Just back

Quoted from Bigdog

Your analysis shows good completion figures granted and demonstrates his improvement this season. I've said it before and I'll say it again about him though, and it won't be very popular, he flatters to deceive. He is very neat and tidy but look where he's passing from. He's passing from really deep, nothing from in the final third and virtually nothing into the final third or box. I don't think he's brave enough with the ball. You're probably right about lack of movement ahead but central midfielders also have to drive at the defence to create uncertainty and actually get beyond the forward line once in a while and this is his achilles heel and why we need someone different to him to get us out of this league. He would be perfect as the deep lying midfielder in a three acting like a quarterback with more advanced partners but Slade is a 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1 manager who likes his defenders to clear their lines rather than play, which is another factor which reduces Summerfield's effectiveness. Twenty odd passes in 90 minutes underlines that fact. Summers is perfectly effective at this mid-table level but we will need more if we're looking to compete at the top end of the table. Pleased he's won over a lot of people but I still don't think he's the answer. You've had to go as far back as the Port Vale game for a defence splitting ball, he should be making at least one or two of them a game if he's our playmaker..

Quoted from Tommy

Fair and well-designed arguments as usual Bigdog.

It's a good point about the low number of passes over 90mins and I mentioned that in what i wrote. But as you say the way the team plays and what he back 4 do with the ball doesn't help him get as much of the ball as he'd probably like to.

I'd have been interested to see how many passes all the players made/completed because I'd imagine some would be in single figures and LS would have been amongst the highest. I'd put that down to the fact that he does try more than most to create angles and ask for the ball.

You could be right but I think it's a tough one to know if he'd be more effective with playing defence splitting passes unless we see him play behind forwards that show a bit more inventive movement off the ball.

Ultimately though he's not one who has great success when driving forward to commit defenders. So I think he is more suited to one of the deeper lying midfielders in a 4231 (the formation we started the season with before we had the usual clamour from everyone for us to go back to 442).