Why is Kevin Doyle still considered a good player?

Palace have loaned him from Wolves.

He had a couple of good seasons for Reading, but the last one of those was 6 years ago. He's scored just 30 goals in 140 starts for Wolves since then. Last season he managed a grand total of 3 goals in League 1. He started just about every game until, bizarrely, QPR decided to take him on loan at the end of January. Why does a Championship side gunning for promotion sign a striker from the league below who has only scored 3 times? He managed just 2 goals for QPR taking his tally for the season to a whopping 5. Even Dagnall managed that many one season and all his were in the Championship.

The season before last he got 9 goals as Wolves were relegated from the Championship. The season before that 4 goals in the Premiership and the one before only 5. 23 goals in 4 seasons, 14 of them at Championship and League 1 level yet a Premier League club sign him. Why?

It seems like once you've got a reputation as a good player it's almost impossible to shake it off no matter how **** you play. I think we'd be a bit disappointed if we signed a forward with Doyle's strike rate from the past few season, never mind a Premier League club.

 

I think that ‘manager vanity’ is one of the biggest problems in football, they all believe that they are the ones with the Midas touch, the ones that can turn the player that had a purple patch seven years ago into Messi and that is why pi55 poor players and the dregs of the human gene pool keep getting clubs. If I was a chairman I would be very worried if my manager was asking to sign some of the players who keep getting clubs and good contracts around the leagues.

 

He's probably been signed to play out wide to be fair. He was pretty effective on the wing for QPR last season