I think Neil Cox could've had a decent game against Aveley to be fair, he also came into the team FOR that game and we won our next 4 in a row without him even on the bench so I don't see a problem there, Cal Roberts returned to the side for the Fylde game after Aveley, that's good man management, Ardley rested a key player and gave a youngster some minutes in the cup, then Roberts was back in the team after a rest, win win.
Maidenhead was the game he scored in but did nothing else right? The game that Stallard talked about during the Solihull game that whilst he'd scored he was barely involved and he could understand why Ardley made changes. Either way, he had 20 minutes off the bench and we won. The next few games he played 68 minutes, 83 minutes and 79 minutes in the 3 games after. I'm not really sure how much more you expect him to play unless you think someone is completely undroppable and must play every minute of the next 5 games if they come into the team and score but he had a good spell in the side after the Maidenhead game and didn't make the most of it, he was terrible against Dover and Roberts was on fire for the rest of the season.
Whilst I agree Sean Shields looked cr*p, when he came off the bench against Dover (to replace Osborne) he looked more threatening than Osborne had for the other 75 minutes. Ardley see's the players in training and I don't know why people think he'd refuse to play Osborne if he thought it would help us play better, he was practically forced into talking about his weaknesses or the flaws in his game because of the non stop "wHeReS OzZy?!" that fans ask on social media and at the Q&A events so maybe he overlooked him for Shields because Shields did what he was told and Osborne wouldn't? Who knows, either way, he rated him enough to offer him a new deal and Osborne made the smart decision to go elsewhere for first team football, there's really not much more to it than that imo




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