Aleksandar Mitrovic scored twice in the space of thirteen first half minutes to set Serbia on their way to a 4-1 thrashing of Luxembourg in their latest World Cup qualifier in Belgrade.
The Fulham centre forward opened the scoring midway through the first period following sustained Serbian pressure when he latched onto a lovely through ball from Sergej Milinkovic-Savic and effortlessly fired past the advancing Luxembourg goalkeeper. Mitrovic doubled his tally before the break with a trademark close-range header from Filip Kostic’s cross before being substituted with seven minutes to go after injuring his cheekbone during a clash with a defender. Serbian coach Dragan Stojokovic suggested afterwards that the striker could be still be fit to face the Republic of Ireland in Dublin on Tuesday night.
Mitrovic now has 43 goals for his country in 65 games. It remains remarkable to me that Scott Parker preferred to play Ivan Cavaleiro as a centre forward for a substantial part of last season.
Mitro was massively out of form and Parker wanted a quick counter-attacking side.
You may recall that Mitro scored a bag full of goals under Parker in the Championship
Pleased Parker over the ridiculous decision to play cav ahead of Mitro. Madness!!!
And Parker preferred playing sideways and backwards so Mitro never received the service he deserved.
Even if Mitro was out of Form he had Maja that looked like a striker , few times had both on bench and played without striker, when we needed goals madness
“Mitro was massively out of form and Parker wanted a quick counter-attacking side.”??? I really hope you are being ironic.
Parker is more defensive play, holding the ball too long and relying on the counter-attack.. Mitro is not suitable for that style of play. And a game like that proved not to work for Fulham, scoring only 9 home goals during the season, that’s the worst record . Sad
Can we stop defending the decision to play Cav as Mitro was out of form. Mitro scored a couple early in the season in the Prem and was knocking them in for fun on International duty. Was Mitro the solution and is he a class Prem striker? No.
He was however the best striker we had. Parker thought otherwise, undermined his form and used him here and there….of course he wasn’t at his best. Quite rightly Mitro said I’m not playing for a manager that thinks Cav is a better striker than me. Correct. Anyone that thinks that is an idiot….and as for the fast counter attacking style Parker preferred…how many goals did we score last season on the counter attack? Have a guess.? The answer is none. Not one.
Would we have gone down playing Mitro all season and building the attack around him? Probably. Would we go down with Cav up front? Definitely. That was never in doubt. An absolute certainty.
Cav and Knockout should never have been signed. Cav has been responsible for more goals against than contributed.