capt_oats

Kettlewell saying he'd like "at least one more" in addition to Stamatelopoulos.

I mean I’d be amazed if we signed 5 centre forwards and started playing a 4231. Although I say that as someone who would happily never see us attempt to play that shape again.

Not really as the story seemed to be that Wells was getting loaned out and also the main point I'd make would be that they play totally different positions - Wells is a winger who I'd imagine we're hopeful of repurposing as a 'forward'. He's not a midfielder AFAIK. My argument, in as much as I have one, is that with the way things are shaping up we're actually a bit short of centre mids now if we're playing a midfield 3. If Slattery isn't back anytime soon on top of Paton being out for *at least* 14 weeks then we have 5 players for 3 midfield spots. As it stands the only holding midfielder we actually have on the books is Zdravkovski (I know absolutely f**k all about Tom Sparrow tbf - maybe he's the second coming of Makélélé) the other options (Halliday and Callachan) are more general 'midfielders'.

That's Kettlewell speaking on Slattery in his presser today. He's suggesting it'll be November before he'll be back. With him and Paton out long term that leaves us with Miller, Halliday and Zdravkovski as our only fit midfielders with Callachan and Sparrow slightly less injured than the genuinely broken two. I mean, without wanting to burn through the Thelonius money there's probably an argument that we could do with another short term centre mid beyond the obvious concerns we have on the more creative side. f**k it. Bring him home Ketts...

Same

I think the thing with Lang was that Robinson was playing him in his 433 which (clearly) didn't use a #10. Instead he relied on 'anywhere across the front three' types. To my mind Lang was probably more of a second striker than a #9 - someone who'd drop into the areas off a #9. In fact, although it's early days, you could probably draw a throughline from him to Stuparević. Although I'd agree with @Handsome_Devil's point about Stuparević on the previous page even if it is an argument over yards - he's definitely a 'forward' rather than a midfielder. In fact, other than Hammell's short lived spell of trying to make a 4231 happen it's been a long time since we've actually had a shape that used a true #10. The '1' in Kettlewell's original 3412 was really Spittal playing as the more advanced of a central midfield 3 as opposed to an attacking midfielder - again, semantics. A hill that I'll happily die on is that Turnbull is an #8 rather than a #10. Before that you had Robinson's Thunderdome with the midfield of Campbell, McHugh and Andy Rose while Baraclough/McGhee's teams had Pearson in as an #8 for the attacking mid role. As I say, I absolutely agree with you - it feels like trying to recruit a genuine #10 is probably a really difficult thing to get right. I can't remember if I've asked @RandomGuy. this before or not but I'd be interested to know who the closest comparisons to Spittal last season were.

Ah, I get your point now. Have we had a loan that was an attacking mid/#10. You could maybe make the argument for Callum Lang?

This is kind of where I am. Like, it's obviously shite for Paton and I'm in the "he's an absolutely fine squad player" camp but you'd think this kind of forces Kettlewell's hand a bit if his plan had been to use Paton in that role and keep trying to make it work.

A nice write up from McGarry on “Stama”.

He sort of teased it at one point during a January window but it never actually came to anything (clearly). https://www.instagram.com/p/BdiszUBFkIw/ That photo is one of those that you kind of forget he overlapped with Kipré and the rest of Robinson's Thunderdome iteration.

For all he's now a unit of currency on here, Beneghan has actually carved himself out a very decent career.

I see Dheeraj is still kicking a baw.