Has the Danish earned his bacon?

Now if it was I writing Blondie’s hits, the lyrics may have been something like this:

Denis Denis, you don’t know what to do,
Denis Denis, you’re fast without a clue,
Denis Denis, I’m not in love with you……

But for every supporter wanting to berate Rommedahl, there is another in the seat next to them waiting to leap to his defence. Stepping up with ease from the Championship of the Forum to the Premiership of the Blog, Weegie Addick gives her case in favour of the frustrating flyer. And me thinks the lady puts up a decent argument:

117 crosses so far this season, with an 19% success rate. That means 22 crosses actually delivered. Doesn’t sound too good? Well perhaps think again, as those are the Opta Stats for a certain Christiano Ronaldo.

Wingers by their very nature are inconsistent, frustrating players. Even some of the best only manage a 1 in 5 success rate for crossing. It must be even worse in a struggling team, where the defence are too busy frantically defending to feed the ball out, the midfield having a tendency to go awol, while finding the striker(s) can be like searching for a needle in a haystack of opposition defenders.

Dennis Rommedahl’s arrival at Charlton was the focus of a lot of attention. He was seen as a glamorous signing, a proven international who was moving to us from a Champions League side. He has played in the World Cup, the European Championships and the Champions League. He has even won medals – three Dutch championships and two cups with PSV.

His record for Denmark continues to go from strength to strength, with 13 goals from 63 appearances. He has the pace and he undoubtedly has the talent. What he sometimes lacks is the confidence. When Dennis plays for Denmark, the belief is there – the management believes in him, his team-mates believe in him and the supporters believe in him. At Charlton at times he’s been lucky to have one of those three.

He chose Charlton because his Danish team-mate Claus Jensen had told him good things about us. CJ then promptly disappeared to Fulham!

Curbishley signed him, then within the first few matches was publicly criticising him for not tracking back enough, and barely gave him a decent run in the team. It was blatantly obvious this affected his confidence – he would trip over the ball or leave the ball behind, he would be in space yet his team mates did not pass to him. You just needed to watch to see that, if anything, he was trying too hard to impress. And he is yet to score a goal at home, which does not help to win over the majority of fans who don’t travel away.

Yet Rommedahl never hides in a match—not in those early days when he was adjusting to the English game, and certainly not recently when we’ve been fighting for our lives. Yes, he sometimes pulls out of tough challenges—but when you are as slight of frame as he is, this is not a lack of commitment, this is sensible self-preservation.

His fitness record in his career has been remarkably good given his lack of stature. Tackling is not his strength, but we have others in the team for that. He doesn’t hide at the end of the match either—win, lose, draw, or humiliation (Wycombe), he always applauds the fans—often it’s just him and Matt Holland.

Some would say he hasn’t performed at his best under four different managers. But Curbs never really gave him whole-hearted backing, he was never going to fit the Dowie mould for the same reason he doesn’t fit the “up and at ‘em” mould for certain fans, and no-one preformed under Les Reed. There is no evidence he hasn’t performed for Pardew, who may yet be the one to get under his skin. It’s not about motivation with Rommedahl, it’s about belief, and we’re beginning to learn Pardew specialises in that.

I agree there’s more to come from Dennis, but even at his current performance level, I would still put him in the team ahead of any other creative midfielder or winger on our books. His pace scares defenders (Gareth Barry for one), he stops the opposition full back getting forward (Gary Neville at Man U most recently), and every now and again he does come up with the goods: Rommedahl’s Opta stats are 93 crosses with a 29% success rate—that’s 26 delivered, four more than Ronaldo.

So why is he such a scapegoat for some fans? Perhaps his name itself is a problem: Dennis. Not exactly your typical footballer’s name, is it? Doesn’t lend itself to good chants. Now if he was a tough-tackling full back, Dennis the Menace would be perfect. Not him though, is it? I reckon even Dennis Bergkamp might have had a hard time at Charlton.

Of course there is one chant which his name fits very well:

“Dennis in the last minute, Dennis in the last minute.”

We sent the Palace down that season you know—and it wasn’t only Jon Fortune’s goal that did it….

So has Weegie called it right with Rommedahl, or do you favour shaking him by the neck and issuing 50 lashings? Lets hear your views…