I’m starting to think our treatment room is close to a black hole or through a wormhole, or something, because once you go in there time seems to pass faster on the outside and weeks in the treatment room turn into months and years for the rest of us.
Rumour has it that Christopher Nolan got inspiration for that scene in Interstellar where Matthew McConaughey shouts through the bedroom wall at his daughter, who is in another time dimension, from Curbs trying to find where Cory Gibbs had disappeared to.
The club have now received scan results for the defensive duo, who were both forced off in the first half last weekend with knee and quad injuries respectively.
“Eoghan is actually better news than we expected,” Garner revealed. “We feared the worst with Eoghan but it’s actually weeks rather than months which is a big positive. When it’s the knee joint and the type of symptoms that were initially presented you’re fearing it could be the season or a large part of it, so we’re really fortunate that it’s not as serious as we feared.
“I would definitely hope he’d back this side of Christmas and we’ll get him back as quick as we can,” the boss added. “He’s already chomping at the bit trying to get back and trying to get off his crutches etc.”
So they hoped O'Connell would be back before Christmas. Has he even been seen training?
That's a shame, he looked quite good, and his ability to push forward and overlap or overload the right side really helped JRS, as it meant teams couldn't double and triple up on him. Clare has been better getting forward the last couple of games but it's not necessarily his forte.
O'Connell is likely an ACL year out. But surely our Journo's should be asking?
Typical that both long term injuries occured in the same game I think.
O'Connell was expected back before Christmas!
“Eoghan is actually better news than we expected,” Garner revealed. “We feared the worst with Eoghan but it’s actually weeks rather than months which is a big positive. When it’s the knee joint and the type of symptoms that were initially presented you’re fearing it could be the season or a large part of it, so we’re really fortunate that it’s not as serious as we feared.
“I would definitely hope he’d back this side of Christmas and we’ll get him back as quick as we can,”
O'Connell is likely an ACL year out. But surely our Journo's should be asking?
Typical that both long term injuries occured in the same game I think.
O'Connell was expected back before Christmas!
“Eoghan is actually better news than we expected,” Garner revealed. “We feared the worst with Eoghan but it’s actually weeks rather than months which is a big positive. When it’s the knee joint and the type of symptoms that were initially presented you’re fearing it could be the season or a large part of it, so we’re really fortunate that it’s not as serious as we feared.
“I would definitely hope he’d back this side of Christmas and we’ll get him back as quick as we can,”
Exactly. Updates on Egbo while nice are slightly irrelevant really to our season, as he's unlikely to feature much if at all. O'Connell is the player whose injury wasn't so bad (allegedly).
Egbo was in our top three performers until his injury, I reckon. I think our performances have tailed off since he’s been out.
I don't know how much was him specifically and players historically seem to get better in their absence but I don't think its a complete coincidence that performance in general and JRS in particular have dropped since he's out.
Ironically we have probably an absolutely perfect replacement in Sessegnon but can't put him there as we have no left back cover.
I think our Club was spinning a few truths about the O'Connell's return. It knows we are quite a laughing stock with injuries. Maybe the injuries mounted because they didn't use MS's Tens machine that morning.
Never been injured before, joins and gets two serious injuries in his first season. Mental
Only averages 20 odd games a season throughout his career though.
This is a good point and I think really representative of what happens/happened as a result of TS cutting back in the summer. Egbo looks decent, but at an average of 20 games a season, that’s probably why we got him and Swindon was his route back into English football last season.
If he was managing more than 20 games a season, he probably wouldn’t have been in our budget this summer.
Payne is a similar example. I think he tries hard, but he’s 27 and has been mooching around the lower leagues. It’s not going to get us out the division.
personally, given how poor our recruitment has been in the last 2 years and the length of contracts given out, I hope the Jan window is more a number of short term reinforcements to make sure we stay up (I think we will, but let’s not leave anything to chance), and then we reassess in the summer (properly). I’ve lost count of the times I’ve said it, but we need a mass clear out in the summer, and I fear if we bring in 3 or 4 on 2+ year deals now, they could be equally as poor as Aneke, Stockley, Mansfield etc and we’re back here again this time next year.
Keep this window very short term in our thinking and use March onwards to think about what the future looks like
He averages 20 games a season but managed 9 with us. We didn't even get him for 50% of his average season, which is 50% of a fully fit players usual average
Never been injured before, joins and gets two serious injuries in his first season. Mental
Only averages 20 odd games a season throughout his career though.
This is a good point and I think really representative of what happens/happened as a result of TS cutting back in the summer. Egbo looks decent, but at an average of 20 games a season, that’s probably why we got him and Swindon was his route back into English football last season.
If he was managing more than 20 games a season, he probably wouldn’t have been in our budget this summer.
