Calum Woods

get mezza back

 

In a relegation battle it has everything to do with it. You need a decent 18/20 players to cover for a couple of injuries a time and some versatile
Ones to fill in.

On our now limited budget with the overspend we are short in areas but without signing the likes of Anderson (who would be the only ones available) then we would have left ourselves criminally short

 

We're going round in circles here. 3 of the players that have been brought in don't play or have played a very small amount or are now injured because their injury prone.

If it's 'just to fill in' then I'm not sure experience is necessary. Experience to play I think is essential and I think we should have bought/loaned an experienced striker instead of any of these 3 but we didn't. Not sure having 3 left backs at the club is necessary at all.

 

With no emergency loan market anymore, who would we bring in if butterfield and Akpan got injured?

You say it’s not necessary to sign the likes of Anderson but as I’ve said we’ve lost Henry, O’Brien from midfield and of course we needed cover.

As I’ve already pointed out, experience is vital for a crap team who are low on confidence. Would you be happy playing Devine for 4 games in a row over Easter? No because he isn’t good enough.

 

I would actually as I don't think he's as bad as you're making out. If he plays in front of the back 4 and does the simple stuff then I think he does a job. Move O'brien back into his best position with Devine and I'm fine with that. Akpan has hardly set the place alight and we don't know what we will get with Butterfield, plus it could take a fortnight for him to be anywhere near fully fit.

If you're basing experience on games played then we have plenty in the team at the moment, one less experienced played isn't going to rock our rocky boat anymore than it is already.

 

How long did Woods sign for? 18 months?

 

Dont think so, thought it was an initial deal until the end of the season but not 100%

 

But whi is he covering? No one really has a clue what his best position is, we needed a replacement for the experienced Jim O’Brien and Karl Henry, two hard tackling midfielders. As far as i can gather thats not Andersons game. Just taking players for the sake of it because they are cheap and available is ludicrous, there were vital positions that needed replacements, what we got was what was left in the bargain bin.

 

I'll give you Jim O'Brien but I can't remember Karl Henry tackling anyone!

 

He covers central midfield. Was brought in before we knew we would get butterfield.

It doesn’t have to be like for like for every player does it? Not at this level.

 

You know what i meant, the type of player we let go was typified as a physical central midfielder, something we didn’t replace with Jermaine Anderson.

 

Well yeah it does, its the sort of player we were crying out for when Jim O’Brien came in. You can’t just look under headings mid, def and striker, each of those headings has all sorts of different sub categories. Look, i get we were desperate and beggars can’t be choosers but we still have the same problems we had before January with weak positions with no cover and no options to change things just like last week.

 

Yes I knew what you meant and agree. Just venting my disappointment at Karl Henry because I thought he was going to be that player

 

I agree he looked like a player whose legs had gone.

 

Absolutely. We aren't good enough or have enough money to waste on getting players in to sit on the bench just incase someone else gets injured. We have Devine, we have Colville, we have O'Brien who should be in the middle, we have O'Connor who has come into midfield if we need it. Anderson is a waste. Woods is a gamble that doesn't look a good one as he's injured after a game and a half, O'Connor has played 45 minutes. We have the same problems that we had in August.

I keep seeing fans say 'at least the bench is getting better'. It looks better but the same 2 or 3 players will get 20 minutes and not the other 4. The starting 11 is almost, apart from maybe 2 or 3 positions, guaranteed to pick itself, still, despite new players coming in.

 

Completely agree, last Saturday was a prime example of the above. No options to change upfront with a more physical threat or pace to stretch teams, no wingers to allow our full backs the chance to counter a packed midfield and no option to change what is a bang out of form pair of centre backs, we let the only realistic option go to Scotland for personal reasons. And now we are trying to squeeze what are arguably decent players in Butterfield and Billy Clarke into a line up that already has its share of quality ball players around those positions. Interesting to see how Plymouth set up tomorrow, could be warning signs very early on if they pack the midfield.

 

We will never know if devine is more reliable than but at the moment they are doing exactly the same thing, it's an absolute waste of a wage. We have signed somebody "just in case". Id say the only reason devine has played 50 games less, is because he was shafted a little. A) firstly by mccall, who dropped him, when he was starting to look like a tidy footballer, and B) by a silly football league rule regarding homegrown players and the fact we havent any one else meeting the criteria so we couldn't ever loan devine out to get the game time he deserved. Its wasted two years of his career.

Anyhow ive digressed , we had cover in midfield. Anthony oconnor luca colville, danny devine, even pissing josh wright could have been utilised "just in case".

I'll even go further and say we have actually looked more comfortable with o'connor at centre midfield than we have with him in defence.

 

At last someone that gets it!!!

 

100% spot on.

 

We have certainly never replaced him adequately thats for sure