New Hibernian signing Stephen Mallan turned to a psychologist to deal with the frustration of being left out of the Barnsleyteam. “The main factor was playing,” Mallan said. “I only played nine games or so for Barnsley and coming from playing week in, week out for St Mirren to hardly playing at all was a tough, tough ask. “I found it mentally tough because I felt I could have played and obviously I got left out of a lot of squads. “It was a massive learning curve. The first three or four months were hard. I spoke to the club psychologist. He was always about the club. I would say he helped me a lot because he kept me always thinking positive and to take my chance when it came."
Hope the lad does well. Just don't think he was cut out for us. Maybe if he'd had Matty James behind him, like Moncur did he'd have done better. He didn't get in the box enough for a no.10 / attacking mid & didn't get back at all.
What did Alex Ferguson say? If 25% of your transfers do well, you’ve been lucky! Something like that anyway....
He probably feels liberated and eager to make up for effectively being jailed for 12 months. We should be ashamed with how we recruited last summer. Not only did it hugely contribute to relegation, but we did no favours to any of the players we signed that had minimal chance of actually playing and had so little game time.
You have a point there. That said for two different managers to not select a player more than once in a blue moon may say something about the player. I think he's made the right choice. Level of fitness in Scotland isn't anywhere near top two English divisions. (This is not a dig at any Scottish posters like Arabian Ian, just a statement).
Disagree entirely. Heckingbottom told Mallan he needed a few months to get up to speed, then promptly jumped ship. Then I wouldn’t trust Morais Judgement on anything. Within days the bloke had told some of our key players they were not needed and to train with the kids. Absolute sharlatan. So basically we have to trust Heckingbottoms judgement. And in that last 6 months I wouldn’t.
When he did play fur us, he didn’t exactly set the place on fire did he? Even Tom Kennedy would look ****-hot in the Scottish leagues....
Wouldn't go that far, he got released mid-season by Bangor and the standard of Welsh Football is worse than the Scottish Highland League.
I just think he joined the club at the wrong time. We didn't need nor could easily accommodate yet another 'Number 10' type player and so he was at the back of a long, if not impressive, queue of players By the time he got fit we were battling every week to keep our heads above water and easing a creative player in to our team was always going to be a challenge. I see him doing well at Hibs and probably having another crack at the Championship in the future.
I liked Mallan and would’ve liked to see him get a chance with us in league 1. But let’s not get carried away eh lads? He’s playing a team tonight that’s 5th in the Faroe Islands league. I wouldn’t even want to hazard a guess at what standard they are but it won’t be good.
Agree but he’s just scored a 30 yard free kick. His dead ball skills would be great, just hope one of the other lads can improve on recent showings. Especially now the club decided Adam Hammill wasn’t needed any more....
Yeah, he was definitely our best set piece taker in his limited appearances. I guess Zeki will probably take them from the right hand side and maybe Moncur from the other? Not really sure on those.
Mistake to let him go. Mistake not to have played him more here. Best of luck to young Stevie at Hibs. I will keep looking out for him, because I thought he had great potential, which just got stuck in our imploding management situation. All the best to Stevie. Great start for the new club! Keep scoring. Keep creating.