Tough midfielders needed

[LN747]

I’m sure Warney has a shooping list but priority for next season has to be some big hard midfielders- teams are bullying us - we need a Micky Lewis, Gerriant Williams, John Eustace type players to stand uup to the licks of Barnsley 

Any ideas of players to fill that role????

[Ghost of Clough]

Why do we need a "tough" midfielder? Rotherham's 3 man midfield last season was typically Barlaser, Wiles and Rathbone. Between them, they averaged 6.0 tackles per 90 (and 3.9 fouls). Bird, Knight and Sibley have averaged 5.8 tackles per 90 (2.8 fouls).

You then have players on the bench/rotation to provide energy (Tommo and Smith) or experience (Hourihane and Smith) depending on what is needed at the time.

We also have fantastic youngster coming through in midfield, whose pathway should not be blocked, not that Warne cares about the academy on the evidence so far.

[RoyMac5]

21 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Why do we need a "tough" midfielder?

Perhaps the same reason as we needed Pearson as a manger?!

[SSD]

What I imagine the tough tackler group want.

 

[Poynton ram]

If we could find a Robbie van de Laan that would do.

[Foreveram]

13 minutes ago, Poynton ram said:

If we could find a Robbie van de Laan that would do.

Have you tried Linkedln

[Rich3478]

Do think we need some more strength in midfield. Bird I find a bit underwhelming. Pass nicely, very rarely wins tackles or the ball back, doesn’t score or assist many. No pace or great energy either.

Hourihane has faults but certainly gets goals and assists. Also not great in the tackle. And pace and energy not a strength.

Knight has pace and energy in abundance, but doesn’t have discipline to play cm for me. Chases the ball too much. Is good at times, but someone like Bryson used energy far more effectively. Also doesn’t have much of a goal/assist threat for his position.

smith have generally been a fan of, second goal on Saturday was really poor tracking back though.

Bielik would be ideal for us, seems that’s not to be though.

even shinnie knew his job well and stuck to it, made us hard to beat

[Millenniumram]

Nah, just try and play football instead.

This league is dog w***. If you can string a few passes together promotion shouldn’t be hard. Shame Warne doesn’t seems to understand that.

[AndyB]

Warne must know something about how to succeed in League One?

[Caerphilly Ram]

59 minutes ago, Millenniumram said:

Nah, just try and play football instead.

This league is dog w***. If you can string a few passes together promotion shouldn’t be hard. Shame Warne doesn’t seems to understand that.

I get you don’t like Warne as manager or the style of football he seems to favour, but suggesting someone who has won promotion from this league 3 times in the last 5/6 years doesn’t understand how to get promoted from this league seems to ignore those very facts. It also dismisses the facts that other “big” clubs have been relegated to this league and struggled to be successful in pursuing promotion at the first attempt, and those clubs didn’t have both arms tied behind their backs by a business plan.
This odd idea you repeatedly profess that league one is somehow easy to escape seems to ignore all the evidence otherwise, yes there may be some teams in the league lacking quality, but it’s clearly a challenge for teams to win promotion as history evidences that. 
If you don’t like Warne and his style of football fine, you don’t like the quality of the league fine, but stop pretending it’s not a difficult league to escape for any club. 

[cannable]

1 hour ago, Millenniumram said:

Nah, just try and play football instead.

This league is dog w***. If you can string a few passes together promotion shouldn’t be hard. Shame Warne doesn’t seems to understand that.

Shame Warne? How’s a dead leggy gonna get us promoted?

[kevinhectoring]

13 hours ago, Rich3478 said:

Do think we need some more strength in midfield. Bird I find a bit underwhelming. Pass nicely, very rarely wins tackles or the ball back, doesn’t score or assist many. No pace or great energy either.

The saying goes that the best defenders never have to tackle. When he’s in defensive mode there is something of that to be said about Bird’s play. But if I could change his plumage I’d turn him into one of those players who is constantly wanting the ball and giving options - maybe that’s what you mean when you say he lacks energy. 
 

The main weakness in midfield is not to do with Bird. It’s not having a midfielder who is complementary to him.   And then not playing a formation that compensates for that weakness. Everyone goes on about our inability to score goals. Our bigger weakness this year has been our inability to control the middle of the park.  

Edited April 6, 2023 by kevinhectoring

[May Contain Nuts]

5 minutes ago, kevinhectoring said:

Our bigger weakness this year has been our inability to control the middle of the park.  

We have the ability, what we're lacking is the intent.

[Jubbs]

20 hours ago, Ghost of Clough said:

We also have fantastic youngster coming through in midfield, whose pathway should not be blocked, not that Warne cares about the academy on the evidence so far.

Who are you thinking of?

[Ghost of Clough]

49 minutes ago, Jubbs said:

Who are you thinking of?

There's Robinson and Hawkins for a start. There's also a couple in the U16s who play for their national sides - Cruz Allen (Wales U16) and Niall McAndrew (Ireland U17)

[Ambitious]

I think George Dobson would be a good signing on a free in the summer, hard working centre mid with a bit of quality. 

[Magicman]

Shinnie is the player we miss now.

[Gaspode]

There's often a huge gap in the middle of the park where none of our players seem to dare to tread - against Ipswich for example (though certainly not exclusively in the past couple of months), their number 5 frequently had no-one within 10 yards of him - meaning he picked up all of the loose balls and got them moving - leaving us to chase back in desperation. Whether that's due to the players we have not being suited to the central midfiled 'general' role or simply that they're too knackerd/incapable of covering the pitch is hard to say, but I can't see an experienced manager like Warne deliberately setting them up to give such easy possesion to the opposition.....