I'll bet he's got posters of Harkes and Butcher up on his bedroom wall. And a posting style of a child.
Anyone who thinks Harkes Pawlett and Butcher is going to achieve the club objectives is just plain wrong.
Both were good v Sevco but that doesn't suddenly make them what we need.
#back
Harkes, Butcher & Fuchs in that midfield three will never bring us the creativity we need. To progress we need to replace at least one of Harkes or Butcher or we'll continue to struggle creating chances. Neither Pawlett nor Chalmers are good enough or reliable enough fitness wise to be solely relied on as our creative players. The creativity needs to start further back.
That's not how you build a strong squad, you don't need to replace those, just add a creative player and for other games against teams not as good drop one of them (Harkes)
It's proven those three are very good together as we've seen in difficult Celtic home, Aberdeen away and Rangers home, not fun to play against for those teams, last week was different Fuchs didn't start and we had three at the back
Hopefully Chalmers injury isn't one that keeps him out for long, Pawlett played well but we definitely need to add another creative player
Harkes/Butcher/Fuchs will work as a 3 if they have 3 attacking players ahead of them and the 2 wing backs pushing ahead. With their main role to disrupt the opposition and win the ball back we could play in a fast counter attacking style. For that tho i think we need more pace in the front 3. Mcnulty would look decent spear heading it, the finnish boy on 1 side and chalmers/pawlett/hopefully another.
The problem with playing those 3 previously is when you have another 3 CH's behind them, then the 2 up top were dropping deep with clark pretty much in a 10 role and shankland being forced to drop deep meaning the whole spine of the team are facing the middle of the pitch.
The signs are good for a selling club like us - and make no mistake we are. Robson played his best game in tangerine on Saturday, he is at an age where suitors and quadruple wage offers may come in for him. Best of luck to him. Irrep raceable my ars3 - tough to do and will maybe upset things for a while a strong possibility. Duffy too young just now but freeman may not be. If McCann signs that is is a direct replacement and good luck to him. Shanks - well we dont get players like him very often and its a shame he may leave when we seem to be considering a creative mid and winger as he would score a bucket load. Works his butt off even though i am sure Mellon aint on his xmas card list. But we need to sell to survive and bring in cheaper/free players where we may develop and sell again . I for one am glad we dont feel its right to screw local businesses with random admins and £23m worth of debt.
I thought we were going to throw in the young players straight away - clearly Tam has a plan to do the right thing and ease them in. Mulgrew is a fantastic signing. shankland was too. Both under the DOF everyone wants to hate. Cant get it all right but he did there.
Its clear Tams style of play will be different with some creativity Harkes, fuchs and Butch can harrass in opponents faces-can we do it every week like saturday no of course not. I lost faith in Harkes but watched the whole 90 mins and liked 75% of what i saw. Like the aberdeen quarter final last season.
we may not like the leadership but future is bright - its fvcking tangerine troops!! SRYB
It is amazing how a system suited to players makes them play better. The way we played on Saturday worked because we had Butcher, Fuchs and Harkes being the "hasslers" not letting Rangers get into their rhythm, You then had the likes of Pawlett and Chalmers who both offered something different from each other. Also getting played higher up to try and create rather than playing in unnatural positions. Clark also getting played as a out and out striker meant you got more from him. He can't play as a no.10 in the prem imo. He's spent his own career being a 6yard box striker then signs for united and we push him deeper and deeper. He looked buzzing to get a game right up top.
These guys are still missing quality around them but Saturday showed that they are capable of winning games and putting in good performances if they have a system suiting them and have a good tempo to start with