January - what needs to happen?

Well, we now have a new (and old) manager and will almost certainly have new leadership in the boardroom. Despite the positives of the last couple of days (assuming the appointment of Hurst hasn't made your face turn a purple hue, Swin) we are very much embroiled in a relagation battle with an oversized and imbalanced squad bereft of quality or confidence. It's a big month ahead, so what needs to happen?

The first, obvious job on the list is to trim the core squad down to a more manageable size, something that Hurst has quickly and rightly recognised. By my last count we have 27 senior pros on our books, which is probably 5 or 6 too many. It makes sense to start looking at the loanees, of which we currently have 6.

The only no-brainer there in my opinion is Danny Preston. Taylor, Morton, Bennett and Gomis have done nothing to suggest they deserve a run in the side and should be the first out of the door. Edwards is a bit of an enigma for me; clearly there's an exciting and talented player in there for me but he's very naive in wanting to do everything himself and there's rarely a positive end product. I'd like to think with the right coaching and with some semblance of a gameplan in place that we might be able to get something out of him in the second half of the season, so I'd tentatively keep him for now.

Then we have the contracted players. The four ex-non-league players, Gibson, Jackson Jr, Spokes and Sisay have shown the odd glimmer of what they can do (or at least the first three have), but I'm not sure they've offered the kind of consistency we need in the midst of a relegation battle. Personally, I'd be tempted to seek out loan deals for the four of them and take another look at them in the summer when we're hopefully thinking about another season of League Two football.

Begrudgingly, it's looking increasingly unlikely we're going to see James Hanson in a Town shirt again. Even if we did, given that he's barely played now since March it's hard to expect too much of him. I admittedly argued against this earlier in the season, but the time is probably about right to seek a mutual parting of ways if such a deal can be agreed.

That then would leave us with the following (using Cod Almighty for positional segmentation as the lines blur a bit):

Goalkeepers
McKeown
Russell

Defenders
Hendrie
Preston
Hewitt
Waterfall
Pollock
Idehen

Midfielders
Rose
Clifton
Williams
Morais
Tilley
Wright
Starbuck

Forwards
Green
Scannell
Edwards

Looking at that, it stands out that we're incredibly light up front, but that stands to reason. Our top scorer as we head into the new year is our 19 year old centre half; there have undoubtedly been service issues but that's pretty scandalous. 21 league games played and not a single one of our forwards have scored more than 2 goals individually. Mind boggling, scary stuff.

I expect Hurst to go back to basics and go with a safe, simple 4-4-2 formation. To the best of my knowledge, that's how he's set-up since he left Town and the only formation he had consistent success with here previously (even if he preferred to refer to it as a lop-sided 4-3-1-1). With that in mind, I'd expect us to focus primarily on adding two quality front men to the squad (Tilley and Wright can play further forward if we did go with a front three). That's a tall order, particularly in January, but for a defender turned manager Hurst always had a good eye for strikers - Hearn, Bogle and Amond were absolute pearls whilst the likes of Cook, Hannah, LJL and Palmer were also decent (and the latter three all mid-season signings). We can blame Rob Scott for Brodie.

Midfield-wise, I don't think that's a terrible core if given the chance to play a run of games with a relatively settled line-up, but I think an investment in someone with outstanding quality either in the middle or out wide would be to our significant advantage if it's out there.

This feels slightly bizarre given that only Oldham (incidentally a side we couldn't score against) have a worse defensive record than us, but I'm less concerned about the defence. First and foremost, the fact we don't keep possession or attack well doesn't help - we come under more pressure than we ought to. Further to that, take a look at this graph from the excellent Experimental 361 site:

[img]https://experimental361.files.wordpress.com/2020/12/2020-12-20-l2-def.png[/img]

In a nutshell, we have the lowest number of shots faced per goal conceded, yet one of the lowest shots faced totals overall (only six sides have faced fewer shots). This is symbolic of some of the goalkeeping howlers we've had this season, and backs up my anecdotal impression that the back four have generally been decent despite what the goals against record tells you.

