Ok now we have Conway and Taylor ,lets take a small leap of faith and add Goodwillie and then Gunnarson in midfield? hopefully we will also get Earnie and also bellers back, both would be wonderful, one would useful. If we had all of those we will only have paid for 1, all the others are on a free or in Bellers case loan, (although we may have to pay a bigger chunk of his wages this year unless we buy him, when it gets really expensive) So what else do we need? Do we need more strength in depth in mid-field? I think so, specially as there is talk of Whitts leaving. Do we still need a goalkeeper that has more all round stength than the 2 we have? Is the back line strong enough now without the fear of Naylor sitting on the bench? What do you think?
I would be very concerned if we sign a bunch of players the fans want and then try and shoehorn them into to our starting eleven. This is what happened last year. I didn't work. Earnie, Bellers and Good(Bad?)willie cannot play in the same side. All of them offer something far too similar and would not compliment each other. It's doubtful whether even two of them would fit well together. If Malky did get Bellamy back (which I do think can happen), would he be pushed on the left hand side again? If so, where would Whitts end up? He can only play on the left flank for me, or possibly, maybe as an attacking mid with a very good holding player behind him. So top two priorities for me would be... 1. Physically strong, dominant holding midfield player. In the Kavavagh mould. 2. Centre forward. Strong enough to handle the biggest Championship defenders. Good in the air, capable of holding the ball up and setting up play. 6ft plus. 3. Another centre mid. Preferably box to box. 4. Right winger.
Definitely need a big, strong and mobile target man as Parky only ticks the first 2 of those boxes and is not a consistent scorer. He will be a bench warmer at best. If Goodwillie is not a big guy then he is a direct replacement for Chops so both Bellers (Blackburn are sniffing around him) and Earnie would be overkill. Assuming Taylor signs and we get Goodwillie then we still need another 8 new guys to replace those left and the odd bods that Malky decides to move on - Gyepes, Naylor, Taiwo - so plenty more activity required with only the defence having adequate numbers.
Agree with Blue on Parkin's goal scoring. Also Ace, would say that pace is always an issue over the course of a game. If there is no pace threat, then the opposition can push their back line up, which is always a disadvantage. Perhaps pace and alround ability is as impotant as height. I don't want us lumping balls over the midfield again like we'd do if we were losing a game under DJ, which is the mentality we got into with Jay or Parkin on the pitch. This is another reason why we need a anchor man, or at least two clever centre mids - to collect the ball from our defenders. One thing Hudson and Keinan rarely get credit for is they always try and play the ball intelligently out of defence. Too often we've been blindly direct over the last few years. Even McNaughton is guilty of lumping it too often.
I think the over top tactic was due to us eventually getting over run in midfield. We always seem to start well with good movement and passing but as our usual 2 man midfield gets swamped so we resort to "lump it up and chase around like headless chickens". I hope Malky makes to changes to improve on that.
Very true blue. We have typically been good starters of recent seasons. Then our movement would go, somewhere between 15-30 mins and we'd go flat as a crap pancake. One thing that is good on our situation now, is we can be aggressive in the transfer market now. We know where the gaps are and there is no hesitation for recruitment. Look at Reading for example - likely to lose Mills, Long and others, but aren't sure yet so have to be conservative. For us, we've got a clean slate and Malky can design his team from scratch.
