban is a beast', 'If we had Hoban we would be romping the league'. There is a lot more to his game than goals, he probably created space to allow another 20 goals. I can see why people question his ability to step up but he has done already since being in England and will do again. To define his ability on the impact in England is skewing things as he was scourged with injury. If he was playing against stronger defences week in week out he would adapt and still break 20 goals and 10 assists imo.
Ah here - Shields gave some exhibition that night to be fair to him. One of the outstanding individual performances of the season Imo. The man was everywhere - his goal wasn't the reason he got MOTM that night - they don't do that for every game!
To be honest I don't see too much difference between Hoban and Cummins - Cummins got 15 goals and 11 assists in the league this year playing in a team without the type of creativity that Dundalk had ( says he putting it mildly ). Cummins' form dropped away badly in the second half of the season. I think that was possibly down to signing for us in March and Basically he was going since Pre-season in Scotland (June 17) . Both are similar type of players. I'm on my own there I realize but I think we will see a different Cummins next season.
Honestly not a dig, I was very surprised to read further above that Cummins got 15 last season, were these goals in total or actually all in the league ?
I’m surprised he got that many, and also that Cork wouldn’t have gone for Ronan Murray either to be honest when he became available.
14 in the league. 3rd top scorer, just pipped by Sadlier. If he was the penalty taker rather than Sadlier, he could have hit 19/20.
He had a great first half of the season and was scoring regularly, every game or 2.
His form dropped off second half of the season, along with the rest of the team, and he struggled to score.
If the halves of the season were swapped, and he'd finished as he started, people would be talking very differently about him this off season.
He's certainly not the complete player, but it was a good return.
So have Dundalk invited applicants or are they head hunting or is there any word of the process in place?
Eh not quite, as far as i can remember, I was wondering if he was able to shake off his niggly injury and for that reason I thought Cummins would be top scorer. I didn't doubt his ability in the league, just if he could come back from his injury, I was wrong, he had a great domestic season
Have seen a few of his games this year in Europe, yeah. I thought he didnt stand out too much. What did i miss, please enlighten me?
As always lets wait n see, will have another good domestic season, but i wont be banking on him to score much in the CL. But i would be happy to be wrong as i do really want to see Dundalk do well in europe. :D
It would appear P6 are taking their time with this, no point rushing when they know they'll prob still be able to offer decent contracts to new incoming players, plus its only Benson now from the entire first team squad that has not signed up for next season, granted a few have left like Murray, Poynton and Sava.