lost that loving feeling - The Marlon King thesis

I’m sure we can remember only too well that strikers are strange beasts. They have a storming match or two then seemingly forget how to play the game. With strikers called Marlon that seems to happen in a magnified fashion. When Marlon the First still wore red we’d see a game of sublime brilliance followed by a game of headless-chicken madness. Indeed, if you saw the West Ham v Derby game on TV before we played Stoke last weekend you’d have seen that ‘headless-chicken Marlon Harewood’ is very much alive and well!

Now Marlon the Second is a different animal entirely. It isn’t fair to compare the two like-for-like as they’re a very different type of player. But the inconsistency of performance quality is one fair comparison. One game we’ll see Marlon King looking hungry, battling, running and generally doing all the things he should be doing considering how much he earns.

Then we have games like the one against Millwall, where he appears indifferent, doesn’t battle, doesn’t run and has the first touch of a brick wall with explosives strapped to it. The saving grace from his performance today was that he did have a header saved onto the bar, and had another semi-decent shot on goal – which is more than we’d have got out of him a few weeks ago.

And so, why is this? With Marlon Harewood I think we just had to accept the man was and will always be an enigma. He defies predictability and shuns the bleedin’ obvious in favour of a heady blend of sublime moments coupled with madcap ridiculousness. That’s just the kind of player he is.

But with Marlon King, we have seen that he’s not only skilful, with a good shot and pass, but that he’s also an intelligent player. He’s unselfish with creating as well as scoring, and even willing to come back and muck in with the defence on occasions. Marlon King certainly should NOT be defying predictability in the way that his predecessor seemed unable to avoid.

I don’t mind anyone having an off-game. True, I’d rather they didn’t, but I cannot stand to see someone who doesn’t appear to care as much as I do about getting the right result.

I think I’ve cracked it though. We started to see the best of Marlon the Second when Johnno started to make his recovery. When he started popping up on the team list amongst the substitutes it seemed like the proverbial kick up the arse our number eleven needed.

Revived by the combination of a new boss to impress and a rival waiting to take his place, we started to see why Marlon the Second was perhaps worth the investment. Even when he wasn’t weighing in the goals he was running around, tackling, tracking back and generally playing like someone ought to when they’re granted the honour of wearing a Forest shirt. And we were all very thankful for this – as the timing was ideal to assist us in our gathering of points to assure safety.

Then comes the Millwall game. We heard earlier in the week that Taylor was unfit pending surgery on his knee, and since the mighty DJ was edging ever closer to match fitness now was the time for Johnno and King to combine. As is governed by the laws laid down by Sod, King didn’t have exactly a blinding game. Certainly not his worst by a long way, but the lethargy, the not running quite as fast as he could do, the occasional first touch of a bad-tempered rhinoceros – all those frustrating things were present today in a game where we needed all eleven men to be fully behind the cause.

It’s true he headed against the bar, it’s also true he brought a decent save from the ‘Wall keeper as well as having a reasonable long-range effort. So we should thank heavens for small mercies, as on a typically bad day for Marlon the Second we’d be thanking our lucky stars if he actually ran quick enough to collect the ball – we’d be in bliss if he did that then passed it to a red shirt!

So we come to the theory – and it isn’t very complicated – Marlon King plays better when there’s someone applying pressure on him from being on the bench. When there was only him and Taylor with Johnno on the treatment table he was disappointing in the extreme. Now Taylor’s out for the season and there is once again no pressure for his place on the team, even less so since Johnno’s quite clearly some way off full fitness, it means he doesn’t have to bust a gut to keep his place in the starting eleven.

Well, let me tell you this, Mr King – we need people who are prepared to bust a gut for the cause, so get your finger out and play like we know you’re capable of. So many times I’ve criticised Marlon (not slagged off, criticism isn’t necessarily negative) and added the caveat that I’m happy to be proven wrong – and a few times over the last few games I thought he had proven me wrong.

So once again Marlon, I throw down the challenge to you – this time in writing – to make me look like a waffling eejit, and prove me wrong by performing well for the remaining games this season.