In several interviews during his first week as responsible for Middlesbrough, Neil Warnock emphasized the absolute importance of the engagement.
The official club statement, released an hour before kick-off on Saturday, said Rudy Gestede had shown that nobody could stay past the end of June.
Really, it should come as no surprise that Warnock removed “Gestede”.
Gestede was somewhat surprised by his new manager’s reaction because he feared he would violate his contract by leaving the club a few days earlier.
Warnock, however, was adamant. What was the reason for having a player nearby who didn’t want to be part of the relegation?
The news that Gestede had had so little appetite to help Boro out of trouble in the last month of the season made his selection against Swansea a week earlier even more confusing.
He was ineffective that day, which summed up his time in the club pretty well. In fact, his costly miss against the same opponents in April 2017 was unfortunately a sign of the future.
He walks next to Dani Ayala.
In the 2017/18 season, the first full season of Gestede in the club, Ayala scored more goals than Gestede in the league in his three and a half years on Teesside.
Given the investment and his struggle in the club, you would have thought Gestede felt indebted to Boro and agreed to continue playing throughout July.
Unfortunately that was not the case, there was never any indication that he was ready to play beyond the end of June. The sad reality is that the benefit of saving his high wages will likely outweigh what he would have offered on the pitch in advance.
And if Warnock’s first responsible game had been anything, Gestede would have played the second violin after Ashley Fletcher and Britt Assombalonga anyway.
Warnock came with a reputation for liking a tall man from above and having quick support from the flanks. But the success of his first three on Saturday was all about mobility. Britt Assombalonga was excellent and took advantage of the slow pace in Stoke’s defense. Ashley Fletcher too. Warnock then described the couple as “incredible”. They immediately bought what he wanted.
(Image: Pete Stonier / Stoke Sentinel)
Victory at Stoke was a basic approach that is good for the enema.
And as discussed at Teesside Live last weekend, Warnock was particularly pleased about the commitment and the desire to defend the goal in dying. In short, the commitment.
That’s why Warnock builds its success and that’s why he didn’t think twice about sending Gestede packaging. It would have been interesting to see how he would have dealt with it if he had arrived at the club a month earlier and had been told that the striker did not want to continue playing.
In the past three and a half years there have been times when happiness has not been on the side of Gestede. At the beginning of the 2017/18 season, despite investing in the striker line, Gestede forced his way into Garry Monk’s starting lineup this summer just to suffer a “crazy” dead leg injury.
Admittedly, it must have welcomed the appointment of Tony Pulis and appeared to be the first man in the Welsh to have broken an ankle after hitting Hull in February. He was excluded for the season and returned when he took action from the bank late when Boro was late trying to put Aston Villa on a glove in the play-offs.
Last season, injuries limited gestures to just eight appearances. From Christmas he played only twice in January in the FA Cup.
As a weekend fan said on social media, “Gestede is leaving the club with more rehab vlogs on YouTube than goals scored.”
Even when Gestede was fit, it never looked like he would pay Boro back for his investment in the January Premier League season.
Boro and Gestede always went their separate ways this summer. Warnock just made sure it was a few days earlier than planned.
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