Does ryan Kent need dropping?

I'd want him sent back. I reckon there must be many players out there in his position who after half a season would have contributed more for us from his minutes on the pitch if we brought them in. Runs fast like Alex Kiwomya that's about it. Attacking players are measured on goals and assists. We are in a great position to push on for the play offs (long shot that it might be) so we need people chipping in from all over the pitch.

 

Kent was not great on Saturday. Much of the ball up to him did not give him many options, but he should have controlled it, had a look around for options and only returned it to Yiadom if there were none. Instead, he got rid of it like a hot potato, in effect saying to Yiadom you sort it out because I do not want to take responsibility. It seems his confidence might be low.

On the other hand, he is playing on the left whereas he would much prefer the right and he is still only 19. He has played a lot of games recently and in view of his youth, they may be taking their toll. He has a lot to learn and he is at Barnsley to try to do that in the heat of Championship football. You may be right, he may need a rest, but your heading implies an element of punishment and I think that harsh for such a young player. His possible replacement for the next game, Adam Hammill has also failed to impress this season.

 

You're right,the wording could have been better. It wasn't intended as a punishment in any way, just that at the moment do we have potentially better options?

Scowen, hammill, Watkins, Kent, janko, Williams

I'd say there are enough options there that we don't need to be making do with sub par performances and should be able to make changes on the wings as we need to

 

Not keen on Janko from what little I have seen of him, but yes they are all options. They all give us something slightly different to Kent.

On a slightly different subject, have you noticed how few genuinely left footed players we have in our squad. It was the same last season as well. As a lefty himself, what do you think Hecky has against them.

 

I don't think he has anything against them, I think it's simply a numbers thing. There are far more right footed people in the world then there are left and left footed footballers are therefore rarer than right which pushes their value up and they tend to get snapped up by the 'better' clubs leaving sides like us with an option to make. Sign a better player who is right footed or a weaker player who is left. It's the reason that in the past we have had so many good right backs (Hassel, Bree, stones, shotton, holgate, Williams, yiadom to name just a few in the last few years) but we've also had so many poor left backs.

 

ok drop kent but who else would we play on the left with pace and match fitness,only hammil and people slag him off dont forget kent and yids have develope a good understanding

 

Between Christmas and the New Year I was board, and as you do, I decided to play "My Best Barnsley team in my Lifetime". I was determined to pick the team in the current formation and in the brand of 4-4-2 that we currently play. That is with the centre midfield players keeping their shape at all times. It gave me a problem that many of the centre midfield players that I have truly enjoyed over my 50 plus years just would not have the discipline to play centre midfield in our current structure, so I looked at playing them wide. So for the left side, as well as decent left wingers that I have watched over the years, I also listed decent left sided central midfield players who were not going to make my team in their favoured positions. All I came up with were Owen Archdeacon as a left sided winger and Jacob Butterfield, Brian Howard and Stephen McPhail as left sided rejects from central midfield. In the end I chose Ian Banks, who is a right sided left winger. I was left thinking about the dearth of left sided wide players in my 50 years, and that is why I raised it.

 

The whole team wasn't great in the first half to be fair. Hecky said so himself.

I know that sounds strange because we went 2 goals up, but we struggled to keep the ball for most of the half.

Re Kent. It's been said many times before that he's here to improve. If he was perfect he would be playing somewhere else.

Sent from my SM-G850F using Tapatalk

 

That little lad from Birmingham doing the Tyke's Target Challenge was fantastic with his left foot. He had some class celebrations too, a few around me were saying 'get him signed up'.

 

double post.

 

Agreed. I like him. Frustrating or not, he beats players so easily and turns on a sixpence.

He's not like we're carrying him.

Sent from my SM-G850F using Tapatalk

 

I think Kent does far more good work in defence than he is credited for. His pace also draws opposing players to him, creating space for others and dragging opposition out of position. I don't know how to retrieve the stats but there is definitely something about how many goals we concede after he is taken off. Hecky seems to want to kill the occasional game off by removing Kent from play and adopting a more conventional defensive set up, but it seems to back fire often with goals conceded late in games.

 

He does some good work in helping out Yiadom, and it's not always about what you do in possession.

I keep reading about his end product, but I'm sure Hecky will be more bothered about his overall contribution to the team.



Sent from my SM-G850F using Tapatalk