Totally agree with that. And when it becomes hoof ball when we have the ball, not only is it horrible to watch but its totally ineffective. 4-3-3 enables a counter-attacking style far more effectively . Imagine if we’d tried say a midfield 3 of Chang, Lakin, Stirk and a front 3 of Hall, DJ, and Jellis/Adomah against the bottom feeders we couldn’t lay a glove on in the run in? With Maher, Amantchi, Jellis/Adomah and even Wheatley as the attacking subs to come on against tiring defenders. No… let’s play 3 centre halves and hump it to Matt
Means nothing if you just give it away when you get it back. Seems all Jellis has done for 5 months, and I’m not having the illness excuse either. I can’t deny he was good during that early spell, but it is easy to play well in a side full of confidence. I do think he was a catalyst for our poor spell because he was so consistently poor during that period. It’s one thing having poor spells, I think every single player in the side did, but what did you do (beyond run around a lot) to change that? Barrett’s another one I’d put in that bracket. Liam Gordon, but then again at least he picked back up towards the end of the season and especially in the play offs. But all really disappointing, because we know what they are capable of, and for me Jellis was the worst culprit. I was gob smacked watching some of his performances in that run in.
I don’t rate Okagbue, for example, but I don’t expect him to pull the team through defensively, for that reason. It’s almost worse to show what you can do, and then stop doing it. Everyone (in theory) can run around a lot. Real bravery and effort is concentrating, making the right decision, showing for it and trying to make things happen. He stopped doing that, for me.
I’m not saying write him off (although if a League One club really wants him now I’d wave him off no problem. Best of luck with that), but he needs to really improve his output if he’s going to be our most creative central midfielder.
It is really strange how many very poor performances Sadler was prepared to consider acceptable from Jellis, Barratt, Matt, and Liam Gordon whereas other players such as Cleary and Maher were cast into outer darkness after just a few chances.
Lakin would surely replace Jellis next season? He was box to box at Sutton United wasn’t he?
You can’t fault Lakin’s work rate, and he isn’t a terrible footballer by any means. I think he is just a bit too slow to make it between both boxes effectively.
We would then also need to replace Lakin himself if that is the case.
I’d like to see him play the Stirk / Comley role as the deep midfielder. He did it a couple of times in cup games and looked quite effective.
[quote=“el_nombre, post:815, topic:12531, full:true”]
I hadn’t noticed @el_nombre
Seriously, though, I agree with your observations on Maher, Jellis and Barrett.
To be fair to Jellis, that’s not his role, that was more Stirk’s role. Jellis is your all action, box-to-box type who presses really well, but also gets forward and scores goals. We saw his lack of creativity in his corner and free-kick taking in the latter part of the season - it was woeful - the two almost identical free-kicks from good attacking positions on the right of centre against the Fail and Spirolites, which he ballooned straight out of play! First part of the season, Jellis looked every inch a Lg 1 player, second half, more non-league!!
No it isn’t. He was literally playing as an attacking midfielder/winger.
Even if he wasn’t, your deep lying midfielder isn’t your creative outlet, he’s the player that keeps everything ticking along. The more advanced players are the creative roles.
Second half of the season, there were a lot of comparisons between Jellis and Knowles.
EDIT: and not good ones.
I didn’t particularly like his reaction at Barrow away either. The fans that actually attend were brilliant all last season, even way beyond the point it looked like our season had fallen apart. Seemed to give them way more credit than they were due. So to then mouth off at somebody who has travelled to bloody Barrow to watch you be shit felt a bit entitled to me.
Can’t tell whether it’s Ahui. Could be Mustapha from Palace?
We talking about Dave again…
Good shout
Dow look like Mustafa to me
Maybe Adegboyega’s back but I can’t really tell
No doesn’t look like Adegboyega
Zooming in a bit more has made me realize it’s not him, my mistake