kyle Bennett

I ask the same question on signing another midfielder WHY

We needed to push the boat out on a proven striker FFS

Quoted from TAGG

I ask the same question on signing another midfielder WHY

We needed to push the boat out on a proven striker FFS

Yes but the problem is that quite possibly, with the COVID clause in our players contracts, nobody with a proven record wants to come here.

For all we know Ollie could have contacted every single available striker, and everyone of them could have said no. What are Ollie's options if that has happened? He can't just magic up a proven striker out of nowhere.

Quoted from Henryscat

1997 I started that site. Which as we all know was only 5 years ago.

If I’d had concentrated on the internet instead of beer I could be Jeff Bezos and we’d all be watching town in the champions league.

They were good days, about 20 people from all over the world in a chat room with one person basically typing out RH commentary.

I remember the play off final vs Fulham and drinking a full bottle of vodka while typing out the radio 5 commentary in a dial up chat room in my halls at uni. I was the only one in the chat room who had the radio and the large consumption of vodka must have made the “commentary” incoherent!

A few of us met up at the Humber Royal before the first Wembley trip too.

That vodka must still be doing it's job.........

Matt Green is a proven striker, but his service has been terrible. Maybe if he can concentrate on getting in the right positions with good service, rather than challenging for long balls, he might get some decent chances.

Quoted from Heisenberg

That vodka must still be doing it's job.........

Clearly!! 🤣

Thought about this a bit more, Holloway has said he wants to go 3-5-2..so a midfielder who's known for being experienced, good, pacey and can cross a ball playing on the left is why he's looked at getting Bennett in. Midfield 5 of Scannel, Williams, Edwards, Rose and Bennett looks pretty strong to me, then there's Wright, Clifton, Hewitt, Spokes, Taylor all ready to slot in should we lose one of the 5 I latterly mentioned..Green, I can see, partnering Hanson/Gibson/Jackson up front...Give it time and thought and this squad isn't as bad as it initially looked.

Quoted from Northbank Mariner

Thought about this a bit more, Holloway has said he wants to go 3-5-2..so a midfielder who's known for being experienced, good, pacey and can cross a ball playing on the left is why he's looked at getting Bennett in. Midfield 5 of Scannel, Williams, Edwards, Rose and Bennett looks pretty strong to me, then there's Wright, Clifton, Hewitt, Spokes, Taylor all ready to slot in should we lose one of the 5 I latterly mentioned..Green, I can see, partnering Hanson/Gibson/Jackson up front...Give it time and thought and this squad isn't as bad as it initially looked.

I'm really not sure about Williams so far.  I hope he proves me wrong.

I thought Harry Clifton looked one of our better players against Salford, and I hope he can get a chance to partner Rose in midfield this weekend.

Purely on paper this would be an excellent signing.

Remember watching him tearing us an absolute new one in pre-season for Donny a few years back.

I get the concern that it's another signing in an area where we seem bloated but I can only echo the thoughts of those who are questioning if we actually are...

Of the 17 listed on the official site as midfielders, I reckon only 6 are what you would class as first team central midfielders;

Rose, Williams, Spokes, Taylor, Clifton and Morton.

A further 6 are either Academy lads or new professionals (in the case of one, out on loan);

Curran, Boyd, Grist, Painter, Starbuck and Tomlinson.

You've then got 4 who are wide attackers;

Wright, Edwards, Tilley and Scannell.

Plus Hewitt as a utility player, even if you can him as a central midfielder it's 7 covering 3 positions (presuming that's the system we're going with).  

It looks more because we've given numbers to a fair amount of youth lads for the EFL Trophy games and we're finally giving lads the chance to develop upon graduating from the youth team so the numbers are a bit more bloated (the right approach in my mind too). I think Holloway is also looking at trying to bridge that gap between kids and men too by having a few punts on rough diamonds (as Brian Laws would say)....

Look at it another way.  I reckon at the minute we've got a first team squad of 21

McKeown, Hendrie, Preston, Ohman, Waterfall, Pollock, Mohsni, Rose, Williams, Scannell, Clifton, Wright, Spokes, Edwards, Tilley, Taylor, Morton, Hewitt, Green, Gibson and Hanson.

There's then 8 lads who are prospects, at various points of the season they'll get game time and may graduate to the above list.  But for now they're in development (I've discounted Russell from any list).

Battersby, Hope, Idehen, Curran, Starbuck, Painter, Jackson and Sisay.

Plus a couple of youth team lads.

That's not a huge squad really.  Not when we'll soon get into the nitty-gritty of Sat-Tues-Sat-Tues before long.

Even taking Bennett's position as a wide attacker into consideration, if we got 4-3-3/4-5-1 or 4-4-2 you're going to have 2 of them on the pitch at anyone time.  We've got 5 (including Bennett).  I'd argue that Edwards might be used more centrally and Tilley deeper.

Quoted from arryarryarry

Can't do a link at this moment but he gets quite a slagging off on the BR forum.

https://gaschat.co.uk/thread/16844/bennett-grimsby

One thing I didn't know until I had a quick browse at that thread is that Tommy Widdrington is now head of recruitment at Bristol Rovers.

Quoted from Les Brechin

https://gaschat.co.uk/thread/16844/bennett-grimsby

Gas heads more deluded than us lot