The Squad: Expert Review pt 3 - The midfield

'Fuck it, when it comes to me, I'll just run with it...'

Who am I, you might think, to judge this portion of the side, given I've previously staked my claim to goalkeeping and defensive expertise? My experience in midfield came later in life, when I won a transfer from 'playing on the rec' to 'playing 5-a-side with work colleagues in a dismal effort to recapture the spirit of youthful freedoms' 

Playing goals is rubbish in 5-a-side so that was out and there were already two lads who'd got the 'standing about at the back because you can't be that arsed' berths covered. Midfield it was and I'm happy to report I combined the tireless terrier like attitude of a Norman Hunter with the golden vision of an Andrea Pirlo.

Some might suggest I'm over egging it and I was more of a dogs home David Perkins/John Doolan mongrel but you've trusted my judgement enough to read the first two parts of this squad review so I'd hope you'd trust me to describe my own abilities.

Safe to say, I'm ready to cast the same expert gaze over the midfield as I did over the defence and the goalkeepers. My considerable experience puts me in a position to give you the following exclusive insight into playing midfield: 

It's fucking knackering.

Keep that in mind as this review makes you remember the parts of the season where it didn't appear we actually had a midfield and try to think of KDH instead. Please can we keep him. Please? 

*note to reader - if you are a straight woman or a gay man, you can tweak the metaphor used later in the piece for KDH and Ronan in your own head. It'll work just fine. 

Jamie Devitt: 

Who is this lad? Saying he signed amidst a high expectations is a bit like calling Fleetwood a seaside resort. There's a few ice cream vans and the view is lovely, but let's be frank, it's going to be a disappointing holiday. Devitt's signing prompted a few optimistic shares of him scoring some nice goals and hopeful statements like 'Carlisle fans don't think he's complete shite!' but he wasn't the Charlie Adam many were pinning their hopes on.

It seems a shame he never played. Whatever Tezza McP saw in him Larry McG certainly didn't and the gollumesque yorkshireman sent the cuddly scousers' big signing packing very quickly indeed, without so much as a Football League Trophy match to show his worth. Which seems odd in some respects considering Devitt reputedly could pass a bit and liked a shot. Which at times, were the precise qualities missing from the team.

Who knows. Critchley might fancy him. Very much doubt it. 

Kieran Dewsbury-Hall:

When KDH (as young people call him) made his debut, I thought he looked like a headless chicken. 

About 30 seconds after I'd made that thought known, he scored. 

Since then, I've never had a negative thought about him. Hard working, intelligent and already a leader at a tender age, he's basically too good for this level. 

It's like we're an average bloke going out with a beautiful girl and we know it can't last but we're just enjoying every moment in her company. The goals, the bustling purpose, the energy, the effortless, calm distribution, the fist pumping crowd rousing celebrations. He might be the equivalent of an extraordinarily beautiful girl who is out of our league but if so, he's got a lovely personality to match. We can't get bitter. It's going to end one day and that day might be soon, but he'll let us down in such a way that we'll always have the memories. He'll say we can stay friends, he'll mean it as well, he'll say 'it's not you, it's me' and he'll mean that as well. We'll dry our tears and wish him only the best, but when we see him 5 years from now on the arm of some rich club in the elite league, our hearts will skip a beat and we'll remember the time he was ours. 

He's special. 

Liam Feeney:

Talking of special. The Starman is ace. Last year he looked crap. Terry Mac seemed to do everything other than play him on the right wing and when Larry decided to play him where he belonged everything clicked. 

He's under rated in my opinion, probably because he's not as viscerally thrilling as some wingers, lacking the seering pace or trickery of a crowd favourite. I can't not like the lad. He works hard, he puts in a mean cross and though he's not always pinpoint, he gets the ball in time after time after time and sooner or later that yields a reward. Both him and his lanky partner in crime  show the quality of just keeping on keeping on and I think Feeney has another year in him yet.

He's also my lads favourite player. 

Feeney's the kind of player that when people go 'Fucking hell Feeney, we need better players than this shite' I want to club them to death with a rolled up fanzine whilst shouting 'you bought a ticket to a League One football match, it doesn't say 'the Bernabau' on the ticket does it? What did you actually EXPECT TO SEE? Were you born this miserable or has life ground you down to this bitter husk?' 

Ben Garrity:

Get him in the team! He might be good! 

