He is so infuriating. When he gets on the ball he plays some fantastic passes, well weighted at speed and good vision. However he backs out of every tackle and has players half his size beating him in the air. One of the best aspects of our game recently has been the tenacity of Mckenna and Evans in the middle of the park buzzing around winning balls they shouldn't really be winning. I thought this was clear last night in the difference in performance from Oli been on the pitch and then Evans.
Don't know what instructions last night but he DIDN'T do the job Corry Evans and Paul McKenna do. He was playing far too high up the pitch, where as the other two sit deeper and protect the defence. That was why we were poor in the first hour last night. McKenna did a great job all on his own for an hour, which is why I made him MOTM. You could almost hear his sigh of relief when Evans came on and he knew he would have some help for the rest of the game.
Oli is clearly well off the mark fitness level wise after being out for so long. Does some good things but never gives the impression he is tight on the ball and for a big man is easily brushed off it. Evans by comparison is neat and tidy and has a good engine. Plays well with Mckenna also protecting the back four and would have started except that he was rested after playing for NI on Wed.
Both to similar we are wasting wages need to offload oli pronto! Both good passers and both pussys when it comes to the tackle and in the air.
Disagree, get rid of Cairney, he's slow, cannot see a pass as well as Oli, thinks he's better than he is, little experience and **** in the air. Keep Oli and save £10k a week
i play defensive midfield so was watching olifinjana off the ball and when he had it just to see if i was missing something other people see. seems to be that because hes 6ft4 or something and built like a brick outhouse a section of fans think hes awesome , let me tell you that impressive physique counts for absolutley nothing, never have i seen such bulk go to waste. 3 times i counted him pull out of 50 50 challenges against much smaller men, whereas evans and mckenna never shy away. watched his workrate off the ball and it amounts to the peter kay dad run my gf pointed out when i asked her to watch the big massive dude in the middle, the blackpool goal when the ball came to ince he half heartedly made an attempt to close him down, then once ince had released the ball and made a run oli just let him canter by him and recieve it back to stick it into the top corner. its either bad concentration when failing to pick up runners or mark up or just plain lazy and whats the excuses for pulling out of challenges especially on 25k a week. it wont be a fully negative post from me, as yes fair enough he hasnt played much football but that still doesnt excuse some of the half hearted attempts we saw, and yes he played some decent passes but the negatives far outweigh the positives with this guy id go as far as to say in the system we play olis a liability in the role he was asked to play, i think the only position for him on the field would be in the koren role due to him shirking and defensive commitment and even then would he offer much going forward. a big waste of 25k a week imo. be very interesting to see our recruitment once oli's, mcshanes, cairneys, kilbanes, ghilas's wages are freed up
I have to agree that holding mid-field role is not for him, as you say the only role he could play is a Koren type position. What a difference when Evan came on, and this also shows a team playing the same players in the same position week in week out certainly is a big plus.
Allthough I totally agree with your post regards the size of the guy and his lack of commitment in the tackle, given the choice of keeping 2 out of Olifinjana, McKenna or Cairney, I'm afraid it would be Cairney who I'd be sending packing as he doesn't pass or tackle as well as McKenna and (in my opinion) he doesn't pass as well as well as Oli. He swaggers around the pitch doing the bare essentials and (the bit which really boils my piss) makes no effort to track back after losing the ball. So before anyone pipes up with "he's just a young kid" or "he was quality in the Premiership", well that's just bollocks! He's old enough to take responsibility and we're not in the Premiership any more! Send him out on loan to a League 2 side and toughen him up!
