Just read the article on the green'un which reports that Jewell has finally woken up and realised what us fans have been telling him all along! The emphasis now is on young hungry players and he has just offered Carson a 2 year deal with the option of a further year. As much as I welcome this change of thinking I will believe it when I see it and look forward to seeing who is on the team sheet for the Leeds game. My hope is that this is just not more PR spin designed to soften the fans and that Jewell will back up his words with some signings this week. We are half way through this window and so far all we have is a Reading reject keeper who has proven by his errors to be worse than ALB. Its now time for action Jewell and if you spent more time on the blower talking to clubs about signing players rather than feeding us bullshit things would be a great deal better!
I can see the case for bringing in the keeper but dont know how he managed to convince Jewell he was 1 choice potential and I would also prefere to have ALB in goal. Looking forwards and based, rather hopefully on 1 match, Saturday showed a good basis of a team and could also play together for years to come. If you could add a RB and A CB to partner smith then that defence could be decent The front 6 on Saturday played better than any team I can remember since Magilton left and showed both defensive intelligence and some decent forward play. The partnership between Drury and Hyam was very encouraging. It is amazing how much better we played with so little leadership on the pitch. Scotland was the only experienced head in this front 6 yet they all played with more sense and understanding than the likes of Leadbitter, Bullard, Bowyer and Andrews combined. Im not going to run before I can walk but it was the first time this season I have felt positivity and to hear that the 3 we have bids in for are all under 24 then I could almost start believing that we can win matches again. Im praying that we keep near enough the same team together for the weekend.
Like I say it will be interesting to see which names are on the team sheet come Saturday. If Leadtwats starts I will be ****ing livid!
Did the performance on Sat restore a bit of faith for you Warky? I know it was almost forced upon us but it was refreshing to see a positive Town performance.
Definately encouraged by the first hour! We showed all the qualities we have lacked for so long. Desire, Energy, Pace and we kept the ball a lot better. I was gutted that we conceded the draw but these kids are the future and can only get better. The one big advantage they have over the oldies. Like you say tractorbhoy, these changes were forced upon Jewell so it will be interesting to see what the team sheet will be for the Leeds game.
I wouldn't be surprised is Leadbitter starts, mainly because of the captain armband *Cough... But in reality a lot of these players (that played on Saturday) just need a run in the team, when we played well we had the same line up for however long... and recently we've been chopping and changing. I would personally not have Bullard on the bench either, the guy is a waste of space at the minute, his inability to run and tackle is killing us. As for the new signings, a bit of pace would be fantastic and hopefully we can do a decent bit of business and add some more in the summer... Also on another note, anyone else think Lee Martin could become a great championship player? He's finally getting a consistant run of games and looks very confident. Nice to see a player in a town shirt run at the opposition..
Martin can be a decent player and all he needs is a little bit of faith from the manager in being started regularly. He suffered from Jewell's hissy fit after he was unjustly sent off against Peterborough! Great man management from Jewell. Given confidence I think Martin will be a very decent player, he has pace can drop a shoulder and if he works a bit more on his delivery into the box he will be very good for us.
Could give us the creativity we have been lacking, especially if we have the likes of Carson, and Jet (Playing regularly) then we have some good attacking options who can unlock defences. Also Hyam offers us the natural balance we haven't had in the team for years.
I just can't understand why Hyam was ever frozen out in the first place! He looked a natural in that position on Saturday and he has a big future with Town. I think that Jamie Peters can still do a job at Right Back which would give licence for Edwards getting forward.
Good points on here, I think Jewell has known that he needs to go for youth for a while even when he wasn't getting the older more experienced players in he realised that was a quick fix. Whilst I think this I'm not overly confident that he will keep the same team at the weekend, leadbitter is more than likely to come back into the team, along with Bowyer when fit, I hope I am wrong, even if he does play a similar team at the weekend, I can see that before long the old heads will be back in the team and the likes of Hyam and Drury will not unfortunately. Also with regard to signing players, this is more likely to either not happen at all or at the very end of the transfer window, as is always the case in the january transfer window!!! All we need as a few players with a bit of defensive intelligence and defensive positional play at the back and we will be ok, unfortunately not one player in our squad really has this!! My concern is we are still so open in defence, look at the Phillips goal, we are 2-1 up in the final part of the game, yet we still have a pretty high line and our fullbacks were bombing up the pitch. I'm not sure whether this is Jewell's tactics or that he realises that our defence would just as likely make a mistake if we sat back as much as it would if we continued to attack!!! Lee Martin has looked very good of late, he looked a completely lost hope this time last year. I know he sometimes like alot of wingers lacks the right decision making but he works hard, covers the full back well and is involved alot whereas alot of wingers go out of the game quite a bit. His application and workrate have improved so much in the past year, it is very encouraging. I think Jewell actually managed the situation well with him, put him in the reserves and then he works hard and gets back into the first team on merit with no grudges held. Unlike Keane, who gave 2nd chances but held a grudge meaning if you made a mistake and had already crossed him you were never seen again!! Not sure about Jamie Peters at RB, I think I actually prefer Edwards at RB, both are poor positionally but Edwards has a little more strength. Also with regard to putting Edwards at RM, I've never really been impressed with him in that position whilst he's been at town, I don't know if that was because he was played there by Keane and we were just useless at attacking under Keane, but I have been more impressed with Edwards going forwards from RB than attacking from RM!!! But we certainly do need another right back who actually is an authadox RB with a bit of defensive awareness.
