His calmness on the ball and decent passing ability is why I always said I would like him in the pivot role. Just Infront of the back four, protecting them whilst also starting attacks, if he gets beaten for pace or out muscled, at least he has cover behind him.
If we dominate possession, you want him in the team because he is calm and a good passer but even in certain games last year, when we play against physical strikers (Delap when we played Hull as an example), Edmundson was brought in - would not surprise me if he played against Man City, I’ve always felt that wolfys best position would be at the centre of a 3 which again we could play on Saturday, Greaves 1 side, Edmundson the other with Axel and Leif as the full backs in a back 5
I don’t think he’s actually slow - I think he is slow to react. That and strength can be coached. He came through the ranks into an absolutely terrible side and he keeps improving. I think he has to go up several levels this season to keep his place - I can’t remember there being an Ipswich team with four strong centre backs.
I'd like to see a bit more aggression from him,perhaps Butch can have a word!! Otherwise I'm generally positive about him.
Broja was a good player for Southampton a couple of years ago. However, since then he’s come back from a bad ACL injury and has only scored three times in his last 45 games. Begs the question, is he the same player? A £30m mandatory fee - if we stay up - would be very good business for Chelsea, not so sure about us. Then again, I’d trust McKenna to get a tune out of him and would be a different type of centre forward in the ranks. Our transfer business isn’t showing any signs of slowing down, is it?
In terms of Woolfenden, he may get found out this year but I think he's been outstanding for us the past few years and however this year goes he is at least a top Championship defender. He and Burgess made very few mistakes last season as I've said before I think Tuanzebe and Edmondson made as many and played no where near the same number of games. I think he's decent on the ball but his passing ability is a little over hyped, from what I've seen I think Burgess is actually a better passer of the ball. I've not seen too many occasions where he's played an outstanding pass. What he does do exceptionally well is invite the press and moves the ball on usually relatively simply to another player. He has been one of the key cogs alongside Morsy in how McKenna plays breaking the press. I don't think we have any other CBs who play that role. Defensively I also think last season the majority of the time he was outstanding (both him and Burgess) especially in that period around Xmas last year when we struggled. He often had to deal with Clarke going AWOL and although Burgess was outstanding we coped without him quite well, I always thought it was however very noticeable when Woolfenden wasn't in the team in a bad way. Defensively his strength for me is his positional play, he's got such a good reading of the game and I think is more suited to that sweeper type role. Where I do think he could improve is when he's tight up against a player in terms of his strength and aggression If he is favoured by McKenna this season it'll be interesting to see how his and Greaves partnership develops as Greaves in many ways is the opposite of Woolfenden, aggressive and seems to like to play tight against his marker, this can be a positive however defending like that also comes with a risk as we've seen with some players in the past. And whilst Greaves was on the whole outstanding against Liverpool there were one or two occasions where I felt his positioning could've been better in the second half and I think that's because sometimes he pushes high against his man to win the ball back, if he doesn't he's then slightly out of sync with the rest of the back line, we saw it sometimes last season with Edmundson in the back line who is also a more aggressive front foot defender. If you look at some of the chances Liverpool created in the 2nd half Greaves often wasn't in line with the rest of the defence because he was touch tight to his man trying to win the ball back which meant there were holes in the back line. They weren't entirely his fault but contributed to us bring cut open several times. Whether this is something McKenna is asking of him tactically I don't know. But whilst Burgess is aggressive I think due to his lack of pace positionally he had to be spot on and he wouldn't be often quite as touch tight as Greaves was.
Broja looks big, strong and lean, Chelsea, Saints, Westsham all rated him. And according to football analysis, worth an occasional glimpse, he is just the sort of striker we need for backup. £30m stay up fee and wages sound steep but not for the Prem. KM must rate him to bring him back to full recovery, strength & fitness.
Passing ability doesn't always mean long balls ptc, look at Barça, most players past and present have great passing ability but seldom do you see the long pass. So is his passing ability over hyped, no!! He seldom gives the ball away, which means he had good passing ability, it's not down to long distance accuracy, it's about playing the right ball at the right time. Personally I thought Wolfenden done ok last season but he worried me and he did make stupid, very avoidable mistakes. Burgess made me feel safe, wolfenden panicked me! Outstanding he was not, nowhere near imo, he was just better than anything else we had in that position. Saying that, when Edmondson came in for him, I thought we looked more solid, maybe had Edmondson been given more time in that position....we would have been even better!! I do think some on here get carried away because he is a local lad. Oh something else I will say that will get people going..... Chaplin not good enough for the Prem!!
To add to that, I don't think Broadhead or Burns are good enough to start in the Prem but will be decent impact subs if needed. We definitely need someone to play on the left, another 15 million signing would be nice but we must be pushing near our limit in regards to ffp!!
Chaplin isn’t playing freely. He used to take on long shots and he lost the confidence to do that toward the end of the season. I think he may have found his limit. I think with Broadhead and Burns the jury is out but probably they have found their limit too. Not sure about forking out £30m for Broja. He does have some Premier League experience but has he been robbing a living off Chelsea?
I think it shows how well KMc has done to get us back-to-back promotions with a squad of Div One and Championship players.Inevitably we are in the process of upgrading in every area.I just hope we don't lose the team spirit and identity that got us here.Trust the process. COYB!!!
In regards to Chaplin, my nephew and I had exactly the same conversation on Saturday. I know it’s only 1 game but I think SS is a better all round player. Great to have the options though - squad is looking far better. The only addition I would now make is a right sided centre back and (only if Walton goes) an experienced back up keeper
How can we possibly afford all this? Are we going for broke this season at the expense of future seasons? I think we’re starting to get in over our heads.
We're 'doing a Chelsea' and amortising the transfer fees over the contract length. For example, the £9 million we paid for Szmodics is split over his four year contract - which is kinda surprising Blackburn accepted that, but that's possibly why negotiations took a while. So while it looks like we've spent £9 million on him alone this window, it's actually closer to £2 million, so complies better with FFP etc.
It gets us through this season but it means we will struggle to improve the squad in a sustainable way. We are effectively maxing out our credit card.
