by Hoop Blah »
07 Jul 2015 10:32
SCIAG I agree with your view. I don't think, for example, Sean Long or Shane Griffin will play 100 or even 30 times for us, but that doesn't mean they can't be our back up full backs. Have we ever had four great full backs when we weren't in the top flight? Barring perhaps the period between our last relegation and Cummings leaving, I wouldn't have said so. We may as well use the players already at the club who know their team mates and how we play rather than forking out an extra wage for a Dean Gordon/John Halls/Dan Harding type. Five quiet appearances from Griffin will do nicely.
That's an interesting point, I don't think we need 4 quality fullbacks, but I would like to see some experienced cover/competition and not just Long and Griffin.
When Coppell put together the 106 team we had the consistent Murty and Shorey of course, but we had Makin and Gunnarsson who provided the cover, plus Stephen Hunt I guess. I think we bought Halls and Goldbourne in the January of that season as well.
If we keep Kelly then it's a similar situation this season. My point was more about if we don't keep Kelly we leave ourselves short of defensive cover (I quite like the look of Keown though, but I wouldn't want him to have to start for a couple of months if Gunter pulls a hammy or something and we can't get a loan player in).
When Coppell took us to the play offs we had Murty and Armstrong, again with Gunnarsson and Hunt adding some cover as well Julian Kelly of course (who I think looked quite a bit better than Long and Griffin have for the youth teams). We also then added Harding in the January.
McDermott's side, over a few seasons had Griffin, Harte/Bertrand with Cummings, Gunnarsson, Marcus Williams (as well as that worked out!), Joe Mills and Julian Kelly, plus Matt Connolly and Hayden Mullins post January to add a bit more depth.
To me those squads look to have much better experienced depth/cover than this one IF Kelly doesn't sign.
