Come on now lets not get silly. For the most part of last season he was at best a bang average player in a side well out of its depth. Granted he improved quite a bit once an awful burden was removed, that burden being having to play next to Joe WIlliams every game but lets just compare him to other defensive midfielders in recent years. Sam Morsy was more tenacious, reliable and stronger both offensively & defensively. Now he was worth raving about. Scowen the same really. And of course to state the obvious Matty James was streets & streets ahead at least a division's gap in quality. All 3 are completely on another level but they played in a much better squad, its simply clutching at straws trying to hype up Gardener. He is more on par with Jonathan Greening or James Bailey. It is a similar situation with Brad Potts. 3/4 of the season very poor but because he grew in confidence & started to try a little harder he got 3rd best player. The player of the season had to be 1.McBurnie 2. Barnes 3 Pinnock but I suppose that is another topic. Again compare him with attacking midfielders from recent years. Brownhill & Hourihane amazing best I've seen certain prem quality at least 2 divisons difference in class with Potts. Brad has been no better than Micheal Tonge or Goran Lovre really has he.
I see your back with the same old crap ,your player judgement is so poor , don't know you but I hope no team not even a boys club has ever been lumbered with you as manager
Goes down to wages he is on. Reports online claim he is on between 15-20k a week which granted may not be fully true but we cannot afford to pay that especially in league 1 with the reduced income. As you said he was for most part not that good anyway apart from a few stand out games so missing out on him would not be end of the world anyway as he is not worth paying 15k a week to. Would rather look for someone cheaper to be honest unless Villa were willing to loan him us again and pay most of his wages but they probably wont want to do that given the financial issues they are having.
Gardner was coming back from a bad injury and playing him and Williams in the same team never worked for either of them Of course he isnt as good as Matty James and probably not Sam Morsy but he would be a stand out player in L1. He will be playing in the Championship next season though I am sure of that and his wage demands wouldnt fit L1 either so there is no chance of him coming. We wont be signing him so no need to worry
I’m not concerned about the central midfield as we already have a few who may excel at this level. The other point is that over the last 5 years or so we have generally brought in a decent cdm on loan which again I wouldn’t have a problem with.
Once joe williams had ****** off both Potts and Gardener started to dove tail quite well in the middle of the park. Neither are defensive lynchpins but then again neither were brownhill or hourihane. Just two good players who knew their jobs
Agree 100%.... Bang average and didnt do enough for me. Had the odd decent game but it was few and far between same goes for potts.
He's bang on re Potts though. Lumbering and limited. With all these great players we've got playing 30+ games it's hard to understand how we got relegated.
Potts is back in his rightful place ( third division) but to progrsss as a club we need far more quality . The team wasn’t good enough for the championship not sure we’ll rip up the league below either . Depends a lot on recruitment and how the new coach adapts !
I'm sure you know there are a few reasons we got relegated, the main one being the appointment of the wrong manager who lost the dressing room pretty much immediately
The main reason being that we bought a load of tripe on the cheap, with the arrogant belief that they could be turned into the next batch of Hourihanes and Mawsons.
The great puzzler fo me is how we managed to get it so right when assembling the promotion team ( for not a lot of money) and so wrong when replacing it. I keep coming back to the fact that Danny Wilson built the premiership side and I suspect had a big say in the key signings of Hourihane, Scowen and Winnall. I also think LJ had far more involvement in recruitment than Heckingbottom ever did.
If that is as much as you can see you have a very short vision , I wonder who you think is tripe and would they have been tripe if they had been brought into a better structure
Hourihanes and Mawson how would they have faired in that environment first season in the championship?
I have a very short vision? What does that even mean? I am just stating the bleedin' obvious. Who do I think is tripe? Practically the lot of em. With the possible exception of Pinnock, I would sell them all if we could recoup the transfer fee.