Hello from Croatia !
Well as first, I must admit i am a Dinamo Zagreb fan(read my nick ) and Dinamo are rivals to Hajduk. But I think I can be objective as much as I can, as I really have nothing against Kalinić or mostly any other Hajduk player.
Well, where to start?
Nikola Kalinić was and is a great talent. Just a couple of years ago he was announced the new Davor Šuker(you probably heard about him). Back then(season 2006/2007), Hajduk loaned him out to a Pula, which is a club in our 1st league. Honestly, when i first saw him on a Dinamo game back then, I thought "OMG what a player". He really was great. After that game Dinamo wanted to buy him but the price was too high, his "owner" Erceg said he isn't for sail and said he won't be accepting anything under 2 million euros, which was even for Dinamo back then a great ammount of money( today they would probably be able to take him, but ok, that's off-topic). You probably have heard about Vedran Ćorluka, well, Kale(Kalinić) made a monkey out of him on that game.
Hajduk back then was extremely bad with an extremely awful board, still nowadays I don't understand why the hell did they even loan him to anyone back then as they had some players that were like mentally retarded that were ahead of him. So well, even after 6 great months in Pula, he had another loan to Šibenik, mostly because they stoled(literally stoled) Ante Rukavina from them, so they send them a gift instead. Well those 6 months were mostly a waste as his was injured most of the time.
So in season 07/08 they finnaly realised he is a great talent and he was soonly in the best eleven. The beginning was hard as Hajduk was in bad shape with a lot of new players(which we and them found out after were quite garbage) and they had problems in every competition. Kalinić was literally the only player that was worth "something" in my opinion. Well to shorten out, he had a very good season for his debut season in Hajduk, he was the 3rd striker of the league with 16(or something, I can't remember and i'm to lazy to check out, sorry) goals. If he was in Dinamo back then with Luka Modrić, I assure he would have had at least 20+ goals. He had some problems with injuries in that season as well, no serious ones, just little ones but, as i said, alot of them.
But at the end of the season the problems started...
Well earliar he was announced as captain of Hajduk, but after being substituted during the Croatian cup final in the first 20 minutes(a Hajduk goalkeeper was red carded) he threw that captains sign when going out. Since then, he got alot of people who don't like him and he was whistled quite a lot.
Also, since then he wanted to be solled and that's what I think screwed him up last season. Well, last season he played with absolutely no will, he only played games as he can, when he wanted to, and when scouts like yours from Blackburn watched him. In my opinion he has serious mental problems and I agree with vidotimilan about that ! Well last season was a pure disaster in my opinion, the fans often whistled him, he again didin't play anything special in Hajduks key games in the UEFA cup against Deportivo(in La Coruna he even showed how silly he is sometimes when he started to scream to the ref, instead of scoring in 1 situation). Well he scored all together 15 goals, but you have to take in fact 2 things:
1. 8 out of those 15 goals were scored out of penalties. He even missed 1, but I must admit if you want someone to take those penalties, definetly give him a chance there as he takes them brilliantly and quite smart !
2. the Croatian league isn't a strong league like yours, so just 7 goals for a 21 year old pure striker in 27 games is awful, really. You had some guys playing in the defence in the centre that scored 6 goals in game(not counting penalties).
So well, I personally think you could have boght better for that kind of money. Just look at Eduardo da Silva who you have probably heard of. The guy had 34 goals in 31 game, 15 asists(Kalinić had 6 last year) and was the 2nd best goalscorer in the european qualifications, and with Modrić Croatias best player. And you know what he cost? 12 million euros. And honestly, if you needed a player which will score every chance he gets, you shouldn't have boght Kalinić.
Kalinić is more of a striker that with his strength putts others in good chances as he can struggle with other defenders. He often misses chances 1 on 1 and he often plays on the field as he is depressed or something.
He also thinks too great about himself, he even said not long ago he would be able to score 20 goals in the Serie A, hey 20, he couldn't even score 8 in our league. Not to mention he said Palermo is a too little club for him.
In the national team Kale is the 5th or even 6th striker currently. For our mission against Belarus, he wasn't even called. He has 1 cap against Poland on the EURO and he didin' score.
Well honestly,I watched some Blackburn games on TV last season and I'm not tottaly sure he is the right player for your tactic. Well no offence, but from what i saw, your tactic was often just to kick the ball to the strikers from the defence, no combinations, no passes. I'm not honestly sure Kalinić will be able to survive in that kind of stlye of play, especially because he won't return to the defence at no times.
But he also has some other good sides. Like, he is extremely even fast for a guy with 1,90, he could make a havoc to heavy and slow defenders.
And also, be ware that Kalinić is quite often injured. He missed the entire pre-season because of some injury and he had problems even earlier.
Also, he choosed Blackburn in front of some offers like from Porto and as you arleasy saw, Pompey. His manager(in Croatia that's the guy that takes care of players, not the coach of the team like Mourinho) even sais he had some other offers, but your's was the best.
In my personal opinion, he won't have a great start. First he will finnaly see that he will have tu run a lot more now or he will have to sit on the bench. Secondly, the difference between your's and our league is really big. Thirdly, he will have to play every game the best he can. But if he learns how to behave, if he has more luck with (no) injuries) and if he has luck with other things, he could turn out a great player(but honestly, he will never be a Davor Šuker if you are looking for a perfect goalscorer). Don't expect more than 6-7 goals in his 1st season(counting every competition) from him or you will be dissapointed even though he is your 2nd biggest buy ever from what i hear.
Best of luck to Blackburn next season, I hope you guys wont have any stresses staying in the league or anything like that !.
I apologise for my grammatical errors, I hope you guys will be able to read this post.
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Evo jedan post na forumu od Blackburn Roversa... Mislim svaka čast, svak ima svoje mišljenje, ali mi je neshvatljivo da se navijač Dinama bavi ovakvim stvarima...što ga brige za Kalinića i njegov transfer...
http://www.roverstalk.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2032
[uredio Leader - 01. kolovoza 2009. u 14:37]
Valjda ce se to sutra sve rijesit.
