Because I was that bored I watched him continuously when he came on, visibly organising the back line at derby free kicks and constantly communicating , something we lack badly
Agree that we should play 2 strikers. Magennis wins the knockdowns & KLP puts them away. Magennis is not able to play the lone striker role at his age & KLP is wasted playing left side of a 3. Strikers need pairing up so they form a partnership. Why can’t McCann see this?
As I remember Tom tried to pass forward and he was the only one that could knock the ball 50 yards and if found it’s target. The others found derby players or the stands. I don’t agree he slowed us down, we spent 70 Mins going sideways or backwards
I'd much rather we brought in Curtis Davies, he was pretty outstanding tonight. It's becoming clear that Alfie is definitely better in midfield. It's not a case of he slowed the game down tonight, it's that he always slows the game down, it's just how he plays. Even in his peak, he did it. Hence why he always looked better in the PL than he did in the Champ, the PL is slower and less frantic which suits him. I've never been a big fan of Tom in the Championship
Haven’t read all the ramblings, so here goes We were dog **** Didn’t force a save even (?) Bright first 15 when we’d decided to press Had obviously decided not to press after that and we weren’t bright Allowed them to casually waltz through for shots on goal whenever they fancies it Tom came on in exactly the game we didn’t want him to (in terms of his confidence) He was good, great range of passing and time on the ball Too many other players thought ‘phew…he’ll sort it’ and stopped playing We finished up still dog **** …and some of the bar staff still don’t know what ‘Bitter’ is
"If" being the kicker. We've lost our only centre-half with Championship experience to a division rival and we've brought in a 20-year-old kid from Man Utd's reserves whose played most of his professional games at League Two level. We've got two recognised centre-forwards; one who's utter gash and another who may or may not cut it at this level. It will be a miracle if we can rectify this glaring issue in this window under the current restraints.
Clearly not but that’s not his game so that’s an unfair ask, equally Smallwood isn’t going to do what Tom does However you look at it, this squad isn’t good enough to say we don’t need a player of Tom’s ability and that is a FACT
I think Magennis has shown real improvements from the our last champ season. He was completely starved tonight and we definitely need another option. I said at the time Bernard was a strange signing, we've got 2 inexperienced CBs and we have 2 even more inexperienced ones backing them up. We saw what a difference a player like Elphick can have, if we could get someone of that calibre, we'd probably be a top 6 side.
Which is why he'll initially at least be used sparingly. I do think his experience will be massive though. Imagine a Davies or Jagielka alongside Greaves or Jones though. And maybe a Baldock competing with Josh.
That was the worse performance since we gave in to wigan 16 months ago. No idea where it came from, we were much better first two games. I thought magennis looked off right from the start and got worse as each player tried to win the laughable passing trophy. We started with two defensive midfielders, one who played attacking midfield and our box to box man sat back with the other. So with no midfield we lobbed the ball high to a kean Lewis potter, who doesn't like the rough stuff and won't contest tackles or high balls, merely wanting to run onto through balls. ( why not he's good at it). I thought williams had a good first half but with very little back up. I'm going to fulham on Saturday but i don't see that team coping and i agree we need three at the back and see if we can get an hour out of tom huddlestone.
Huddlestone might not be the answer to all our prayers and capable of wining things on his own , but how is he the subject of criticism after that shower of ****? About 4 of our players passed the ball to the advertising boards , our keeper ****ed up again , We couldn’t take a corner to save our lives again , our midfield stood and watched them Knock it about for about ten minutes without a tackle , we have no championship standard striker . The list goes on … huddlestone did what he does, the simple things well , trouble is they aren’t simple for too many of our players!
what has this got to do with your “rating” quote ? He may well be used sparingly and that’s fine, I just don’t think we are that good we don’t need him. As for your thoughts on the cb, I agree 100%
Going forward we can all have our views on who’s good and who’s not good enough but more importantly we need to bring in at least a couple of signings with quality that will make a difference but who with the restrictions we have.
100%, how we are debating the need and quality of Tom is baffling after tonight. I think most have the youth and l1 promotion tinted shades on
