He's had an impressive season so far no? Arruda?
He was doing ok last year as well, but considering he was banned from internal competitions for around 3 months (unlawfully as a superior court nullified his punishment) he was a bit off-form on the CL matches. That said he came out of the punishment with an amazing will and has improved dramatically since then. Right now he's at his best form ever, racking up goals and assists with tremendous ease. 8 in 8 in the Portuguese League plus a couple in the Europa League. I posted this video on another thread, it was Porto's game at Istambul, where he received a standing ovation from Besiktas fans (!!!) after his second goal. He played as main striker after Maicon's sending off, because of his pace for counters since we were one man short. He also racked an assist for a (ridiculously) ruled out goal.
Next home game and he scores another two plus one assist. He seems much more involved with his team-mates this season and I just feel sorry this isn't a Champions League year for us so I could see his displays against superior teams.
The standard of defending is rather awful obviously, but the last year against the same players we weren't doing this well. This last video is more to show how complete is his involvement with the team play nowadays as compared to the "run and shoot" of his first days around here.
Is he good enough Arruda, do you think?
I can't never be completely sure if a player like him can cut it at the highest level. By his performance this season (not only goals but in general build up play) I think he could be good enough to be a star in the Premier. He seems to have improved a lot on his decision making, his confidence is superb at the moment and he does almost everything well. However he had periods on the past two years when things weren't going very well for him (we had a weaker team overall as well) and at those moments he can be frustrating to watch. Shoots too much from awkward positions and since his first touch isn't superb if he has a very strong marker on top of him he lost the ball to many times. Think of the worse Cristiano Ronaldo performances (at the National team mostly) and you get an idea of the type.
Did he really improved overall or is it just a temporary rise in form? If the former I think he has all the qualities to be world class. Pace, strength, good technique with the ball, a fierce shoot and a tremendous will to perform. Let's see if his brain is up to his physique. This will be a good season to ascertain that.
I think the fact that he's left footed, quick and powerful is a point of interest. Sure I've seen good players on the left who are right footed, Ronaldo for example, but this craze for playing left footers on the right and right footers on the left is just stupid. Mancini does it with Milner and Johnson, when he plays Johnson. The fact is that you'll create and score more goals from getting crosses into the box than you will from having a player cut inside into traffic.
I think that depends a lot on the way the team wants to build it's attacks. On Porto we play 4-3-3 with very mobile wingers that constantly switch flanks. Their role here is to support the striker in a more direct manner and score goals themselves, not really deliver crosses into the box. Messi was always more dangerous on the right and they didn't need to cross to make goals nor was their striker best used in that fashion. Hulk is best used on the right, and though he's dangerous on the left as well his crosses are not good enough to make up for the lost shooting power.