Which brings me onto my final point. We probably need to add a player who can add cover at centre back and left back, but the issue of our goalkeeper is undoubtedly a pertinent one. Put simply, we cannot afford a repeat of some of the goalkeeping horror shows we have had so far, in the second half of the season. This is the trickiest one for Hurst in my opinion; Macca was an incredibly reliant servent for him in his previous reign, even if he did throw the odd one in (Gateshead in the play-offs still hurts) and he's the one player he knows personally. There has to be a quick assessment as to whether the presence of his former gaffer is going to settle him down, but my fear is that whenever a keeper loses their mojo, it's often hard to find it again. Just ask Joe Hart.

In my opinion if there's an opportunity to sign another potential Dean Henderson, someone who may well go on to become the best goalkeeper that ever played for Town, we'd be mad not to take it. I say that as a massive James McKeown fan and someone whose contribution to the club I am most grateful for, however these are serious times which call for serious decisions.

Thank fuck I don't have to make them...

Sign Ched Evans until the end of the season, it wouldn't be popular and he's a disruptive influence but he would score goals at our level.

I reckon Hursty could handle him.

I’d keep McKeown, Hendrie, Waterfall, Pollock, Clifton, Wright and Morais.

As far as I’m concerned, any of the others can go. As many can go as needed to make room for Paul Hurst to make new signings.

I think we need another left back in. Preston has done a decent job but it's been a hell of an ask. I'd like to see another senior centre back in the squad too. Toto seems a stretch to me but somebody like him with pace to compliment Pollock and Waterfall would be good. I would keep Spokes and Edwards but if we could lose Taylor and Morton and replace with one better quality CM that would help. Then Bogle and Amond and we should be okay......

In truth I think the quality of League 2 is pretty dire. Three good quality players and a more consistent, simplified approach might be enough to keep us up at least then we can start yet another rebuild in the Summer.

Did he say that his phone was melting with the likes of Toto, Nolan and Podge wanting to sign?
Thought not, but I know a bullshitter who would

Did he say that his phone was melting with the likes of Toto, Nolan and Podge wanting to sign?
Thought not, but I know a bullshitter who would

I don't think getting a new keeper will even be on his to-do list, let alone near the top.

I agree the real problem is up top. Whether Green has anything left I'm not sure. The team looks so low on ideas going forward. I don't know if that's because Green's not being given anything to work with or it's mainly his fault. Either way, he has contributed so little in recent weeks it's painful. Edwards definitely worth keeping. Real quality there and worth persisting with.

Quoted from MeanwoodMariner

I don't think getting a new keeper will even be on his to-do list, let alone near the top.

I agree the real problem is up top. Whether Green has anything left I'm not sure. The team looks so low on ideas going forward. I don't know if that's because Green's not being given anything to work with or it's mainly his fault. Either way, he has contributed so little in recent weeks it's painful. Edwards definitely worth keeping. Real quality there and worth persisting with.

Is there? Only if you’re talking school boy football where the best player wants to do it all himself. Only in Edwards case he can’t.

Had high hopes for him after his early performance but his inability to give the ball at the right time or even make a simple 5 yard pass infuriates the hell out of me now. Not to mention his inability to do the boring stuff like tracking back.

I’d keep him but the jury’s out for me on what level of football he’ll end up at.

wouldn't disagree with much of that, but listening to the Hurst interview i think James has got a real buzz from him returning.
i wouldn't mind betting James has been pretty unhappy under Holloway this season. McKeown with his mojo back is one of the best keepers in the division
i think you under estimate Spokes ,in the 2 games i've seen him i've been mightily impressed

i also think that he will easily find a more experienced, more competent left back than young Preston (the only caveat is that i think Chilwell might struggle as a full back if he had Kyle Bennet in front of him!)

I don't think a new keeper is priority as we know Macca is more than good enough for this league.

We sort the defense out and the requirement of a new keeper becomes even less of a priority.

In my opinion, we are absolutely screaming out for a new CB, CM, LW and STR x 2, at an absolute minimum.