I like Conor Hourihane

And that's why we need to accommodate him within the side.

Just imagine what a field day a target man up front with Winnall would have with an accurate source of delivery.

Come on Lee Jay lets change it round

 

Can't argue with that.

 

Spot on.


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Problem is, with the 3 midfielders we have, none of them attack the box with any conviction.
Pearson is a defensive midfielder. Occasionally he goes on one of his charges forward but he is mainly defensively minded.
Scowen is a busy worker, a very good footballer, but not likely to score.
Hourihane creates goals from dead ball situations but is unlikely to break the land speed record in an attempt to get into the box to score a goal from open play.
If you play one up front, at least one midfielder has to ghost in when Harris crosses.
If you play two up front, it might not be so bad.

 

100%

 

If you play 2 upfront with 2 wingers getting the ball into them and chipping in with a few themselves you more than cover the goals we apparently rely on from Hourihane.


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if its not a dead ball he struggles.

 

Our most consistent player so far this season. I'd say the game on Saturday was his worst this season. The formation suits him. Sadly Connor is the only player benefitting from it.

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In Keith Hill's first season, he constructed his team around Jacob Butterfield. Hill saw, more than any manager before him, that although Jacob had his faults, his creativity was worth the pain of building the rest of the team to cover his faults and build on that creativity.

In the same way, Johnson has built his team around Conor Hourihane. He is playing a midfield five in the hope of covering Hourihane's faults, in order to build on his creativity. Unfortunately, that also means just one player up front.

The question is this, "Is Connor Hourihane good enough to build the team around? Is he good enough to sacrifice the overall balance of the team? Is he likely to be creative enough to compensate for giving up a second forward?"

The argument is not whether Hourihane is a good player. The argument is whether he is good enough the influence the whole structure and balance of our team.

 

Butterfield was a much, much better player than Hourihane. He was clearly going to play a higher level (he was playing for us at a higher level and still standing out), I'm not sure I've seen that in CH. So understandable that a team was built around JB, not so with CH.

That's by no way a blight on CH either, he's a decent player at this level, but IMO he's not at the level JB was for us.

LJ needs to decide what formation he wants to play and then it's up to the players to force themselves into that team.

If anyone should have a team built to get the best out of them it should be Winnall who I genuinely believe would get 25 goals if he had the right support/service.

 

Thing is we played him in a midfield four last season.... and it clicked for a half dozen games. Pace. Movement. Someone willing to take a player on...

 

That's true. LJ doesn't have it in himself to drop Scowen or Pearson though. 4-4-2 with Smith put up front with Winnall. Conor as our attacking CM, Pearson or Scowen as our more defensive CM and Harris/Watkins on the flanks. No place for Crowley either. He won't drop 1 nevermind two of the three of Scowen, Pearson and Crowley.

 

I seem to remember a number of Jacob Butterfield's detractors claiming he couldn't play in a central role of two within a 442 formation, either. Then, due to injuries, he had to do just that in a home game against Doncaster. Jacob ran the show and we comfortably won the game 2-0.
I believe Conor can and has played well in that role for us, too.

 

There's a general policy in football

It seems, that we have to concentrate on what a player's bad at rather than good at. We could always try having a starting XI of players who complement each other's abilities rather than 11 clones.

 

Re: There's a general policy in football

'Likety like'.

 

He's just like Beckham. Good with a dead ball, good shot on him, but can't tackle.

 

Footballing dinosaur

 

He's better looking than Beckham. Ducky.