With the very limited resources available to Adkins, and the fact that our back line is being left open to attack time and time again, I would be tempted to play Kane as a holding defensive midfielder. He's not the worst tackler at the club, is reasonably mobile, and at least has the ability to get his head up and find a player wearing the same colour shirt! Far from ideal, but personally given the need for change, I can't get my head around a better option. On past and current form I don't want Stewart anywhere near the starting eleven, nor Henriksen, but guess the latter is a 'fixture' given he's got the support of Adkins and the captains armband. Just putting it out there.....
Sounds like far too sane an idea for Adkins, expect more of the same next game, if he hasn't seen the obvious in our engine room by now then there's little hope that he ever will.
Agree. To say he doesn't have CM options is ridiculous. He does. (see post in other thread). MK isn't a holding CM either, so using other more suited options who also aren't really specialist CM'ers would be a logical move. Even more so when the evidence shows it currently isn't working!! #definitionofmadness......
He definitely, undeniably has a la k of midfield options. It's literally Henriksen, Batty and Stewart. If there were lots of midfield options, we wouldn't be talking about putting Kane in there.
When we are looking at putting players in there when it's not their natural position just shows the poor choice we have, unfortunately he has to try something different because it's not working with what we have
If Adkins can play Kane as a left sided midfielder, surely he can try him as a defensive midfielder on the right side of two which would seem a more natural position as he is a right fullback.
Not a bad shout regarding Kane. He's tenacious and has a lot of energy. If Stewart starts another game Adkins really needs to give up his day job and become a full time con artist he's be good at that.
Time to dump Henriksen as team captain. To save face Adkins could make him club captain but on the pitch we need a leader and a talker. I'd go for Elphick.
Control the controllables. That’s Adkins job, we all know and he knew the form of the shysters ruining/running our club when he took the job, and on present evidence he’s failing miserably. A disinterested mess on the pitch, a naive defence, a non-existent midfield, yet he doesn’t see what we are all seeing. The last two games have seen **** teams running through us at will, if he still stays with Henriksen & Stewart, our next lot of opponents will run riot. He does have options, (may not be very good), but has options to at least try, Irvine in middle or stick a defender in as combative midfielder. He was desperate for bodies in yet we have Milinkovic and MacDonald that can’t get a sniff of the grass. Either by stubbornness or arrogance Adkins persists with more of the same = same result.
Irvine, who has spent most of his career as a central midfielder (not an AM, where he has played for us), has got to be an option hasn't he?
Missing the point. Yes, he has an undeniable lack of 'specialist' central CM'ers, in the mold of an Ashbee #legend. But he absolutely doesn't have a lack of options. He has several other options. The fact is that he is playing MH in there and that isn't his natural role either. He has plenty of other options that I would argue could do a much better job in that sort of role (others are naming some of them already). Nige is trying to turn MH into a player that he clearly isn't (and also a captain that he clearly isn't). And then Stewart, who probably should have been part of the answer, just isn't for whatever reasons ... but, and ok it's maybe a big but, Stewart might do better with a proper battler playing in a holding role alongside him? And as Sterling says, Irvine probably should be one of the 2 anyway. He's been dealt a **** hand by the ****s, but it ain't that ****. He just isn't playing it that well so far. A full week now to reflect and come up with better solutions. So long as he doesn't just persist with the same again somehow expecting a different outcome.
Nigel Adkins can sign me an actual centre mid on a free transfer doesn't mean he actually has options. We have noone suited to that holding midfield role bar a youngster in his first season. The same way last year a youngster was our only real right winger. We are currently playing a right back, left wing. Elphick in midfield is not the solution, he was terrible in defence last week. He is far too slow for midfield. Yes we brought in a winger and a striker so instead of being short upfront we are now short in midfield. Our signings have been poor and yet again we have an unbalanced squad. Somehow unbalanced in completely different ways to this time last year!
Just picked my sis-in-law up from Manchester airport, she’s been in Perth for near on forty years, she still has a stronger Hull accent than me You can take the lass out of hull...
I do agree with most of that. But re. Elphick and others. They could do that job a lot better than MH. Too slow? Remember Ashbee #legend. He wasn't exactly Linford Christie was he. You don't need to be for that role. But you do need to be a battler, to get stuck in, to hassle, to break play up, to read the game, to do the simple things well, etc. That's not MH's game, but it is much closer to what several of our defensive options can do.
