The players around him last season created much more space for him to work his magic Connell scared the opposition with his wand of a left foot spraying balls long and whipping crosses in the box. Russell carries none of this threat and he has the speed of a snail. The opposition can now mark players like Phillips without worrying about what the defensive midfielder is going to do. Norwood was like a wasp. A constant pest for the defenders. His runs in behind and general s-housery gave the opposition something to think about. Watters is a headless chicken. He doesn't even know what day it is. Then you have mcattee who is a number 10. The opposition is now only really stretched by one striker, which allows them to regroup more and shut off shooting opportunities from players like phillips with more confidence.
In defence of Phillips if you look past his lack of goals, lack of assists, backwards passing and regular bookings, he brings a lot to the team.
McAtee is as capable as Norwood was at pressing. Perhaps better given he can last the 90. We definitely miss Luca though as anyone at this level would.
How to disguise another topic praising Norwood and how much more he added to the team. As obvious as it is dull.
My simple 'in defence of phillips' is that he is always capable of hitting a rocket or picking out a killer pass that sets up a goal. He doesn't do it anywhere near often enough at the moment but that is largely because we are playing slightly different than last season and his role has changed. Previously he was out wide playing somewhere almost as a winger or a third striker. This season because of a lack of Connell and the addition of cotter and O'Keeffe on the right hand side he's been playing more central and as a result a little deeper in a more traditional midfield role and it doesn't bring out the best in him yet. Im definitely not a fan of his personally and I think that's been clear in the past, I could start listing his weaknesses but I don't think that's particularly fair to praise him then pull him down so while my personal opinion 9f his overall game is that I'm not a fan I'm honest enough to say I've got to give credit where it's due and he has something that a lot of players don't have and that's a killer instinct. As for Norwood you are bang on. He would harass the defence constantly and it worked. It really worked. But like with Phillips this great quality didn't make him perfect. He had weaknesses to his game, he wasn't the strongest player considering his physique and he wasn't the best at winning headers etc but what he did he did well. I don't think watters can ever replace him and I don't think McAtee is anywhere near the standard of replacing him at the moment but who knows if he could in the near future. Same goes for Cosgrove, he may well be a new Norwood for us shortly.
The teams in the conference have the constant threat of Norwood to deal with.. they look to be coping okay. Phillips will come good.
10 apperances 4 goals... It's only the national league will griggs scored more and has a better mpg ratio.
Will grigg is a very good striker who's scored about 150 goals in his career. It's hardly an insult to say he's scored more goals than someone
Will grigg was good when he was at Wigan quite a few years back.. no chance he will ever be in the football league again. Nor grigg or Norwood are in the top ten scorers or have top 10 mpg in the national league.
