James Hanson

Just wondering what people’s thoughts were on James Hanson so far,

After the first 5 games of the season with 5 goals and 3 assists his form his really plummeted especially with no goals in 15 or so games since,

Do you think he deserves to keep his first team place?
Is the return in goals tally minus the first 5 games good enough?
Should we try something new with maybe Ogbu in middle and Vernam/Green/Wright wither said in a front 3?

Me personally am disappointed after a great start he made, fair enough the service has been poor but in between them games
His missed a penalty and a few really good chances and should at least have a few more goals upto now, if this was Cardwell we would be moaning like mad for him to be dropped in my opinion,

That’s my opinion though

We don't play to his strengths. We hoist it to his head to flick on but don't support him. At the beginning of the season we got the ball wide and put good crosses in to him. That's when he was at his best. Unless we change our formation he is wasted playing with his back to goal.

six of one, half a dozen of the other.  He really hasn't had service and when he does get the ball with his back to goal he needs support to be able to lay the ball off.   On the flip side, his head does go down easily and hence his workrate. To sum up , not really his fault and you can see he's a versatile player but his lack of interest irks me.

The problem was Jolley changed the formations and players that often even after we had a good win .

Nobody really knew what they were supposed to do.

Quoted from Mayaman

six of one, half a dozen of the other.  He really hasn't had service and when he does get the ball with his back to goal he needs support to be able to lay the ball off.   On the flip side, his head does go down easily and hence his workrate. To sum up , not really his fault and you can see he's a versatile player but his lack of interest irks me.

Have you actually watched him play? I've been amazed at his willingness to chase lost causes and continue to put in a shift when he'd have every right to just shrug his shoulders at the lack of decent service or support.
For me his dip in form happened when other teams started to put two and sometimes three men on him. What should happen then is that other players exploit the space but we just haven't been good enough to take advantage. It reminds me a bit of when teams swamped Dembele (obviously a different style of player but similar example of having more ability than the players around him).
So on balance maybe put him on the bench for a while so that we have more balance and are less tempted to punt it long just because he's there. Then bring him on fresh when defenders start to tire, and give them a new problem to deal with.

He is so much more than just a target man, probably the best player on the team with his feet as well as his head... The limited possession we have had in any game for months means that the front 3 are redundant every game. As mentioned above, when we played to his strengths we were at the right end of the table, but I really believe we allowed ourselves to be sucked into the hype about the statistics of 'aerial duels won' and 'goals from set pieces' and allowed those to define our style of play.

10 players on the team I'd drop before Hanson at the minute.

Every game I've seen Hanson play the one thing you cannot fault is his work ethic.
He never stops running, chasing balls down, trying to press keepers, defenders in the vain hope he'll get something from it.
Other team sussed us out very quickly by putting one man Infront and one behind Hanson yet Macca still pumps the ball aimlessly up to him
It must be as frustrating for him as it is for us watching hoof ball, time to get the ball to his feet, let him hold up play and bring others into the game.
The man can bulky defenders but needs some assistance off his team mates!!

If we play to his strengths and give him the right service we will fly up the table. Case example the Matt Green cross for him against Walsall , no keeper on the planet saves that header.  Cast your minds back to last season how many did Hendrie put on Wes Thomas's head , that for me has been what we have missed as he was played out of position then injured.

A player with his attributes needs crosses from out wide to attack and plenty of them he seldom gets anything like that just straight balls to battle for.

Runs his heart out feeds off scraps all game watching long high balls come to him, if I was him I would be pretty p*%sed off with the lack of service, thrived off crosses into the box early season so what’s changed ?