The elephant in the room

It's a squad game. When Khan, Maher and Orsi return to fitness, there will be one almighty scramble for places in the match day squad as things stand at present. However, it is rare that everyone is fit to play every game, so there will be rotation, hopefully seamless rotation as injuries/suspensions/losses of form come and go. Clifton's greatest attribute is his fitness and ability to play several different roles as needed (reminiscent of James Milner earlier in his career). Hopefully, PH now has a squad, near enough anyway, which can enable a strong team to perform with consistency over prolonged periods of the season.

Quoted from Swansea_Mariner

Seems to be suffering  from the old fans eye view similar to Danny Butterfield.

Could be playing in league one right now if he wanted. Was picked by not one but two Wales u21 coaches and has been a first team choice for almost every fixture for the last three town managers.

What elephant?

The ex-player that springs to mind for me is Stacy Coldicott. Not a player you would particularly notice for his work on the ball and not exactly the all action type to be diving into crunching tackles, but incredibly clever in his defensive movement off the ball and an absolute workhorse to the extent that he didn’t need to do any of the spectacular stuff.

The ground Harry covers means that he stops a lot of dangerous opposition balls before they even happen because the opportunity is no longer on. That’s the kind of thing that’s easy to miss as fans watching games, but that the kind of data our staff are now pricy too and the extensive footage which will be poured through will reveal.

Forest Green’s recruitment in recent seasons has been pretty good; enough to carry them from the NL to League One in relative short order. They weren’t interested in him purely on the basis of an Ian Burchnall whim, you can be sure of that.

As above, there is no elephant. Just fish…

This thread is pointless speculation; Harry will be picked to start when Paul Hurst decides to pick him, which I expect will be most games this season.

Negative post again after we battled hard and grinded out a win. Typical.
PH is more experienced than us so I'll leave him to make the decisions

Hursty is not one for sentiment as per Macca last season. Harry plays and does what Hursty wants otherwise he wouldn't be in the squad, never mind the team.

So if Harry is good enough for Hurst he's good enough for me playing where he's told to play.

Quoted from DB

Hursty is not one for sentiment as per Macca last season. Harry plays and does what Hursty wants otherwise he wouldn't be in the squad, never mind the team.

So if Harry is good enough for Hurst he's good enough for me playing where he's told to play.

Am with db on this one who are we to question ph

Probably the unseen side of the game which most people un-appreciate. Whilst not being Scott Neilson with the ball at his feet the amount of ground that he covers and provides Glennon time upon time would be like doubling up on a winger to nullify their threat. Always manages to get forward aswell, never ever tires and would play CM, LB, RB you name it and wouldn't moan about it, I bet he's brilliant to have in that dressing room and a joy for Paul to coach as a pro that simply knuckles down and tries their very very best every time he's out there. Don't forget he could of took the extra money and moved to FGR and playing a division higher now, some of us seem to have short memories of last year where Harry was brilliant in games. He's one of our own and even if he did have an off game yesterday and isn't a traditional winger, lets stick with him and show him that he's got our backing.

He’s played 112 games in league two - all his career apart from one season. Not sure why some seem to be indicating this is some kind of step too far for him?

Also, someone saying they’re struggling to remember one game where he stood out in the league? There’s been plenty of games where he’s been MOM or receives a lot of plaudits. I know that’s the case, but yeah I’m not Rainman and I’m not gonna just pluck an away win at Walsall or whatever out from my memory bank.

For someone who gets in behind the defence so often, probably 3 or 4 times on Saturday alone, he doesn’t really get enough assists. He always seems to be overstretching when it comes to playing that final ball across goal, and never seems to pick someone out when he had the opportunity.

I’m fully accept that Paul Hurst, an ex footballer and football manager with a decent reputation in the game who has so far guided us to 2 promotions and who see’s the players in training daily knows more about football than I do and than some random blokes on the internet.

On that basis if Hurst thinks Clifton is the best option to play on the left, middle or anywhere else for that matter then that’s what should happen.

If you really want an opinion from someone who knows the sum total of naff all about football then mine is that Clifton’s main problems are;

1. that he’s a ‘local lad done good’ and some people like to build these types up and then knock them down again … he’s been somewhat built up last year, maybe people see a need to knock him down again?
2. He’s very versatile and will do a job pretty much everywhere.

I think if/when Clifton does leave that’s when he’ll be truly missed and appreciated by the fan base in a similar way to Danny Butterfield.

Clifton is very good at football, he’s also fit and motivated. This is exactly what we want in a Grimsby player.