Bristol Rovers' intent !

Quoted from BIGChris

Not convinced that Paddy is one to may runs beyond the strikers on a regular basis.

I think he is another player who gets better the less he plays!

Spot on!

I think Paddy's an half decent player and would be quite justified if he was upset at not getting a fair crack of the whip lately, especially when no-one else has really ripped trees up in his role.

That said, can anyone please update me as to when he became the world beater this forum has turned him into?  

For me he's tidy in a midfield three, especially as he gives you a bit of balance.  He can do a job out wide in emergency and I wouldn't actually mind seeing him at left-back rather than Magnay shifting across.  In a midfield four he's not dynamic enough for me, far too languid.  Personally he's a step back from the guy he replaced, Frankie Artus.

Paddy playes a few games last month i believe ? and if i remember correctly, received a lot of stick

He got a few sub appearances over the Xmas period (five minutes here and there). Before that he wasn't even on the bench.  

Can't imagine anyone would give him stick.

Quoted from BIGChris

Midfield have been our strength in making us hard to beat but also our weakness in scoring enough goals IMO.

I know i sound like a broken record but we really need to find someone different in midfield if we are to be creative and even exciting. An attacking central midfielder with an eye & the skill for running in beyond our strikers on timed runs would make a huge difference.

Nielson remains the one player who can beat a player regularly. His issue is 1) getting in the team and 2) knowing when to release it for maximum effect

If there are no more signings in midfield,  IMO Clay properly coached could be the answer for this role

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

Doesn't it seem that all Town's midfield players are expected to be able to do everything? Tackle, pass intelligently, run all day ......?

The art of team building is to take what individual players do best and compensate for what they do badly. If you have an inventive and skilful forward looking midfielder who can't tackle you surround him with players who can. Perhaps we should club together to buy the manager a set of Brian Clough dvds to see how it's done.

Interesting take as always. It would appear tackling (supporting his full back defensively) isn't Arnold's strength but when he has the ball he has the ability to make things happen.

Quoted from diehardmariner

Spot on!

I think Paddy's an half decent player and would be quite justified if he was upset at not getting a fair crack of the whip lately, especially when no-one else has really ripped trees up in his role.

That said, can anyone please update me as to when he became the world beater this forum has turned him into?  

For me he's tidy in a midfield three, especially as he gives you a bit of balance.  He can do a job out wide in emergency and I wouldn't actually mind seeing him at left-back rather than Magnay shifting across.  In a midfield four he's not dynamic enough for me, far too languid.  Personally he's a step back from the guy he replaced, Frankie Artus.

Mate, much as I respect your assessment and generally agree with most things you post, surely you have to admit that saying the forum has 'turned him into a world beater' is something of a peevish and dramatic overstatement.

Let's not be daft. Nobody is doing that. People have pointed out his strengths as a player and bemoaned the lack of fairness in the treatment he's seemingly been given by not having a run of games in his favoured centre midfield position. He's done well for us in little spells and his record at York in their promotion winning side was excellent. Some folk said we lacked a midfielder with certain qualities - a few of us merely pointed put that we feel he may have some or all of those credentials.

Obviously not everyone will agree - nowt wrong with that - I don't see him as a watered down version of Frankie Artus (he scores more goals than Artus ever would) and nor do I think anyone sees him as a 'world beater', just a good conference midfielder in the right midfield blend, and, as far as we're concerned, a wasted resource.

Quoted from Garth

If there are no more signings in midfield,  IMO Clay properly coached could be the answer for this role

I've not seen anything in Clay's play which would indicate he is an attacking sort of central midfielder and I'd say much of his game is very similar to that of Brown. I don't think they are a great pairing in the middle.

I'd be happy for us to sign a big, athletic unit in the middle of the park to offer us something different and perhaps allow us to play 4-3-3 more effectively. Somebody a bit like Niven from the other year, but without the propensity to kick every second ball either into touch or direct to the opposition. Actually, what am I saying? That description matches half of our players this season!  

Wasn't Pell a 'big athletic unit'? Didn't really work too well for us. For me, this is about principles as much as players - IMO Hurst needs to be willing to play an attacking midfielder in his system in much the same way as TheRRFC outlined it earlier in the thread.

Disley and McLaughlin are our only two midfielders who will get into the box and score goals. If they were ever-present they could probably make a claim on 15-20 goals between them. Clay and Brown will be very hard pushed to score half a dozen between them.

In short, if we want more movement, more attacking intent, more energy and dynamism and more goals from centre midfield, we need a new player or a new way of thinking in my view. What we can't keep doing (because it isn't working), is perming 2 or 3 from Brown, Clay, Disley and Parslow and expect to see goals or someone willing to take players on and make things happen.

Pell was certainly tall, but athletic? Don't think so. The ease in which he was shrugged off the ball before Kidderminster's first goal in his last game for us sealed his fate and saw him shipped out back to Wimbledon pretty quickly. A stronger player wouldn't have lost the ball and we, perhaps, wouldn't then have lost the game. (Interestingly enough, I see his last appearance for them came against Liverpool the other week!)

My issue with our midfield options is that we have absolutely no pace in the middle of the park. Disley is probably the quickest of them over distance. Brown nippier over a few yards, yet not nearly quick. All of the players have decent enough attributes individually, but I agree that there is not enough different about them.

I don't think we can simply change our attitude to improve the performances of the midfield enough to make the difference this season. As you note, Disley and to a lesser extent Paddy will score goals if they have the chance to push forward more often but, if we play a middle two this will leave us exposed at times as we don't have the pace in the squad to cover. If we try to play a central 3 (in a 4-3-3 formation) the lack of pace throughout the midfield area will leave us lacking either in attack (if we take a defensive view) or defence (if we push on forward). My view is that a Niven-style athletic player would allow us to push forward in greater numbers regardless of the formation.

Of course, it would be helpful if our wide players (assuming we have them on the pitch) were all playing well and pushing the opposition defence back!

Not the sort of player I said we needed but Matty Blair has been released from Fleetwood.

He looked great, imo at Kiddy before scoring for York in the play off final (that alone may make him a target for Hurst   )