Match Thread Bury FC v Bradford City AFC Saturday 8 July 2023 3pm

Wow.

 

Yes apologies, I meant the same role in the same formation.

 

Obviously not in the quality of play but the difference in styles, should have been obvious from my comment really

 

Not according to the league two stats I've seen. Smallwood was higher on every defensive metric including tackles, interceptions and turnovers.

 

If you watch them both play and can't tell the difference between their roles I can't really help you

 

I didn't offer an opinion, just a comment on the statistics which are obviously impartial.

 

Even if Smallwood has made more tackles and interceptions (he is the one sitting deep after all and the better player) the point still stands - they're definitely playing different roles in the team

 

You were telling us though that everything Gillead does well are all the things that no one else can do yet the statistics tell us that, in fact, Smallwood does them more often (I won't suggest better).

Anyway, I can see we won't agree and I think I've made my only point so to save us going around in circles I'll leave it with wishing Gillead all the best for next year and hopefully he makes me eat my words and contributes to a successful season.

 

No he doesn’t and if you were vaguely correct, surely Gilly covers for Smallwoods absences, suspensions etc.

Two different players, two different jobs JM.

 

Unless there generated by the BBC.

 

Nice one, Bronco

 

Thank you.

 

My post was about his high intensity and high retention of possession, how do those stats compare?

 

And neither team have got promoted

 

Retention of possession?

Can you explain what you mean?

Do you mean times that a City player passes to him and he passes to another City player?

All I'll say is if he passed forward even half the number of times as he passed backwards, he would be twice the player.

 

"People complain about him being 'negative' but:

1. He's probably under orders to do that
2. As I'm sure you and many others have pointed out, he's not great at crossing or shooting so I don't know why those same people are so angry at him for doing the sensible thing in that case and making sure the ball gets to those who can"

#316 Doodle, Yesterday at 3:49 PM

 

I don't think there's a stat for intensity, I'm not sure how you'd measure that metric but retention (or pass completion) should be available somewhere.

Again though, do you want someone who completes 99/100 passes every game because it's all very safe or do you want someone who's generally completing slightly less on average because they're also trying to create?

I'm choosing the latter, especially from a player in Gilleads position, assuming we're using the system we saw at Bury.

 

It depends on their role, doesn't it? Last year (not last Saturday) his role was clearly to keep possession

 

I believe that's the way Hughes wants us to play, and you can't disagree if you have the ball the opposition don't, but some of the playing it around at the back became tedious at times, we have to be quicker getting the ball forward, certainly at Valley Parade.

 

Why can't you have both? One of the best holding midfielders in the world recently was Kante and his job was simply to win the ball then play a simply pass to one of the more technical players who can play the harder passes