He has the potential to become a fan favourite quickly with his work rate. Hopefully will get the home crowd up for it like Allahyar did early on in the season.
I don’t understand what Rosie sees in slater on the left, how bad must sinik have been in training to not get a start and shipped out. I can imagine tufan asking to leave before the months out, he’s sat on the bench in freezing conditions watching players like doc and slater ahead of him
Needs to be starting games, not this continued trend of bringing him on when we’re constantly chasing games. Docherty and Slater offer nothing else aside from trying hard in a division they’re so clearly out their depth.
There's no doubt that Longman's width and Tetteh's physicality was offering more when they all came on. Tufan was linking things up nicely but there was noticeably more space in the middle than earlier in the game
The last few games Tufan started he wasn’t that effective. I don’t know why that is, but I can guess that’s why he hasn’t been starting. There’s also been a lot of talk about him leaving, so he might have been a bit unsettled and unfocused. I feel like this is going to be one of those scenarios where people clamour for him to start, he does, then people criticise his performance. That’s blatantly where this is heading. We need a player next to Seri who can cover ground because teams have been doubling up on him to nullify the threat he brings. Tufan can do that, but he hasn’t demonstrated that enough when starting. Which presumably is why Doc and Slater have been starting ahead of him. I think Doc has done well this season, but I would have Tufan in over Slater if the former was 100% ready to go.
Doc has massively improved this season in terms of his passing, vision and awareness. Slater on the other hand looks like he’s regressed. His first touch is often quite poor and it kills any momentum when he receives the ball with his back to the opposition. Tufan on the other hand can receive the ball and release it quickly into space. Like I said, Seri and Tufan are already thinking about the next two or three moves before they receive the ball. Slater doesn’t know what move he’s going to make until he’s had two or three touches of the ball first. He’s still young so maybe he can improve his ‘footballing brain’ but the gulf is apparent and players like Seri and Slater just aren’t on the same wavelength.
FWIW have a mate ex pro for Sheff U at the game last night His opinion was we play some great one and two touch footie and if Tetteh had played the whole game we’d have won - he said he looks class . Thought we lacked a finisher but two dwarves up front ! Slater and Connelly ! I explained Slater is an attacking midfielder - he said we need a stronger midfield that can out wrestle teams like them . His opinion is not necessarily right but thought I’d share it.
See, I really don't think he is. He's being played further forward, but I wouldn't have that as his natural position. He strikes me as more of your box to box type player than somebody better suited to playing behind the striker.
He’s never been an attacking midfielder either. His dad has said that on twitter. He’s wasted there and kills a lot of our attacking momentum by that simply just not being his game.
Did not watch the game nor have I seen the highlights. But reading all the reports and this board I struggled to find out how City actually played. The consensus on here was a sort of glass half full/half empty performance. I guess we can celebrate diversity given the different viewpoints on how we played. Given that we create few chances the biggest downer appears to be that we will now be missing Tetteh for 3 games. In his cameos he has looked outstanding and this game appears to be no diffferent,.
Our biggest mistake this season was never replacing Smallwood like-for-like. If you play like we do, you need a combative, physical midfielder to protect the back four who is also quite tidy on the ball. Woods, Slater and Seri aren’t really suited to it. Doc is more suited to it but isn’t really a defensive midfielder himself. Alfie Jones could do it I suppose but he’s not good enough on the ball to be a long-term CDM; he’s arguably the weakest at playing out from the back out of all our centre-halves. It needs to be addressed in the summer. Invest in a quality CDM and I believe this squad starts looking more comfortable in the way they play.
