Cyle Larin

[Oisin]

Thought I’d let the euphoria die down before trying to analyse his performance …

And on reflection it was genuinely excellent. Goal aside (the desire, the movement, the header) he looked like he’s going to be every defenders nightmare. Big, strong yet mobile, able to hold, to lay off.  He totally put a shift in and showed constantly for the ball. He was on a mission. He’s exactly what a number 9 in this formation needs to be. And if he can get on the end of crosses with his movement and desire he may score some goals too.  He even made a strong defensive clearing header too from a corner.

Not enough evidence (I.e. none) to comment on his composure or finishing with his feet but based on everything we saw yesterday he’s the TYPE of player we’ve needed. He also appears to have the right attitude and desire (Mara), and enough skill, awareness and football intelligence (Downs) to be a major improvement on what we’ve gambled on before. I think he’ll be an asset. 
As much as anything he’ll occupy centre backs and thus create space for others. Its extremely early days but I’m really encouraged by what I saw.

[SNSUN]

Transfermrkt said he has a Hamstring injury. Do they know something we don't?

[Dr. Kucho]

That was one very fine header by Larin, in his celebration you could see what it meant to him after his time at Feyenoord.

My Dutch colleagues were laughing when we signed him and showed me videos how crap he was for Feyenoord. Just sent them a video of the goal and their response was, why couldn’t he do that here? Likely that the Championship suits him better than the Eredivisie.

Hope he can continue like he did and all works out for him. 

[Baird of the land]

8 minutes ago, SNSUN said:

Transfermrkt said he has a Hamstring injury. Do they know something we don't?

I did see him grimace during his last involvement. Really hope that’s not the case.

[BARCELONASAINT]

1 hour ago, SNSUN said:

Transfermrkt said he has a Hamstring injury. Do they know something we don't?

Unfortunately I did pick up on him looking in some discomfort soon after scoring and rubbing the back of his leg. He obviously carried on to the final whistle so hopefully was only a tweak.

[swedish dave]

On 03/02/2026 at 09:23, sadoldgit said:

Call me old fashioned, but

I am going to wait until he misses his first sitter before I write him off as a useless donkey.

Er ..what was that you said again ? 

[swedish dave]

13 minutes ago, BARCELONASAINT said:

Unfortunately I did pick up on him looking in some discomfort soon after scoring and rubbing the back of his leg.         He obviously carried on to the final whistle so hopefully was only a tweak.

.Ah YES, that was caused by his idiot teammates when congratulating him with wrestling holds and drop kicks...

[Sheaf Saint]

4 minutes ago, swedish dave said:

Er ..what was that you said again ? 

In all fairness, that wasn't exactly a sitter.

[Holmes_and_Watson]

8 hours ago, SNSUN said:

Transfermrkt said he has a Hamstring injury. Do they know something we don't?

Every player is hamstrung being with us. That's on all the profiles. 🙂

[Holmes_and_Watson]

8 hours ago, Oisin said:

Thought I’d let the euphoria die down before trying to analyse his performance …

And on reflection it was genuinely excellent. Goal aside (the desire, the movement, the header) he looked like he’s going to be every defenders nightmare. Big, strong yet mobile, able to hold, to lay off.  He totally put a shift in and showed constantly for the ball. He was on a mission. He’s exactly what a number 9 in this formation needs to be. And if he can get on the end of crosses with his movement and desire he may score some goals too.  He even made a strong defensive clearing header too from a corner.

Not enough evidence (I.e. none) to comment on his composure or finishing with his feet but based on everything we saw yesterday he’s the TYPE of player we’ve needed. He also appears to have the right attitude and desire (Mara), and enough skill, awareness and football intelligence (Downs) to be a major improvement on what we’ve gambled on before. I think he’ll be an asset. 
As much as anything he’ll occupy centre backs and thus create space for others. Its extremely early days but I’m really encouraged by what I saw.

I only saw him in the highlights, but hopefully that's what we get. It's certainly what we really need.

[suewhistle]

12 hours ago, Oisin said:

As much as anything he’ll occupy centre backs and thus create space for others. Its extremely early days but I’m really encouraged by what I saw.

Yes, as St Ciervo said, something we've been missing. The team has been less than the sum of its parts but perhaps one of the parts was wrong?

[trousers]

59 minutes ago, suewhistle said:

Yes, as St Ciervo said, something we've been missing. The team has been less than the sum of its parts but perhaps one of the parts was wrong?

And it's only taken the geniuses at Sport Republic 4 years to work out the bleedin' obvious....

[OldNick]

11 hours ago, trousers said:

And it's only taken the geniuses at Sport Republic 4 years to work out the bleedin' obvious....

Thankfully they didnt listen to the geniuses on here!! 

[OldNick]

For me he was a throwback to the old fashioned centre forward, hold the ball up, rough up the defenders and get into the right position to get a chance. All the naysayers have disappeared and will wait for his first miss of course.

I also liked the way he killed time at the end by holding the ball and getting he defender to give away the throw, 

[E_H_Saints]

•  

Quote

I did say that maybe he would be more physical than technical and that people should give him a chance.  We have had technical players who couldn't keep up with the physicality of the league.  It is short lived obviously as you can't rate a player on one game but I thought he looked aggressive which is something we haven't seen since Ricky and Pelle.  He used his weight to get through tackles and took pressure off towards the end.  If he can keep this up while scoring a few than I think he will be with us longer than some anticipated.  

