Am I the only one who believes that we are making a big mistake by releasing him ? He was unlucky with that long term injury - and his return to the side was too early....But when he regained his place at the beginning of 2012 he showed, to my mind, that he has not lost the quality we all know he has. I found it staggering that, after a few (good) games Frampton was used instead of King. I find it humbling to hear that King is willing to give the club another chance to offer him a contract - even one as a 'pay per play' - Gills don't really deserve this opportunity - but I hope that any new manager will bite his hand off.
gutted he's been released, just hope he still manages to sort something out with us for next season. feel that he was getting back to some sort of form and we should offer him some sort of deal to prove himself, because it could comeback to haunt us in someway next season ! for me offer him a pay as you play deal, because on KSN he has said he would take that to stay at gillingham fc next season, so he can repay the faith given when out with his injury ! top player who has class and that will only rub off on essam and davies alike
unfortunatly its the new managers decision and as we havent yet appointed on its only players that we must sign to a new contract i.e. jackman, gazza, essam and youngsters that we will deal with. i wouldnt be surprised if we havent got a manager within the month if jackman gets released. any of these players can be resigned by the manager if they havent signed elsewhere
It is a puzzle. We know Hess, at least, must have rated him in the past seeing as he suggested that the club sign him from Barnet, so we can assume that there isn't some sort of personal agenda at play. So that leaves us with two options, either he is on significant money that could be better spent else where, i.e. too good players opposed to one very good one (makes sense to me) or his injury is far worse than we have been told. Now correct me if I am wrong but wasn't his spell at Plymouth earlier in the season hampered with niggling injuries? He did come back to play a few games for us, and I don't believe he was that much better than Frampton was, albeit very difficult to tell due to the chopping and changing that went towards the end of the season , and then was dropped. I assume that he was dropped because his fitness levels weren't where they should have been, unless it simply highlights another area of Hessy's incompetance, implying that he can't play more than a few games a month which is no good to either club or player. The pay-per-play deal seems an ideal solution and it would give him a chance to prove his worth but without a reserve team playing regular games I can't see him being able to get match fitness (if that is even possible) here.
BSG - there certainly is a puzzle - somewhere ! You say that you're unsure if King was better than Frampton - but Simon King regained his place after a terrible run of defeats in mid season. ( 5 in a row in the league .)This coincided with a revival ( one defeat in 7 matches - including wins against Torquay and away @ Cheltenham ) - then Frampton was reinstalled - during dreadful performances - Burton, Dagenham, Northampton (he was at fault with their goal), in a run of only 3 wins from 10 games when we were supposed to be pushing for promotion. I'm sorry to say that Frampton has not got the quality that King possesses & still produces. The fact that Richards was released (no major surprise - my best wishes to him for his future ) - meant that we are now light in centre midfield. I sincerely hope that Plymouth don't tempt him - and that a new manager can at least offer a pay as you play deal.
Alwaysright, I haven't looked at the stats and have no reason to doubt the validity of the numbers but picking and chosing a few stats doesn't prove anything, don't forget Framps was part of the team which start the season well, and the midseasonal revival was also linked to the promotion to the first team of the youngster... I am basing my opinion (which it is) on what I have seen, rather than stats, making it somewhat subjective of course. You may well disagree (which is a relief as we have seemed to agree too much lately )
Would be so sad to see Simon leave, whether he can play week in and week out or not his value would be in bringing on Connor Essam and the other youngsters. We just seem so much calmer at the back with Kingy there than with Framps. I suppose it will come down to how much he will cost us but if we can keep him on a pay-per-play deal it would be great for the club.
BSG We are all entitled to my opinion The reason why I picked up on the mid season stats was because it was ( in my/our opinion ) a defining period. I admit that the start of the season was OK. We were scoring one more goal than the opposition on enough occasions - to disguise the fact that we were conceding too many. We then had major problems with injuries to defenders - which eventually forced Hess to use King, Essam and Evans - when perhaps Hess might not have considered them. The next coincidence was that for a few games there was stability in the defence - with the results I have quoted. Then Frampton is reinstated in preference to King and we collect only 13 points out of the last 30. I would have liked to ask Hess why he did not retain King - in the same way as he retained Gazza despite Flitney being fit - the ' coincidental ' statistics were obvious - so why change a winning formula ? ps - don't worry about recognising that I'm alwaysright I've had enough 'disagreement' when I dipped into the Chelsea board lately
