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Forward "Manny" Duku to to sign with the club. Johnson had signed him while at Cheltenham, although for most of last season he was in the Confernece with Barnet and then Halifax.

Clearly, GJ likes hims. That's enough for me.

https://www.torquayunited.com/immanuels ... in-united/

happytorq wrote: ↑12 Jun 2019, 15:33 Forward "Manny" Duku to to sign with the club. Johnson had signed him while at Cheltenham, although for most of last season he was in the Confernece with Barnet and then Halifax.

Clearly, GJ likes hims. That's enough for me.

https://www.torquayunited.com/immanuels ... in-united/

An interesting career so far, with his best season coming three levels below Conference. In GJ we trust though, must have seen enough to want to sign him twice, another Kalala?

2015 Chesham United 4 (0)
2015 Hemel Hempstead Town 0 (0)
2015–2017 Kings Langley 44 (7)
2017 Banbury United 12 (2)
2017–2018 Hayes & Yeading United 39 (33)
2018–Cheltenham Town 11 (1)
2018 → Barnet (loan) 6 (3)
2019 → FC Halifax Town (loan) 12 (3

Yay a Dutchie ! Welcome aboard Manny.

Good signing and even more important a genuine centre forward, hopefully Reidy can revert to an inside forward role and play off him which I think is his best position.

One down - one to go!

MellowYellow wrote: ↑14 May 2019, 15:43 There is two possible players on Cheltenham's release list that GJ may be interested in - namely Manny Duku and Tom Smith.

Duku went on loan to Halifax scoring twice in four National League starts for the Shaymen. Following his instant impact Halifax extended his loan to the end of season, so I was concerned they may have first shout on him. Good signing - will fit in perfectly with GJ style of play.

Sounds a bit like nathan blissett type. GJ obviously likes him by his comments and scored a few in this division.

Yay.
Pass the Dutchie to the Johnson's side.

I asked on the Hayes and Yeading board about how Manny Duku managed to do so well for them yet seemed so not very good before or since, these are the responses...

Purely my opinion and I’m sure many will see it differently, but I never “saw it” in him. He scored a lot of goals to his credit but he played in a very good side with plenty of quality service through the middle and from wing-backs. Obviously the level we played at back then was much lower than where he is now too. A good athlete and a fair bit of technical ability but I always thought our other striker at the time, Duncan Culley, was a far better all-rounder. Duku always seemed to struggle with the physical side of the game for me.

Poor opposition.

As others have pined the level of opposition was not overly challenging; had she been match fit, Helen Keller would have scored a similar amount of goals.

So as we all now realise, we've got a bit of a pup. Personally I think it's time for GJ to admit he's not perfect, this signing was a mistake and start giving Koszela the minutes instead...

I can see why GJ signed him and he looked ok in pre season until he got a heavy challenge and was injured. CLE then signed and our formation changed. To be fair to him its been a bit stop start and he hasnt been given a consistent starting position. Maybe he hasnt deserved a starting opportunity. IMO he needs to take his chance when it comes and keep working hard. We will soon see if he has the stomach for it. If he doesnt the it will be a short stay.

If he was new to GJ then there might be more cause for concern at lack of starts but having managed him before, and also mentioned this recently in an interview, GJ seems to know what Duku can do and trusts him, so I don’t think there’s any big issue.

Lemonheigh-Evans (and then Whitfield) becoming available late in pre-season may have changed plans for the formation and set-up we were going to go with – it’s now often Reid up front with 5 in midfield, including someone playing in between midfield and attack. With Reid already in double figures and the abundance of quality midfielders, it’s just quite hard to get into our side at the moment, which is a position it’s quite nice to be in. If Janneh joins as well until January, that becomes even harder, but it’s a long season with different games to play and GJ will balance his squad accordingly. I think he’d be quick to make changes if he felt they were needed, so we can just sit back and enjoy the ride.