(16-08-2023, 05:07 PM)wassy04 Wrote: (16-08-2023, 02:46 PM)JoeWorrallsBrain Wrote: I'll never understand the enthusiasm there is to move Johnson. He is clearly one of our best 3 players. Football is not that complicated. There are formations to get all of our best players on the pitch, which is how we will be most successful. Culling players because of an inflexible approach to tactics is a guaranteed path to underperformance.
Depends who you believe are our best players, I would not put him in the top 3 personally (MGW, Taiwo (didn't see that coming), Felipe), I'd probably have Yatesy ahead of him too and maybe even Aurier.
He's in our top 3 most valuable players yes but I disagree, you shouldn't have to tailor your tactics to just fit one player. I don't think we have the players to play a style that would allow Brennan/MGW/Taiwo to all play in their best positions (ironically selling Brennan would allow us to get the players to make this possible!) without exposing the rest of the team which is what happened whenever we tried 4231 or 3412 last year.
We aren't very close in our opinions about a couple of players. In my opinion, Yates and Aurier are not even starters for this team. Aurier is past his prime, overhandles the ball (for his skill level), is slower afoot, and gets caught out of position on overly ambitious offensive forays. Neco Williams is currently a better choice at Aurier's position, and, additionally, has more upside to his development. Yates is a career grinder - a "hard man" in the old school vernacular. Like any blunt instrument, there are jobs he is well suited for, but he isn't well rounded enough to be a starter. He's pretty good at mowing down legs, but not so adept at winning and keeping the ball in the midfield. There's a lot of distance between the 14-15th men that I see them at and the 3rd place you would slot them. I'd say that SC's views might be closer to your own than to mine, and I'd also say that opinion might be one of the things holding this team back. I think their
style of play might generate loyalty from the coach and the fans, but it's their
effectiveness that should matter more.
The top 3 in my mind are Awoniyi, Johnson and MGW. Felipe is close to that level, but he's injured, and I have to discount his value until he's back on the field and demonstrates the level he can play at once again. I would agree that there's no tougher job on this team than mopping up for Joe Worrall!
As to what we might get by selling Brennan, it's true that he has value so we might be able to acquire a midfielder of equal value, and of course that would improve our possession. Of course, we'd be sacrificing the only goal scoring partner to Awoniyi. My view is that we should be able to accomplish the same thing without sacrificing Johnson just by making better lineup choices and changing our tactics. If I owned the team, I'd sure want my proposition to be proven wrong on the field before we started selling off my top talent.
