The Spine of the team

Platt's done better than I thought.

At first he looked pretty slow and not great on the ball, but he's done well enough.

Smallwood came in for a tiny bit of stick, but he's clearly a cut above on the ball, extremely calm, good set pieces, I think people expected an all-action midfielder which he isn't - but he's a quality captain.

Cook, yes, Lewis, yes.

 

I suggested a few weeks ago that Platt was one of “the” signings of the close season. Isn’t he on two years with no “extensions” in the deal? Just can recall.

 

Exceptional spine.

 

In recent games we have looked a Smallwood away from a disaster. He is so good in what he does I would think that if we lost him to injury we really would be half the team we are.

People complain about his set-pieces and I agree to an extent, but his general play is fantastic. Always available and commands the midfield.

 

FWIW, there are 40 players in L2 who have played every minute so far this season. Bradford City have 3 in Lewis, Smallwood & Platt. Only Tranmere have more with 4 players yet to miss a minute. Unsurprisingly, keepers make up most of that list from a positional sense with 18 of the 40 players being in goal.

There are 121 players to feature in all 11 L2 games for their clubs so far. City have 5 players to feature in every league game with the 3 above alongside Cook & Chapman. Stevenage & Barrow have the most with both having 8 players feature in every league game so far.

 

Agree with all this. What I would say further about Lewis and Smallwood is that they continually stand out as a class above. As well as their obvious physical footballing attributes both men have great footballing brains. If 'assists' were assessed in a less black and white way, there's a good argument that Lewis and Smallwood have 'caused' more goals for us than anyone.

 

Just wait until Stevenage’s small squad starts getting injuries and bookings. Explains why they have 8 “go to” squad members? Let’s see what they do Dec to Feb?

 

That would validate Evans comments to be fair.