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Lita Enjoying The Ethics Of Teamwork

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At the start of the Royals` first Premiership campaign, many might have argued that Leroy Lita might have thought there was an I in team.

Admittedly I was one of them, Lita always seemed to like to go it alone; passing? It seemed the striker hadn`t heard of it. He`d scored a fair in the Championship but now in the Premiership well it`s a whole different ball game (excuse the pun!) His team ethic was shot to pieces and without that the goals dried up and Leroy had to spend a spell on the sidelines.

But when he was called upon to rejoin the starting line-up Lita was a changed player, working hard, passing the ball, and holding up play to help his team-mates!!!

Since then Lita has scored, well I`ll be honest, I`ve lost count! A lot, a brace at Man City, one at Chelsea, an abundance in the cup! And a lot more on top of that, since the start of 2007 he had a spell of a goal a game until sometime in February.

And since Lita has became a more active team player he seems to enjoy his game a lot more, against Arsenal the England Under-21 forward looked sharp and was pleased with the team`s performance:

“We had a game plan and we stuck to it. But we gave a penalty away and they then pushed on from there and got a second.

“We gave it a go towards the end, but it was too little too late. We were definitely never dead and buried.

‘We always give it a go, no matter what. Our heads never go down and the lads showed good spirit again.

“But I thought Arsenal were a lot better than us and deserved the win. We would have done well to get a point as they played good football.

“But it`s still disappointing because I hate losing. It doesn`t make it any easier that it is against a team like Arsenal. Losing is losing.

“It would have been nice to be the first team to come here and win. That`s what we tried to do. We never came for a draw. Now we have to move on.”

On a lighter note, Lita was ecstatic about meeting a goal scoring idol of his Thierry Henry:

‘I spoke to him (Henry), he said we were unlucky. He’s a cool guy,’ Lita told the club’s official website.

‘It’s nice playing at places like Arsenal, they’re the kind of stadiums we want to come to all the time. We worked hard last year to get here, it wasn’t just given to us.’

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7 comments

  • Thomas L'Heureux says:

    Lita’s been absolutely terrific as of late, and his overall game has improved tenfold what with his powerful running and shielding of the ball. He’s still got a long way to go before he’s considered for England, as I know that’d his ambition, but with Steve Coppell as his mentor then anything’s achievable. The new Ian Wright? Let’s hope so!

  • Rogue says:

    Lita’s improving well, and it’s a credit to both he and Coppell that this is the case. Given the start he had to this season and the Bristol incident, who would have thought he’d be our top goalscorer? Not me!

  • Bubba_Ho-Tep says:

    Leroy said he was talking to Henry, but did anyone else see the bloke who came out with Henry from the tunnel? He was eating what looked like a box of KFC! All I can say is the man has taste, whoever he is.

  • Reading till i die says:

    A valuable contribution to the conversation as usual, Bubba. I still get annoyed at watching Lita play and I’d much prefer to have Doyle and Kitson up front. Lita’s selfish despite what he says, and we need to play more as a team. He should have done bloody better with the chance that he hit straight at Jens Ger-mann!

  • tom06 says:

    It is just me or is Federici our best keeper?

  • Bubba_Ho-Tep says:

    I agree tom06, I think Federici deserves a chance to show what he can do over a continued period of time in the first team.

  • Thomas L'Heureux says:

    I agree with the sentiments that Federici has performed well when called upon, but Hahnemann’s been fairly concrete this season and I don’t think Federici’s done enough to displace him yet.

    His performance against Man United was excellent in the first game, but he was caught napping on two occassions early on, and unfortunately that’ll probably go against him. His distribution is better than Hahnemann’s, but USA has made some top saves recently and is doing well.

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