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Gonzalo Garcia is struggling: Is he unlucky, out of form or not good enough?
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- Gonzalo Garcia is struggling: Is he unlucky, out of form or not good enough?
(IMAGO)
Tom Masters explains the situation surrounding Gonzalo Garcia.
When Fulham signed Gonzalo Garcia from Real Madrid this summer, it signalled a fairly significant statement of intent from the Cottagers.
Garcia was the top scorer at the Club World Cup only the summer before last and was very much a part of the Madrid first team squad last season, albeit with many of his minutes coming off the bench.
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It was said by many that Jose Mourinho wanted Garcia to stay in the Spanish capital due to his impressive performances in pre-season, and at one stage it looked as if that was exactly what was going to happen.
Then there was a breakthrough, and Fulham were able to sign the Spanish forward and secure the all-important deal that they had been pushing for some time.
Having lost Raul Jimenez, Garcia was brought in to be the new No.1 striker at Fulham.
He was the first player the Cottagers had signed for big money in the No.9 position since Aleksandar Mitrovic and in some ways he had a similar profile to the Serbian, who had been such an important player for Fulham in the past.
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But when actually getting onto the pitch, things have simply not clicked for Garcia.
He took his header well on debut against Chelsea to get off the mark and then scored a brilliant goal against AFC Wimbledon in the Carabao Cup in the very next game.
It seemed for all money that Fulham had signed a reliable centre forward for goals.
But since then, he has failed to hit the target, now going six games without a goal.
That is not what Fulham signed and although it is of course, early in his time in England, his performances have largely been of a disappointing variety.
And so the question is, is Garcia unlucky, out of form or simply not good enough?
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Now, as I said above, it may be too early to really be able to tell.
But we have now got an eight-game sample size, and that is not nothing.
It seems to me that Garcia is a confidence player; his opportunity against Hull is one that he may well have attacked with a bit more vigour had he been on a run of scoring.
As it happens, he still struck the woodwork with it, and of course there is a certain element of tough luck with that.
What we have unfortunately seen over the last two matches is a lack of composure in front of goal.
Against Ipswich, Garcia missed two big chances, amassing an expected goals of 0.67 but failing to actually score.
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Hull was another big chance missed; Manchester United another (and 0.69 xG without a goal), while he also missed a big chance against Liverpool.
Garcia has, for all intents and purposes, unfortunately developed a bad habit of missing big chances.
He has just one Premier League goal to his name after eight matches, despite notching up 3.47 xG - the eighth highest in the league.
It feels too early to say that he is not good enough after eight matches, but it has to be said, when missing as many big chances as he is, that is not just down to bad luck, and you have to cite a bad run of form for that.
It will say a lot about both the character of the man and his ability as a player to see how he recovers over the next few matches.
