Rehnman
Player Valuation: £750k
On one thread, a poster said something about us playing square pegs in round holes too much and it got me thinking. Are there some players who end up spending their entire careers in positions that - if you look at their strengths and weaknesses - they’re not actually best suited to at all? And if so, where should they really be playing? Joelinton was a low-scoring striker when Eddie Howe arrived at Newcastle, but Howe realised that - even if he lacked some quality - he had the kind of engine that could make him a powerful box to box midfielder. Do we have any players where a radical change of position could give them a completely new lease of life?
Of course, there’s long been the Michael Keane-to-centre forward debate - sometimes jokey, sometimes not! - but take Tim Iroegbunam. He apparently arrived as a defensive midfielder, but the positional awareness and passing you might expect from someone playing there are literally the worst parts of his game. The further forward he gets though, the better he gets - pressing high when out of possession and running at people when in it are what he’s best at, so where should he really be?
More radically, is Mykolenko really a left back or is he just left footed and defensive? His skillset is closer to a David Batty than an Ashley Cole, isn’t it? And what about Dwight McNeil? Shouldn’t he have been be made a left-back years ago?? He’s a lot more of an Andy Hinchcliffe than he is a Mo Salah or a Morgan Rodgers, yet right wing is where this manager is sticking him and number ten is where the last manager was. Whether those examples are right or wrong, are there other players anyone can think of, either now or in the past, whose careers with us could have been completely transformed by the Joelinton effect?
Of course, there’s long been the Michael Keane-to-centre forward debate - sometimes jokey, sometimes not! - but take Tim Iroegbunam. He apparently arrived as a defensive midfielder, but the positional awareness and passing you might expect from someone playing there are literally the worst parts of his game. The further forward he gets though, the better he gets - pressing high when out of possession and running at people when in it are what he’s best at, so where should he really be?
More radically, is Mykolenko really a left back or is he just left footed and defensive? His skillset is closer to a David Batty than an Ashley Cole, isn’t it? And what about Dwight McNeil? Shouldn’t he have been be made a left-back years ago?? He’s a lot more of an Andy Hinchcliffe than he is a Mo Salah or a Morgan Rodgers, yet right wing is where this manager is sticking him and number ten is where the last manager was. Whether those examples are right or wrong, are there other players anyone can think of, either now or in the past, whose careers with us could have been completely transformed by the Joelinton effect?
