Partnerships

I have always believed successful football is about partnerships (the ones on the pitch, Ryan, not the commercial sort).

The best City side I have ever seen, Paul Jewell’s promotion side, had several superb partnerships within it. Jacobs and Beags, Whalley and McCall, Blake and Mills etc.

Time has moved on and 4-4-2 may no longer be a formation that works, but you still need productive partnerships throughout the side.

Good management is about picking players that compliment each other and so any recruitment person or manager should be adding new players with attributes to compliment those in the team, and cover our weaknesses.

I like Stubbs. He’s a leader, solid and good in the air. However. He turns like an oil tanker in a slow backline containing Ridehalgh. It is unforgivable that we should recruit Ash Taylor, who is even slower than Stubbs, when Platt, too, is also very slow.

In midfield, we knew last season Smallwood and Gillead were sideways passers. Whether that was due to the shackles being put on by Hughes is another matter, but why did we recruit an aging Kevin McDonald? He must be on a decent wage yet its obvious his legs have gone.

Pattison looked like he could break lines and looked a decent addition until injury struck, granted, but, overall, I’m feeling frustrated with our recruitment and even more annoyed that we don’t have any strong partnerships in the squad or have players that we can call upon to cover each others inadequacies.

We are really in trouble in terms of reshaping the squad when you consider so many players were offered 3 year deals. Whose decision was that? It isn’t common for League 2 clubs. It could leave GA hamstrung in January as we need to find willing takers for the pap we have signed, and the players have no incentive to move on when they have security here.

 

Agree. Crichlow was a good partner for him as he was faster and a better ball carrier.

we’ve got three similar players now, all slow and clunky, in Stubbs, Platt and Taylor

 

Missed that Storck. I left after 75 mins!

 

Ha ha. Shambles, eh.

the only thing that’s getting me through this week is knowing Mike Williamson lost his first game at morecambe before going on to stuff us when he’d had a longer time to work with their group.

With another week on the training ground For GA and CL with the group, hopefully we’ll similarly see some improvement next weekend (and some changes to the XI).