He might not, but I like a player from non-league. Whether he's the next Brett or the next Rory Prendergast, we'll not know till we see him play. He's made the bench a few times so he can't be total gash in training. 

Sullay Kaikai: 

I think many would say 'the juries out on Kaikai' but I'm going to make a case for a not guilty verdict. He was decent early on and we suffered when he got crocked. So much so that Larry seemed to rush him back into the side before he was fit and he never seemed to recover from that.

He's potentially the most exciting player we've had in ages - where Feeney is as reliable and steady as wingers get, Kaikai is everything else. Is he a winger? A striker? A player in the hole? What does he do best? Who knows?

His touch is sublime. Watch him warm up when they play the keep ball passing game, he's unreal at it. Little moment in games are spellbinding, taking the ball in, close to a defender, spinning away like a dervish. When he gets running, it's a sight to behold, slaloming, close control, exocet pace, splitting defenses like a speedboat makes a wake on water.  

He's not had the impact his ability suggests, but if I was Critchley, I'd be wrapping him cotton wool till he's totally fit then coaching him till I could coach no more because he's got the exact attributes you need to make a decent team special. 

Yeah, 'tactical discipline' and all that shite... shut up. People who spout that shite probably thought Glen Hoddle was right to leave out Gazza and Le Tissier for David fucking Batty and Paul Ince. Where did that get us eh? 

Connor Ronan: 

Ok, this is going to get weird. 

Remember the KDH bit? The beautiful girl stuff? Good. Connor isn't quite the conventional beauty that KDH is. He's the slightly less mainstream looking girl. The star of some indie cinema or the singer of a cultish band. The lads (lads lads) wouldn't fall for him in the same way because he'd challenge their tastes a little bit. Much easier to project their masculinity by having KDH on their arm.

But fuck me, I love Connor Ronan. The single most entertaining player I've ever seen play football live is Wes Hoolahan. To say Ronan reminds me of Wes is the biggest compliment I could possibly give. No one reminds me of Wes, apart from Wes. That's how special Wes was. He's not the finished article, he does the odd daft thing and he lacks the polish, the sheen, the perfection of his loanee partner, but that's the exact point.

He could be just about imperfect enough to be ours. He's unconventional enough for that guy at Wolves with the ridiculous beard to not see what he has in front of him and... you never know... you never know.

A side with him and Kaikai in would be mental. I'd pay to see it, even if we'd have to score 5 to win each week. I fear the tragedy will be that he'll join Charlton, Sheffield Wednesday, Rotherham or some other turgid run of the mill club like Ipswich. Offer him as many rides on the Knott End ferry as he likes and a season pass on the trams. He'd be mad not to take it. He's made to play in Tangerine. 

We can't live without hope. It's the hope that kills you. 

Sean Scannell 

Remember the lad before? The one who was ranting in my imagination about Liam Feeney? 

Now he's ranting about Sean Scannell and this time I want to say 'Yes, clearly he's not fucking good enough, but show a heart man! What's he supposed to do? Give up and go and photocopy shit and get some cunt who thinks he's achieved something because he's attained the status of a middle manager in a non-job in a non-fucking-business doing shit no one fucking cares about setting him targets that he doesn't give a flying fuck about just because his knees have gone? eh? How would you like me screaming at you everytime you didn't live up to someone's expectations even though you are trying your best? Where do you work? A fucking petrol station eh? Right, I'm coming tonight and going mental because you didn't say '£56.43p' in a cheery enough manner. Twat. Give your fellow man a fucking break' 

The lad is a tragedy because you can see that he's a really good player in his head but his body just doesn't let him do it. That goal against Lincoln. Lets remember that eh? I hope he can do 30 minute cameos for Dagenham and Redbridge, Forest Green or someone of that ilk because there's nothing sadder than a player whose flame is dwindling before it's time. Watching him trot up and down the touchline and warming up hopefully is too painful to bear for another year.  

Nathan Shaw: 

All I can say about Nathan Shaw is more or less what I said about Ben Garrity minus the non-league bit. I didn't see either of his appearances this year but if he managed to get into Larry's side twice, despite being a *young homegrown player* then he must be not bad. I'd really like us to go mad and try playing some young, fit, hungry kids and seeing what happens.  

Jay Spearing: 

He played in the Champions League y'know. Which sort of proves my point above. There is no way on earth today's Spearing is a 'Champions League' kind of player, but he was young enough and hungry enough to make it onto the pitch and do a decent job.

