He was a bit shaky I thought he got overpowered by their midfield, they did double up on him a fair bit, he never really got out of first gear he wasn't dreadful but he was very mediocre. We would of had a lot more control over the game and would of got through them easily if he was on form. I was quite looking forward to see how he would link up with Wes's trickery.
It would have been great to see Fer, Howson and Wes linking up really well but as you say, Fer never got going.
I personally think West is past it, but he did play much better than I expected on Saturday and should be in the team for the foreseeable future. If he is played as a wide man by Hughton in place of other wingers then I would like to see him coming central and Redmond constantly changing wings like against Palace. If Wes finds really good form then he could be our most important attacking player because he certainly has the potential to create chances, he just wasn't doing it before our last game. Liverpool will be a real test for us, will be happy if we keep the margin no greater than three but I don't think it's fair to judge Wes on those sort of games where we have so little possession. Will be interested to see how he does against the Swans. OTBC
This is one of the things that gets me annoyed. Some of the people on here are quick to accuse those of us who are Hughton sceptics of disloyalty and yet they seem quite happy to dump the player who has (apart from Holt) been the most important factor in taking us from League 1 to repeated survival in the Prem. "Not Premiership quality!" or, these days, "Past it!" There's no evidence for this at all in my opinion. I'd like to remind them that last season we had our dreadful start, then injuries forced CH to play Wes, and we went on our ten-match unbeaten run. This season again there has been another attempt to marginalise him and, guess what, we have completely lacked creativity. He comes back in and provides the assist against a park-the-bus team. Of course we would all like a better version of Wes - someone like Mata, perhaps - but he is the only player we have at the moment who has the vision and creativity to pick locks (as someone else says on here). He adds a different dimension to the dull, flat, Subbuteo football that CH dishes up week after week where not making a mistake is much more important than flair and imagination. I think I've set myself up as a target
I completely agree with you re Wes, I don't think he's past it and his style of play is such that he isn't reliant on pace. With modern training and dietary techniques players are lasting longer than ever. I'll take aim though... The one thing I would say is that I'm not convinced of the whole "Wes is only played when everyone is injured" thing (someone else tried to use this stick I saw). He's been offered a number of opportunities and not taken them til now - he has had three starts and not looked great. The thing is, he's always been the sort of player who has a run of good matches, then he goes off the boil for a while. It's his style of play. So yes, Hughton has been forced to play him and he's now performed, but it's not like Hughton hadn't tried to get him on before this season, Wes just doesn't ooze consistency and when you're a team in a rut the logic is to play consistent players. Basically, I'm still highly sceptical about Hughton's long term potential, but it's got nothing to do with his management of Hoolahan.
Point taken, but some players (e.g. Fox) seem to be given one game every now and again and are then deemed not good enough based on the evidence of that one match, whereas others seem to be in the side week after week even if they are not performing well. I guess this is true of all managers, though, and I shouldn't use it as a stick to beat CH. I have plenty of others.
Yeah, I think the players who can do a bit of everything are quite in vogue, I suppose Fox just simply doesn't offer what he does have consistently enough, even when he gets the chance. Hoolahan on the other hand does take his chance very so often and against a panicky Liverpool defence I see Hoolahan keeping his place. I think a lot of how a manager picks their team will be based on training and balancing the team. Trying to shoehorn all your best players onto the pitch often just doesn't work and I get the feeling that some of our squad are vestiges of Lambert still and just don't properly fit in the system.
I also think Wes is still a classy player. I don't think he'll start tomorrow because he doesn't have the match fitness for another match so soon. IMO, he lost his place when the Fer, Howson, Tettey threesome was working so well. Howson and Fer do carry much more goal threat than Wes, and I think they can improve their creative skills as well to get the ball in to Hooper. Wes could get a bit of a run for the next four games after Liverpool though.
What exactly does "most creative player" mean? Is it actually true that Wes is our most creative player? Might that actually be Snodgrass? What is creativity in this context? Has the most assists? Has the most assists plus key passes (= creates the most chances)? Furthermore, if Wes actually is our most creative player, does it follow that he should be played? No, because his creativity might come at a cost which outweighs the benefits of playing him (e.g. as Rick points out, a midfield axis of Tettey, Fer and Howson may be more beneficial to the team than, say, Fer, Howson and Hoolahan). Or again, if the cost of playing Wes is that we have to set up in diamond formation (since most agree that that is Wes's best position), does the benefit of having Wes play in his best position outweigh the disadvantage of having to leave out three from Tettey, Howson, Pilkington, Snodgrass, Redmond (leaving aside injuries and assuming that the diamond requires 2 from say RvW, Hooper, Elmander)? If Wes was to show himself more flexible than he has in the past, and slotted in comfortably in a forward three, then the situation changes. I'd like to think that he could, but the evidence suggests otherwise.
Purely academic thinking here, but what do people think of playing Elmander in a sort of 'false 9' role with 3 AMs supporting him, and Fer and Tettey behind them? Lack of width maybe, but I think the players have the ability to give it a go. Fer - Tettey Snodgrass - Howson - Hoolahan Elmander
It must be tricky to be a player on the fringe of a team. You get the odd 10 minutes here and there like Becchio and then get slated if you haven't scored, he did create the best goal of last season, Howsons thunderbolt against a West Brom so in 30 minutes of prem football he has one assist, which I think is pretty good going. Without Wes last weekend I think we would probably be looking down the barrel of another draw or defeat so to say his is past it is frankly ridiculous. He may not feature as much as before but he still has a big part to play in our season against teams like Palace at home. How many weeks have the fans been on at Hughton to play him? He finally does and he creates the goal that has given our season a bit of momentum.
Re. my question about whether Snodgrass is actually our most creative player, does anyone have access to the full range of OPTA stats for last season? In particular the figures for chances created by individual players i.e. assists plus key passes? Going purely on assists, Snodgrass wins hands down, with twice as many assists as Wes (though Wes made 4 fewer appearances, 33 against 37).
I don't, but I do recall that Snodgrass created the second highest number of chances in the league (after Leighton Baines) last season.
So what else is there to "creativity" that would make Wes "our most creative player" rather than Snodgrass? I guess the argument would then be that he WOULD be our most creative player if the team was set up to play to his strengths rather than anything or anyone else's.
No, I wouldn't argue the hypothetical case you put forward at the end. I think it depends what measure we use to define creativity. You are clearly using a quantitative one - most assists = most creativity. I think those of us who argue that Wes is more creative would suggest that he has more vision and variety to his game. That, of course, is a much more subjective statement, but still doesn't make it valueless. The problem with the quantitative approach is that it fails to define between assists. A player like Snodgrass is bound to put in lots of crosses over the course of a season. A few of those crosses will turn into assists. But does that make him creative? Not really in my opinion. We are just talking a percentage game. I think Snodgrass has many qualities, especially last season when he did as much as anyone to keep us up. He is dogged, skilful, positive, hard-working, willing to track back and defend. But I don't think he has vision in the sense that Wes has. I don't think he would have seen the pass to Hooper on Saturday, for example. Just my opinion, btw. Before you shoot me down.
Another thing to bear in mind, the 'pass before the assist': http://thincquisitive.com/2012/07/16/the-pass-before-the-assist/
