|
What I probably couldn't have predicted is how easily he won the man of the match and how well he scored in the player ratings. In the most astonishing of votes he secured a higher percentage than any other man of the match vote we've previously held. The previous best was 77.1% to Steve Jones on the opening day of the 2006/07 season, also against QPR.
Cole secured 88.9% of the vote from last Tuesday's game to take top place and the three points. Ade Akinbiyi, who had a storming second half, was a very deserving second albeit with the smallest percentage ever for second place of 5.7% whilst 1.1% of the vote was enough to give Wade Elliott third place.
It was very much the same in the player ratings and surely Cole's rating of 9.87 out of 10 will take some beating. It passes the previous best of 9.25 won by David Unsworth in the 0-0 draw at Ipswich.
Spare a thought for Ade, he had a rating of 9.13 and that surely would win the player ratings more often than not. The rest were some way behind and it was Joey Gudjonsson who took third place with a rating of 7.35. At half time Joey would very much have got my vote. He played well in the second half too but was overtaken by the devastating performances of Cole and Akinbiyi.
The points don't make much difference to the table, although Wade has stretched that lead even further to thirteen points. The latest table is as follows:
60: Wade Elliott
47: Robbie Blake
39: Clarke Carlisle & David Unsworth
35: Alan Mahon
26: Jon Harley
25: Gabor Kiraly
24: Andy Gray
22: James O'Connor
21: Kyle Lafferty
20: Chris McCann
15: Brian Jensen
14: Steven Caldwell
13: Jon Spicer
12: Andrew Cole
11: Ade Akinbiyi
7: Joey Gudjonsson
5: Graham Alexander
3: Michael Duff
2: Wayne Thomas
1: Stephen Jordan