 

[revolution saint]

11 hours ago, trousers said:

And it's only taken the geniuses at Sport Republic 4 years to work out the bleedin' obvious....

Playing devil's advocate, they have tried to sign Liam Delap at least a couple of times and I suspect they thought both BBD and Downs would be capable of playing that role too.  Obviously hopelessly wrong but, you know, it's the thought that counts and all that.

[BARCELONASAINT]

Without doubt you cannot ask for a better debut and i think when that bullet header went in we all thought "wow I wasn't expecting that", i certainly wasn't.

It is far too early to say if Larin will be hit or miss BUT he is already an upgrade on DOWNS because he scored and he uses his physicality to hold up the ball and cause defenders a bit of a nightmare.

My one concern is he appears woefully unfit. He reminds me of Tall Paul in that respect "blowing out of his arse within 10 minutes" At the moment he has not got 45 minutes in him and this is one of the things that fans from his previous clubs cited.

We need to manage his game time carefully as we have with Stewart and hope to god Stewart stays fit. I see him being used as an impact sub at best for the last 20/25 minutes of games.

Edited 11 hours ago by BARCELONASAINT

[disconnect]

32 minutes ago, BARCELONASAINT said:

Without doubt you cannot ask for a better debut and i think when that bullet header went in we all thought "wow I wasn't expecting that", i certainly wasn't.

It is far too early to say if Larin will be hit or miss BUT he is already an upgrade on DOWNES because he scored and he uses his physicality to hold up the ball and cause defenders a bit of a nightmare.

My one concern is he appears woefully unfit. He reminds me of Tall Paul in that respect "blowing out of his arse within 10 minutes" At the moment he has not got 45 minutes in him and this is one of the things that fans from his previous clubs cited.

We need to manage his game time carefully as we have with Stewart and hope to god Stewart stays fit. I see him being used as an impact sub at best for the last 20/25 minutes of games.

Not sure why you've singled out Flynn Downes here - they play a completely different position 😜

[Lighthouse]

1 hour ago, revolution saint said:

Playing devil's advocate, they have tried to sign Liam Delap at least a couple of times and I suspect they thought both BBD and Downs would be capable of playing that role too.  Obviously hopelessly wrong but, you know, it's the thought that counts and all that.

Not to mention Adams, Stewart and Onuachu who we've all signed and/or deployed in the physical number nine role in the last three years. The idea that SR have not signed, or even tried to sign a physical striker is just odd.

[Osvaldorama]

1 hour ago, Lighthouse said:

Not to mention Adams, Stewart and Onuachu who we've all signed and/or deployed in the physical number nine role in the last three years. The idea that SR have not signed, or even tried to sign a physical striker is just odd.

I think they mean “strikers that look like they’ve played football more than once before” 

[OldNick]

2 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

Not to mention Adams, Stewart and Onuachu who we've all signed and/or deployed in the physical number nine role in the last three years. The idea that SR have not signed, or even tried to sign a physical striker is just odd.

Not sure SR were here with Adams or Stewert. Tall Paul was signed but few of the managers we had played him

[goodymatt]

Just now, OldNick said:

Not sure SR were here with Adams or Stewert. Tall Paul was signed but few of the managers we had played him

They were our owners when we signed Stewart

[OldNick]

4 minutes ago, goodymatt said:

They were our owners when we signed Stewart

crikey, i forgot that. To be fair to all with himhe just has not been able to play, hence why we are so short in that area.

[goodymatt]

1 minute ago, OldNick said:

crikey, i forgot that. To be fair to all with himhe just has not been able to play, hence why we are so short in that area.

We could really do with him defying the odds and keeping fit for the next 15 games, perhaps with Larin allowing minutes to be managed without changing shape, he might be managed better. Guess we will find out!

[gecko]

5 hours ago, BARCELONASAINT said:

My one concern is he appears woefully unfit. He reminds me of Tall Paul in that respect "blowing out of his arse within 10 minutes" At the moment he has not got 45 minutes in him and this is one of the things that fans from his previous clubs cited.

Was amazed how out of breath a professional could be for only running around for 10 minutes. Difficult to know how much he'll be able to progress before the end of the season.

I was really impressed with him, even ignoring the excellent finish for his goal. Think i saw someone else mention it on the match thread, but there was a long throw near the end, where he brought the ball down to turn and bought another throw much further up the pitch. Exactly what you want from a forward when you're running down the clock.

He certainly seems to fit the "physical" forward role well; did a good job at taking the ball down from the longer balls - which we can only hope will unlock the rest of the forward line in time.

Time will tell I guess, but can't ask for any more from his debut.

[HarvSFC]

Needs the same conversation Pardew had with Lambert.

[pimpin4rizeal]

I liked the way he battled to get himself space for the header but going to give it a few games before getting carried away it still worries me that we let Armstrong go and are relying on Stewart and him 

[die Mannyschaft]

I'm expecting him to score first touch tomorrow on 8 minutes from corner.