He's the player I'm most conflicted about. I can't help thinking if he was a bit bigger, he'd be a really top class player but he isn't and that's why he's playing for us. Some weeks I'm convinced he holds the team together with sheer effort and other weeks I think he holds us back in his conservative approach.

I think possibly the problem is, Spearing is very good at doing the simple things well, retaining possession and playing the right ball. He rarely seems to risk a pass when the pass is speculative. For part of the season, we were plagued by a chronic lack of movement and thus his options were inherently defensive. He's also been partnered with other players like him, who have been industrious and worthy but haven't really been foils to his terrier like style. Give him a creative partner or a side that moves in front of him and we might yet get a real indian summer from him.

Whether Critchley sees him as an important influence or a symbol of the past is a very interesting question.

Matty Virtue

I like Matty Virtue a lot. He plays with heart and soul, he chucks himself in at crosses, possessing a slightly Clarkson-esque ghostlike quality, he's got a magnificent strike on him and he seems a really humble lad for someone who was captain of Liverpool's kids. 

Is he good enough? I don't know. He lacks a yard of pace. That shouldn't stop him being a really decent footballer in League One at least but I can't help think of someone like Chris Beech when I think of Virtue. Wholehearted, commendable player who is just short of being a week in week out player. He's young though and he looks like he lives for it and I really want him to succeed. As much as I think of Beech, I also see a player who could get better and better. 

If Spearing has suffered from the players around him, I think Virtue hasn't been used to his best sometimes and occaisionally his inexperience has shown. He was excellent playing ahead of Spearing in the last few games up until the Tranmere match, where he was terrible and Spearing coming on changed the whole rhythm of the midfield for the better.

That Sunderland goal.  

Grant Ward: 

One of the weirdest sights of the year was Grant Ward playing in central midfield but with the tactics and technique of a winger. It didn't work and he got substituted. In a slightly later match he came on up front and ran around a bit as a substitute. That also didn't work. Given as footballers spend most of their time not scoring or setting up goals (even the really good ones) it would be harsh to rule out Grant's career as over on the basis of those glimpses. He did also manage a piece of ridiculous control, pulling the ball down like it was magnetised to his feet. So there's that.

File under 'why did we sign him?' and 'maybe he'll come good' and 'people who might be the new Sean Scannell'

In memorium. Those who have left us. 

One of my favourite moments this year was when Callum Guy mistook the adulation for Charlie Adam after the Reading home game, as a response to his applause to the North Stand. Bless him. The look on his face. At one point, someone I know was hoping 'that Callum Guy lad could be the answer' and I knowingly said 'If Callum Guy is the answer, then I'm more worried about the question' like a right twat. I think he'll be a decent player at Carlisle. 

Jordan Thompson merited a song, a transfer fee and a move to a higher division. That lad from my imagination can have a go at me in return now because mostly my reaction to Thompson was 'for fucks sake Thompson, get up!' He has skill and touch and I think we could have seen a very special player if he'd had a different set of managers, but sadly, my abiding memory is of him flattering to deceive and falling over too much. He might never have given the ball away, but he didn't do enough with it, relative to his ability.

I'm getting fatigued now from all these midfielders so I'll finish by saying Harry Pritchard always seemed to have the feel of an RAF pilot who had fallen through time from the 1940s and ended up playing wide right for us. I can't think of anything bad to say about him, but he doesn't evoke any special memories either. 

---

That's the midfield. It was probably the worst bit of the team last year, (apart from strikers that weren't Super Gnando) yet, when I go through it, there's some really decent players. The way we suddenly played football under Dunn, then Critchley suggests that at least some of the midfield suffered under Larry's tactical rigidity and perhaps before that, Terry Mc's direct approach. I'd love to have seen Thompson really coached to unleash his potential. Sullay used right, could be devastating. Feeney is decent, KDH and Ronan are so good I can only discuss them in a weird metaphor (that on reflection seems a bit homoerotic.) Spearing is Spearing and Virtue has his virtues. Look at that lot and it shouldn't have been a season where game after game felt so devoid of spark.

Still, like the defence, we're losing our best players but there is a bit of quality left. Who knows who we'll bring in. I'm not going to pretend to be a mystical sage but whilst our tactics havn't got the best out of what we've had, we've cried out for either a playmaker or a really dominant midfielder all year. 

Only the strikers left. Thank fuck. 

Be good.

UTMP

Tweet