Alfie has improved so much in the last year or so that I think he could probably could be a good defensive mid at this level. His positioning and passing have come a long way. However, both him and Greaves are nailed-on starters at centre-half now and have formed a good partnership so we shouldn’t mess with that right now. We also don’t have another decent right-footed centre-back.
Someone else complained we didn't make changes to deal with Thomas, despite us bringing on Coyle and Docherty to try to contain him, and you're complaining because we did do that (while also bringing Ohio on to give us more mobility than Sharp in attack, bringing Omur on to improve on Zaroury's output, and pushing Giles into attack to better utilise his crossing). It's a wonder anyone can find a positive in anything we do when it seems no matter what we do there's a negative slant to it.
Jacob on the right to contain him given Coyle only had 20 mins in him much earlier than that. Having a left footed and right footer on tha same flank doubling on zorba worked for the most part against Clarke at Sunderland too.. Morton going off needed someone in centre mid who wasn't a punt as well, so that 1 forced change early on kinda killed 2 birds with 1 stone. But not having either Seri or Morton definitely disrupted the flow.
I’m guessing that the management felt that Ozan and Adama together in midfield might struggle against the physical pressure of the opposition and that moving Slater was the better option. Interesting how much Thomas suddenly improved once Slater moved from right back. Nothing against the other two, one was playing on the wrong side and the other clearly wasn’t fit but just as well we had him on the bench, although there will have been some complaints that he was a waste of a place on the bench if not 100%. Thomas looked very ordinary until Morton had to go off and Slater was switched to midfield.
Wouldn't be surprised if Slater becomes on of those Henderson or latter day Milner types where a lot of his value is in being a steady head wherever you play him.
Thought the same but my worry would be if moving him there to cover for seri would have left us looking weaker at the back. That's irrelevant now anyway of course.
He's not gonna spray it about like ping pong like Seri though, is he? He sees himself as a centre half. The manager sees him as a ball playing centre half so I'm guessing, thats what he'll be.
Let's see what we look like in 3/4 games having Seri back and a bit more settling time for incomings.
I don’t think Slater has ever shown himself to be a good defensive midfielder for the defensive side. Full of energy, rarely makes tackles or interceptions. Steady player who you need in the squad but not one you’d imagine will make the step up to a higher level
The games moved on ten fold in the time I’ve watched it. You can’t get away with work rate being your best attribute in the top level.
I can't believe people still fall into the trap of underrating the hard-working but unsexy midfielder so happily. I've pointed out a few times it's exactly the stuff people used to say about Ashbee, and people always say ah no that was different. No it wasn't. Ashbee was very unpopular during our rise up the divisions. The vocal moaners at games would always target him, kids didn't celebrate him like they did Stuarts Elliott or Green among others. There was the odd wise old dad type who'd point out that he did a lot that went unseen but they were the minority and their voices weren't heard over those shouting about how **** he was. Only once he captained us to a third promotion and became objectively a legendary figure in our history did it become popular to like him. And Meyler was the same. Again, people say now that we lack that type of player but when he was playing he was the one people moaned about most. The one who covered every blade of grass, put his body on the line and was always available despite his body taking a battering over the years, and had a disproportionately good scoring record for the amount of talent he had. But people used to pile on him all the time for not being as easy on the eye as Huddlestone, Livermore or Koren. Easy mistake to make in the moment, but you'd think we'd learn and start to spot the pattern.
