Is Keates Good Enough?

:joy::joy::joy::joy: ok

Happy to give him credit as well!

There should be enough in the budget to have a full squad and 1 or 2 special players at this level.

Clearly Keates has gone for Quantity over Quality. Who knows, maybe that was the wrong call. Time will tell.

Smith’s model of recruitment was ideal. A real strong set of 14/15 outfield players, supplemented by some decent prospects from the youth team. Of course the issue we’ve got at the moment is that there either isn’t much coming through from the academy, or Keates is unwilling to give them the opportunity.

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What’s so funny?

Yes, very good point. I worry about the youngsters, they appear to be going backwards. Players who were on the fringe of the squad last year have gone out on loan to lowly non league teams and none seem to be setting the world alight. With kinsella out of the squad and Morris despatched to Tranmere, we have no home grown talent at all.

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Devlin recovered the second ball, played the initial pass, ran around about three blokes to receive the second pass, and then got a shot away.

Cook did well to hold off a challenge then took an age to release the pass that meant Devlin was offside.

That’s whats so funny. You can’t make up that kind of bias. I love Cook but there you go.

I don’t have any real bias against Devlin! As I’ve already said he’s a decent full-back at this level nothing more.

Cook won the initial header in that attack against two monster centre backs, Devlin essentially plays a one-two, which he either times his run wrong or Cook delayed his pass. Again, this isn’t the real issue.

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Yeah fair play to him. That’s what Cook is good at. That didn’t create the chance.

If Jarvis did what Devlin did on the other wing everyone would be purring :man_shrugging:

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The real issue is that we are in February and playing a full back on the right wing.

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Yes, time will tell but I fear it will tell a sorry tale. 20+ players of, at best, mediocre league one standard being poorly managed is not going to go far.

And where’s our “special” player now? Every team needs one. We were spoiled under Smith with brandy, Paterson, Sawyers, Henry etc but even over the last two seasons we had oztumer. Now who do we have that can really turn a game with a moment of magic?

Jarvis and Cook.

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Yep, it might be slightly harsh on Keates, but I imagine it was a lot easier for the academy players to come into Dean Smith’s side - even before 15/16 - given the philosophy and the emphasis on being positive and not worrying too much about making a mistake.

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This.

Nah, cook is a goalscorer, I love him for that, but he doesn’t have the same impact on a game that those mentioned did.

Jarvis? Maybe. Jury is out. Hopefully it will be him.

We haven’t really got one. That’s my point. We should have. Our special player is Cook. As I’ve said I love him and he’s a great find. But he’s a really good player at this level. I wouldn’t call him special.

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And my point is that wasn’t the issue on Saturday. It’s certainly not why we lost the game.

I really don’t want to be too harsh on Keates here, but does our formation and set up actually allow for a ‘special’ player to operate?

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Of course, we don’t know the situation and also to whether manager or player would have wanted it, but I wish we could have approached Bolton for the loan of a player who can’t even get in their squad!

No, it doesn’t. Yet another nail in the coffin.