If Maddox can rediscover his form from his youth days we will have a real talent on our hands. There is a risk he won’t of course but the cost is low. Just a one year low wage deal. Come on Jacob show us that you can play.
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Even is that was true are you suggesting someone should be in the team due to being able to take a good corner? The fact is in his 270 minutes he’s created 2 chances, neither of which were from a set piece. Against West Ham 2 decent corners were offset by several poor ones and against Grimsby the last kick of the game at 1-2 was a free kick near the box that was chipped into the keepers hands with no threat at all. His set piece delivery is ok but he’s not a specialist and it wouldn’t warrant selection based on it.
His passing ability ok other than his decision making on when and who to pass to. However he has a pass completion rate of 64% which is one of the lowest in the squad only better than DJT, Knowles and Johnson!
He carries the ball well. And that will be what you’d call his super strength for sure but his decision making on when and where is still a problem. And before I get pelters and “he’s only 17….” brigade I KNOW! That’s completely expected totally understandable and exactly why he would benefit from a good loan spell in the Conf North.
Currently he’s 17 and the most important thing in his development will be playing football. Proper football. He isn’t going to get the minutes in the first team to help him do that and he isn’t going to learn a thing from playing u18s football.
If we were a cat 2 or cat 1 club I’d say acceleration into the 23s would be perfect for him right now where he could still train and play with the first team Monday to Friday but we aren’t.
Trust me, he’d learn an awful lot at that level and it would really help him. It’s a good standard (he would not command an automatic regular start) that would demand improvement in him tactically that would improve him no end.
I get the other point made from someone else about numbers and not being able to let a player go but a youth loan has a recall on it at any point and he’d still be able to play Papa Johns at same time.
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I would tend to disagree, ive not seen RAM take a decent free kick or corner yet but that can be applied to the whole squad our set pieces are awful and something that needs ironing out especially when we have 3 big cbs in the box waiting to receive the delivery.
I’m sure I read on the quotes somewhere, either from Flynn or Maddox himself that he plays as an 8. If that’s the case then that’s exactly the type of player we are lacking. If he’s going to be in the treatment room more than he is on the pitch though, is it worth it?
The question begs is this a smart use of resource? Although I imagine him to be on fairly low wages, could the current squad have limped (literally) towards January and then got a better calibre of player in the next window
My other point is, if Maddox does become a success here, he’ll obviously attract interest from elsewhere. Should he then move club (presumably on a much higher wage), Flynn/the board shouldn’t be held accountable as a one year deal at this stage is the most sensible off given his track record
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Think a loan would be good for him he doesn’t quite look physically strong enough for me just yet some regular mens football at a lower level would help his development
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Yep. Should have happened when we brought in Knowles in my opinion:
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For me Maher is getting a good amount of game time for a kid of his age here and in with our first team training I’m sure all together it’s doing him a lot of good. Whether the game time reduces when people return from injury towards Christmas who knows, but then we can always look at loaning him out in January.
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Didn’t deny that. Not saying he is going backward. But at his age he needs to be playing as regularly as possible, that’s the whole idea of development loans.
Nobody said you did deny it. Calm down, it’s not all about you.
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No, I was just the last person to post, on the topic you were talking about 
maybe if you didn’t get so defensive about everything you wouldn’t think people needed to calm down 
20 odd minutes a game is lovely, but 90 is even better 
I purposely started with this so you didn’t think I was talking to you. Yet you still couldn’t engage your brain and you still don’t know how to have a conversation without thinking it’s all an attack on you. Boring.
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“Maher is getting a good amount of game time with our first team for a kid his age”……that is absolutely not the same as “Maher is getting a good amount of game time for a kid his age”.
He is actually getting nowhere near the amount of game time a kid his age should be getting and long term that will absolutely harm his development.
Experience is basically only what you’ve learned from performing or doing similar actions repeatedly. Getting pictures and experiences of things going well and not going well is what you get from games. This can’t be gained from training.
Yawn, stick to the topic
My hope is Flynn tweaks the system slightly so we can get 2 more attack minded players in the midfield rather than one, with 3 at the back and defensively solid wing backs we shouldn’t need two holding midfielders, it’s overkill. This guy sounds like he has all the right attributes we need.
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I think that’s exactly what we need at the moment and without dragging up an old argument would allow whoever is selected in that defensive position to just stick to what they’re good at, i.e. winning that ball and giving it to the more able players. If it does happen, it’ll be interesting to see who is favoured, Kinsella or Comley
There’s no reason he can’t start off by rotating Kinsella and Comley is there?
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This for me is the key to getting the best of the squad we have.
Simple equations for me :-
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We only have 3 centre backs. You can’t play all three all the time so play a system where you need two and rest / rotate one.
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We don’t have two exceptional forwards so stop having to play two up front and play one. Depending on the fixture it may or may not suit Williams some weeks - maybe away from home especially.
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He clearly likes to have the security of two holding players so fine, play them both but allowe your midfield and full backs more license to push on.
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We have an abundance of attacking midfielders so stop with the system that only allows you to play one and play a system that gives you 3 in the side whilst keeping your two holding players.
My two to sacrifice would be Williams and one of the centre backs and sometimes Allen and play Monthe there - again depending on the opposition your full backs can be as attacking (Allen and bennet) or as defensive (white and monthe) as you like.
4-2-3-1 would give us the chance to play 3 from Maddox / Knowles / Hutchinson / cashman and 2 from Comley / earing / kinsella and also gives us the chance to play two from Daniel’s / Clarke / Monthe and two from Allen / Bennett / white
This way our squad looks more balanced in terms of cover and in terms of being able to rotate rest and be more or less offensive depending on opposition.
Simple really.
It’s quite funny that the 4-2-3-1 hill that Matt Taylor died on and Flynn (relatively) successfully navigated away from with 3-5-2 has somehow now ended up being the best system for the players Flynn has recruited himself for a 3-5-2. 
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Or … the system never actually was the issue.
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I think Flynn sees White as a 4th and McEntee will soon be a 5th.