Personally think much of his game suffers because he doesn’t suit the holding role and should be further up the pitch. Often looks like he needs a kick up the jacksie as well like.
I like him but agree his form had fell off a cliff, right now he is a bog standard Championship midfielder, neat and tidy but lacks a competitive streak or dynamism. He is athletic enough and young enough to have either of those coached in to some degree.
He could do with an intensive off-season conditioning program like Dan Neil did in 2022 - if I’ve got the year right. Neil went from a liability out of possession to excellent.
Thinking about it Neil added bite and a relish for the physical stuff to his game at that time, so Ekwah could as well with the right coaching. He'll never be Keane doesn't have the temperament but he can definitely improve.
Couldn’t agree more. He’s so frustrating because when he’s good, he’s unbelievable but we haven’t seen it anywhere near enough.
I think your bang on with this assessment he always seems more effective when attacking the opposition box and I feel the team as a whole operate better with only one holding midfielder, but it seems that Dodds prefers to have 2 which for me is a much more defensive set up which we tend to abandon after about 65-70 mins of each game(which is normally when we come alive and start looking like a better team) as we are losing and then everybody screams about why we were not playing like this from the start???
He's most frustrating because he's got more potential than the majority of our players. There's a brilliant footballer in there somewhere. At the end of last year, I thought he could go on and be our best player this season but there's an argument that he's not even in our best eleven at the moment.
I wouldn’t pick him because of his lack of hunger. Players get into our box before him cos they want it more and come out with the ball in a tackle cos they want it more. He comes alive around the opposition box so to me he’s the advanced player in an attacking 3 or nowt and would he press hard enough? Him and Jobe need swapping- Jobe’s better looking forward but doesn’t yet have the physique.
Yeah my brother was very good at that when we used to play. The little Nick to get it past the “tackle” and still have control. I was more a “kick it if it moves” player!, but he got more football injuries than I ever did as a result I think
I never played at much of a level at all, but it was chase and kick with me, my cousin was one of those annoying tw@s who was good at all sports, signed for Sunderland at the same time as Gary Rowell
My brother never quite got to that level. We’re both late 40s now (me slightly later than him!) he played semi pro for a few clubs. Pub league was my high point!! Pot and Glass way back in my teens
Seaham Park Cricket club started a football team, we started off in the second division of the Sunday afternoon league and went up as champions in that first season. The townies wern't keen on the harbour lads winning the league, it kicked off at the presentation night, as I knew it would, so I never went
Sunday mornings for me!! Our drinking team were the best in the league. If only we didn’t have a football problem… (think that’s the right way around!)
