Dieng Very good.
Lawlor. Fair.
Halliday. Good.
Wright. Good.
Anderson. Outstanding.
James. Good.
John Very good.
Daniels. Poor.
Baptiste. Poor.
Whiteman. Patchy.
Gomes. Wildly inconsistent.
Coppinger. The flame flickers.
Sheaf. Patchy.
Sadlier. Very good.
Taylor. Outstanding.
Ennis. Fair
Bingham. Fair
Thomas. Poor.
Sterling. Fair.
To be fair to the forwards they are getting poor service through the middle, and they have had to follow Marquis and Wilks - who have 5 goals between them in half a season, now they are plying their trade elsewhere.
My view is that we have a good on-loan keeper, a solid defence and good wingers but a soft centre and zero experience up front. Thomas is big and works hard but lacks the craft. Ennis, Bingham and Sterling are skilful and quick but can't successfully play alone up front.
Playing two up isn't really an option as long as we haven't got two consistent and dominating central midfielders. I think Whiteman is missing Kane, Rowe and Blair. So am I.
There is talk of Alfie being sold to Cheltenham Town. Lovely lad but ten goals in 91 league games tells a story..
Half term report
posted on 30/12/19
As I alluded to in my comment on the Sunderland game, what we need is a bit of confidence and as well as present in Marquis and WIlks it was just as obvious in the three midfielders named by Artfold.
Although Thomas and Bingham may have potential they are not really pulling their weight and effort is either an ingredient of your game or not. You have to be very good to be worth a place without it. Alfie has it and probably covers far more ground than the rest of them when he is there; you wonder whether he might be more effective playing further back.
So we have to recognise that the only prolific goal scorer we are likely to get is a non league one who may or (probably) may not be able to do the same in League 1. Alternatively, can we find someone like Paddy Madden who lost his touch with Yeovil and to some extent with Scunthorpe?
Another option would be to trawl the loan market because there will be a number of PL EFL squad members (like Herbie, but not Herbie this time because he will go to a higher level club) who might be a good prospect.
I might say too that it is about time Amos, Hasani and perhaps Watters (if he is good enough to sub) to be given a proper chance. We have a Youth Development Policy apparently, but do we really? I picked up this definition of "Policy": "A course or principle of action adopted or proposed by an organization or individual". In the DRFC context it remains as a principle at best and it is about time that the "action" bit is put into operation by introducing the youths in question into the first team.