When an offer of £8 million came in on transfer deadline day for our diminutive Scottish forward, I was amongst those who would have happily accepted and allowed him to move on. Naismith himself has come out recently and said that he wanted to move for more playing time so that his career doesn’t stagnate. I thought, ‘he doesn’t really fit into our system, he hasn’t got the pace, and he isn’t technically gifted enough to play a role for us, especially with Ross Barkley currently occupying his place in the team. It’s an easy decision, right?’
Then he comes on against Chelsea, in an unfamiliar role on the left, and bags himself a very impressive hat trick. I’ll admit that I was moaning when he came on ahead of Mirallas or Deulofeu, and he shut me right up. Roberto Martinez is a big fan of Naismith and we saw why on Saturday. In fairness to him, he works hard, has brilliant movement, and has a particularly useful habit of scoring against the ‘bigger’ teams. He also has a bit of snide in him and never lets up on the referee, which are desirable traits in any player. He also seems to have a good relationship with John Stones off the field. Both are charitably minded and you could see in the goal celebrations against Chelsea that they are mates.
Despite not really fitting into a quick passing system, especially when played out of position on the wings, Naismith has made himself undroppable for our trip to Swansea. Where he will play will be of massive importance because he will have less scope to drift in to central positions with the attacking trio of Ayew, Sigurdsson, and Montero in behind Gomis. He is best when played centrally, as we could see against Chelsea; he scored all of his goals from a central position. Let’s hope that his good form continues and he can keep up his level of performance no matter where he is asked to play. Most of all I hope that he keeps proving me wrong.
