Most liked posts in thread: Out of contract players

The club must use similar stats to these (or at least have access to)? On that basis, family link or not, there is no way, at his age and on his wage, he should be getting a new deal

 

This squad is dire! I've seen some spineless crap at VP over the years and a number of this lot are up in the top 10.
There's no leadership or desire, granted a few of them are decent footballers, but there's not a single personality or a 'winner' amongst them.
This squad with a few 'tweaks' wouldn't take us above half way in the league.

 

The noises coming out of VP right now remind me of why I chose not to renew my season ticket end of last season, pretty much everything I'm reading sounds far from great. First on the list which pretty much nails my decision is that we trying to get Odeyoke for next season!!! Seriously I give up...Then we hear GA doesn't know next seasons budget until figure of STs is in??..I thought SR had publicly said he's basically going to step up?? In which case ST sales would be irrelevant.

 

Glad we’ve got Smith for another two years.

Thats the goals for the next 6 Bristol Street Motors trophy games sorted.

 

Fingers crossed there is change this summer above and around GA. He needs help, not hindering.

 

I would wager had Smallwood joined at that time with Parky and had that squad around him he would more than likely been a successful signing. Same with a few players we've had here since that period. As said already on themis thread, the stars really do need to align to make everything work, some players aren't afforded that luxury.

 

Think Halliday will be getting his new contract, he is more lethal than Cook at the moment

 

Twitter users aren’t the most intelligent sadly, especially not ones who regularly comment on football clubs. While he’s not been the best it’s blown out of proportion mainly because he’s on set pieces, it was the clubs job to recruit a specialised set piece taker and it failed miserably, he doesn’t hold the club at gun point to take them. Just as him and Gilliead don’t hold the club at gun point to have them play together.

It’s poor how often fans scapegoat individuals and take it too far, I’m sure he’d be more than fine in a 3 man midfield with runners around him similar to what he’s had in the past. As usual our recruitment throws players under the bus and fans lap it up, no wonder players do better elsewhere and are glad to be out of here.

 

That's appalling.

 

Smallwood needs runners around him which we don’t have but overall he had just been a poor signing for us. Needs to go.

 

For me, you need Smallwood to be a sitter in a 3 man midfield, where he sits and the other two have legs. If he's in a 2, the other lad has far too much to cover and Smallwood looks far too open. Other than that, you might get the odd good game but he wont look the accomplished midfielder he should at this stage of his career. But yes, set pieces need taking away for sure.

Last season, he was statistically the 3rd best CM in the league behind Watt and Moxon, he might have been higher if his pass completion wasn't low due to his poor set pieces. This season he is way down on every metric possible, overall he is the 38th ranked CM in L2, which is still our best midfielder, but a huge fall but seemingly from his on the ball stats rather than off it.

This season, he has made the 2nd most successful tackles of any midfielder with 89 from 121 attempts. He has been dribbled past 32 times, which ranks him 17th in L2 (Gilliead was 9th in the list with 39). He has 38 interceptions which is 10th. He's 24th for shots blocked, he's 22nd for passes blocked. They aren't terrible, but last season he was in and around the top 5-10 for pretty much all. But going forward drags him way down and if you're in a 2 man midfield, you have to cover both areas. He's 62nd for shots from midfield with 16 over the season. He has passed it the 7th most of any midfielder, and 14th for pass completion but breaking it down further, he leads the league in inaccurate long passes this season with 226, and is 4th for inaccurate short passes, and he has yet to register an assist this season.

 

Here is a novel idea, why don’t we try him out in the men’s team? Give him a run out see how he does. Or are we just going to sell him to the highest bidder before the long suffering fans have even seen him play?

 

A number of fans have been saying this for 3 or 4 years (or more).

 

Stockport owners have taken them from National league north to league one with ongoing restructure plans of their stadium and area around the ground. Wrexham have taken a club from 18 years in the national league to league one. Can't really argue that they are well run clubs right now.

 

I would like Oyegoke to sign as well.

I know that his merits divide the fanbase a bit and there is the odd worrying moment, but I think he's got some ability.

Watching him on Saturday there was a moment when the ball bounced towards him. Someone behind me shouted for him to not let the ball go over his head. He did, but within a blink of an eye he was five yards ahead of the striker with time to then pick a pass. He has a confidence that you can't train in, it may get him in trouble occasionally, but I think it would also add a lot to our squad next season if we were able to sign him again.

 

The blame firmly lies with Stephen Gent in that particular subject. He needs to be given the bullet long before GA is criticised

 

Agree with pretty much all that apart from the ship out Cook part, yes his form is very up and down but I'd blame that in the main with our assembled squad as we rely on him too much and as a result flog him to death. On his day there isn't anyone better in L2 so we just require quality alternatives to him within the squad and then use him accordingly.

 

I think we just added the wrong piece to compliment the squad, but we needed to correct the spine and we did the opposite. Defence for example, Stubbs, Kelly and Platt were all there for the play off squad. But we conceded so many late goals last season, I remember writing a post at the time and we'd have finished 3rd if games ended on 90 minutes last season. Common sense says all these lads under or around 25 with little EFL experience needs a challenger next season, in his 30s who has done it before and can command a backline to see us through games..... than man is not Ash Taylor.

The Smallwood Gilly partnership was questionable even when we were winning, to only add Kev McDonald after he's barely played and still can't play 2 in a row, was a terrible decision. A strong spine wins, always has done. They don't have to be the best, but strong, commanding pros always know how to get results and we desperately need to improve the spine in the summer.

 

Football has changed, even in the lower leagues and recruiting for a hoof ball style used to be the easiest where as now its probably the hardest style to recruit for in L2. I said it a few weeks back, but even in the 20/21 season, there were only 4 teams with a pass completion of over 70% in L2, this season there are currently 15 teams who fit that stat. This season we average the most long passes per game, more than any other team in L2 and second in the EFL to Stevenage with 86 long balls per game, in 20/21 86 long passes a game wouldn't even get you in the top 10 of the list. Again in 2021, Bolton topped the short passes per game stat at 336 per game in L2, that amount this season would see them 10th in the list. Every metric you can find says teams in L2 are playing a possession based game and therefore will likely (or should be unless they are idiots) recruiting players to play that system. But teams are also not spending as freely due to the costs of everything skyrocketing over the last few seasons. So more than ever you NEED to recruit properly, so you aren't spending a load again in 12 months to pay off and start again.

There will always be a long ball game, it's getting phased out but if that's the style you want then great, but recruit to it. The reason Evans is working out well in L1 is because he has pretty much nailed the recruitment over the last 2 seasons. If you look at the PL now, academies are teaching and using the same tactic as the first team, to get players ready for an easier transition. So if you are playing a possession style, you're likely to get a good youth prospect from your Man City, Liverpool, Brighton style academies because they want their lads to keep the ball.... if you are hoofing it about, not many teams are going to want to send their top prospects out to you.

Something GA really needs to look at. But looking through his career, he has used a 433 with a sitting DM, two box to box mids and a lone striker, but he hasn't ever really been a target man type? His top goal scoring forwards under his management have been Adam Rooney 5'9, Kevin van Veen 6'2, David Ball just under 6ft, Paddy Madden just under 6ft & Jamille Matt 6'1 and I wouldn't say any are really target men. Might try and go back to what he usually does in the summer?

 

There's criticism then there is abusive behaviour. One is acceptable the other isn't.