Welcome Callum Connolly

It's certainly a gamble to replace an ever present, top league one midfielder in Power with someone who has spent the last 5+ years playing centre half and had an injury hit campaign last time out. It's a gamble I wouldn't take but I'm just hoping there are still two specialist midfielders to come.

 

Do not like how this one is shaping up, come on GA, sort it out lad.

 

The budget cannot be that stretched, I refuse to believe it.

Also, wasn't Sparks literally saying it's looking healthy after the recent sales?

I'm afraid if this backfires, we'd have to look squarely at GA.

 

There seems to be a marked difference here between Connolly and Humphrys. If I'm not mistaken, it was GA telling Humps what he thought his best position was, and Humps going along with it, even though he didn't necessarily agree. This seems different as it appears that it is Connolly saying where he thinks he is most effective, and GA is agreeing with him.

 

The quotes mean nothing though as it's only 12 months ago that both GA and Humphrys was telling us that his best position was as a striker until April that season when he then did a 360 and told us that playing up front bored him.

Let's see him play before we decide either way but I'm certainly not putting any stock in anything that I read in print.

 

On the positioning debacle, while we need more cover at CM regardless of who plays, I don’t mind us having a much more defensive minded #6 whose only job is to win the ball back and recycle.

Smallwood did that for two seasons under Alexander and it seemed as though we got the best out of him and the team doing so

Not as convinced with Phillips but if we play him as an 8, not sure I’d have a problem with him being forward thinking from deep, akin to Alex Pattison who by all means was an attacking midfielder but still partnered a very defensive-minded Richie Smallwood

 

I think if we started with Connolly and Phillips in midfield, we'd be looking at something akin to Smallwood-Pattison.

Pattison wasn't an AMC, but his acceleration and pace meant he could join those attacks and be effective doing so. He was slightly more attacking than defensive, as I'm not quite sure he fits the mould of a box-to-box (that would require more work in his own box for me), but nevertheless, Phillips is described as just that: box-to-box, joins attacks, scores goals.

Connolly isn't renowned for doing the Max Power role. Max Power literally controlled the pace we played at, slowing it down and screaming at people to speed it up depending on how he read the game/was instructed from the dugout. Power often played simple passes and looked to others to run/play more direct passes, while he dictated from the back, watching all the time, fantastic awareness even if he didn't play well every week.

That said, maybe Connolly could be more like Smallwood - less focused on possession and dictating play/tempo, and just more focused on traditional defensive duties. Surely Connolly will be more physical than either Smallwood or Power, while probably not being as technically adept. There is a way to play the DMC role that doesn't involve dictating every single passage of play. But if GA has signed Connolly to do just that, I'd be very worried. I don't imagine he was asked to play deeper because he had those attributes in abundance...

 

I’m pretty sure Pattison for a long time played as an AMC in his first season — happy to be wrong there

But yes I totally agree with your sentiment that Connolly is a totally different player to Power, and that he wouldn’t be suited to the role that we had last season.

Just think a lot of the doomers complaining might be mistaken. Again, so could I, but on the whole agree with what you’ve said there Jon

 

Even if GA sees Connolly as a DM, I think he should have been a bit more ambiguous with the press when describing his role within the team. He’d have been better off saying something along the lines of “He’s done very well as a CB, but he also has all the attributes to succeed in a midfield role. His versatility will be vital for the upcoming season.”

By publicly labelling him as a midfielder, he’s only setting both himself and Connolly up for extra scrutiny/criticism if the experiment goes wrong.

 

Everyone assumes we are playing the same formation as last season . Maybe we are unnecessarily trying to fit square pegs in round holes . Just a thought ?

 

Connolly played 93 games for Blackpool in midfield 40 at Fleetwood in midfield and 34 at Ipswich in midfield. And apparently he isn’t a midfielder

 

How many MoM awards tho?

 

No he didn’t. Get your stats right.

He played 108 times for Blackpool. 73 in defence as right back or right centre back and 35 in midfield.

He played 55 times for Fleetwood with an evenish split between midfield and defence.

 

Where do you get the stats from?

 

Where did he play today and how did he play?

 

Played in front of the back 3.
Tidy on the ball and good distribution.