Richie Smallwood

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He’s done enough to warrant an extension but if he’s starting every week we won’t make much progress.
 
We could do with holding midfielder who can actually pass the ball forward without taking 4 or 5 touches and someone with some mobility. Richie's earned a contract extension but he is quite limited.
 
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Steve Bruce got that one wrong...

He got a few things wrong, like playing a weakened team against Lokeren and sabotaging our run in Europe so we could get a measly point against Stoke that didn't matter much come May anyway as we still got relegated. He's got a lot of things wrong since then at Aston Villa, Sheffield Wednesday, Newcastle and now at West Brom too.
 
It's easy to say he's limited, and generally he probably is, but we should give credit where it's due too. For KLP's goal at the weekend he passed a bouncing ball out wide straight to KLP's feet, the efficiency of which allowed him to quickly get it under and control and run at goal with Fleming overlapping and giving Tavernier another thing to worry about. For most of the first half we were screwing up passes like that and everything was petering out, and we do that a lot. It may have been a relatively simple assist, but we don't very often get that buildup stuff right and Richie did on that occasion.
 
Steve Bruce got that one wrong...

At the time I really don't think he did. We had several better midfielders then. I remember someone asking Andy Dawson about Cairney at a Q&A a while back and he said that basically Cairney wasn't much of a professional back then but has since grown up a lot.
 
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At the time I really don't think he did. We had several better midfielders then. I remember someone asking Andy Dawson about Cairney at a Q&A a while back and he said that basically Cairney wasn't much of a professional back then but has since grown up a lot.

Remember something about some sort of saga with Bullard trying to become his agent....
 
Until they’re not there, then it’s, we need an Ashbee, we need a Smallwood!
I agree but I do think Slater fits that mould but also brings more quality on the ball. If we were to play 4-3-3 he’d do well centrally alongside Honeyman as your box to box along with hopefully a new signing who can provide that link between the front and back.
 
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I agree but I do think Slater fits that mould but also brings more quality on the ball. If we were to play 4-3-3 he’d do well centrally alongside Honeyman as your box to box along with hopefully a new signing who can provide that link between the front and back.

Need more than Slater, Smallwood and Honeyman to cover those midfield positions anyway. There would still be space for additions as well as signing another 10.
 
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Until they’re not there, then it’s, we need an Ashbee, we need a Smallwood!

Not in the same league, but I do agree. Most successful squads have that one player doing the dirty work, breaking stuff up and generally being all over the place.

I think he is worth keeping around the place, but not starting 11.
 
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