Originally Posted by
Omegstrat6
I agree with Matt in that our transfer business -certainly in terms of finances- has been good. With the situation that Lai left us in and PSR there were never going to be easy or quick solutions.
We have lost some good players in Heggem, Palmer and Fellows but in reality, it is Tom we currently miss most despite him being the most hit and miss of the three.
Campbell is not great going forward certainly but I would argue that he is still an improvement on Furlong defensively and Phillips and Mepham are surely better than Bartley and Ajayi? Styles is good at driving forward (even if his passing is still too sloppy) but can be poor defensively but we now have Taylor who can cover LB. I'd then argue that our back 4 now is an improvement on what we had beforehand and this, in turn, has raised Griffith's confidence and improved his performances. He is no Palmer but is becoming decent enough.
Midfield remains an issue however as we have the same players we had before in Mowatt, Molumby and Diakite who have their qualities but lack the creative spark we desperately need. Will Bany prove to have some of this once he eventually returns? Let's hope so! Collyer looked like he was beginning to show some of the qualities Man Utd fans say he has so maybe he can help us in this department when he comes back from injury ( though he is, of course, on loan).
Styles plays in midfield for his country and is listed in this position on the club website but Mason needs to figure out where best to play him still. The same could be said of Price. Clearly he has ability but is too often unable to make any impact on games and Mason seems unsure of where best to deploy him.
Attack wise, we still have Mikey but we miss Fellows on the other wing. Wallace doesn't have the pace any more and neither Iling Junior nor Grant can match Tom. As a number 9, Heggabo holds the ball up well and fights but is clearly no natural goal scorer and if Maja is better at this then he still needs to be given the service. Dike may yet prove he can score goals too, but again, he won't get many without the service. Bostock, I would also like to see being given some game time.
Over-all (whilst acknowledging that we haven't managed to come close enough to replace Fellows) I would argue that this season's squad is an improvement on what we had at the end of last season. It isn't brilliant and quality wise we probably are Upper Mid table but it isn't a really poor squad either and-regardless of injuries or lack of depth- we should be putting in better performances and getting better results than we have been. This surely has to be down to tactics and selection? The job of any manager, regardless of the field they work in, must primarily be to achieve the best results with the resources at their disposal. I don't think that anyone can argue that Mason is currently doing that.
Certainly, any manager needs some time to be able to implement changes to achieve and it is unreasonable to expect things to improve over night but it is equally true that there is an expectation that improvements can clearly be seen within a certain time window. That time window is beginning to run out.