Payne is a similar example. I think he tries hard, but he’s 27 and has been mooching around the lower leagues. It’s not going to get us out the division.
personally, given how poor our recruitment has been in the last 2 years and the length of contracts given out, I hope the Jan window is more a number of short term reinforcements to make sure we stay up (I think we will, but let’s not leave anything to chance), and then we reassess in the summer (properly). I’ve lost count of the times I’ve said it, but we need a mass clear out in the summer, and I fear if we bring in 3 or 4 on 2+ year deals now, they could be equally as poor as Aneke, Stockley, Mansfield etc and we’re back here again this time next year.
Keep this window very short term in our thinking and use March onwards to think about what the future looks like
When Ali Maxwell was on CharltonTV a while back, he talked about how Jack Payne was too good for League Two and that he only dropped down there because he was a fan of Garner's. The big issue with him has always been his size and what position he plays best. He's been played wide and as a box-to-box midfielder for us, and I don't know that either are his best position. I think he's better when he has a free role/as a 10, but we have Fraser there, and so Payne has been asked to graft more than he might otherwise have done.
We have a lot of midfielders, and some decent quality in midfield, but we don't haven't really had a natural box-to-box player this year. I think that was supposed to be McGrandles, but he signed injured, missed most of pre-season, got hurt, and then got hurt again. A fit JFC would be another option there, although given the two knee injuries I don't know if that's as realistic as it might have been 2-3 years ago. Gilbey did it last year, and...yeah. He works hard, but there's a question about lack of technical ability with him.
As such, we've played Payne and Albie there in a three. Both can play there, but it's not really either ones' strongest position (full disclosure, I'm not entirely sure what Albie's best role is). And then we played Fraser there in a two, and while he worked hard, he influence in the final third was drastically limited.
I feel similarly with Egbo as to Payne in that there is enough quality there to take a shot with him...if you have four senior fullbacks. We don't, we have three. As such, he missed a lot of pre season due to a contact injury, got thrown back into the fold almost straight away, looked knackered after a bit, had to keep playing, and got hurt.
Both Egbo and Payne for me show that the problem was not necessarily the players we signed in the summer, it was the lack of a complete squad that we put together. Going to the lower leagues for talent is what you have to do when you're in League One and have no international scouting base or ability to sign players from abroad. It's a small pool, lots of teams are competing for the same players, and as such, you have to look for players you believe can grow and flourish. I think Egbo, Payne, O'Connell, and Wollacott are all decent additions. It's more an issue of not having the players to cover for them (with the exception of JoJo) when they're not fully fit, or that allow them to play in their best position.
Never been injured before, joins and gets two serious injuries in his first season. Mental
Only averages 20 odd games a season throughout his career though.
This is a good point and I think really representative of what happens/happened as a result of TS cutting back in the summer. Egbo looks decent, but at an average of 20 games a season, that’s probably why we got him and Swindon was his route back into English football last season.
If he was managing more than 20 games a season, he probably wouldn’t have been in our budget this summer.
Payne is a similar example. I think he tries hard, but he’s 27 and has been mooching around the lower leagues. It’s not going to get us out the division.
personally, given how poor our recruitment has been in the last 2 years and the length of contracts given out, I hope the Jan window is more a number of short term reinforcements to make sure we stay up (I think we will, but let’s not leave anything to chance), and then we reassess in the summer (properly). I’ve lost count of the times I’ve said it, but we need a mass clear out in the summer, and I fear if we bring in 3 or 4 on 2+ year deals now, they could be equally as poor as Aneke, Stockley, Mansfield etc and we’re back here again this time next year.
Keep this window very short term in our thinking and use March onwards to think about what the future looks like
When Ali Maxwell was on CharltonTV a while back, he talked about how Jack Payne was too good for League Two and that he only dropped down there because he was a fan of Garner's. The big issue with him has always been his size and what position he plays best. He's been played wide and as a box-to-box midfielder for us, and I don't know that either are his best position. I think he's better when he has a free role/as a 10, but we have Fraser there, and so Payne has been asked to graft more than he might otherwise have done.
We have a lot of midfielders, and some decent quality in midfield, but we don't haven't really had a natural box-to-box player this year. I think that was supposed to be McGrandles, but he signed injured, missed most of pre-season, got hurt, and then got hurt again. A fit JFC would be another option there, although given the two knee injuries I don't know if that's as realistic as it might have been 2-3 years ago. Gilbey did it last year, and...yeah. He works hard, but there's a question about lack of technical ability with him.
As such, we've played Payne and Albie there in a three. Both can play there, but it's not really either ones' strongest position (full disclosure, I'm not entirely sure what Albie's best role is). And then we played Fraser there in a two, and while he worked hard, he influence in the final third was drastically limited.
I feel similarly with Egbo as to Payne in that there is enough quality there to take a shot with him...if you have four senior fullbacks. We don't, we have three. As such, he missed a lot of pre season due to a contact injury, got thrown back into the fold almost straight away, looked knackered after a bit, had to keep playing, and got hurt.
Both Egbo and Payne for me show that the problem was not necessarily the players we signed in the summer, it was the lack of a complete squad that we put together. Going to the lower leagues for talent is what you have to do when you're in League One and have no international scouting base or ability to sign players from abroad. It's a small pool, lots of teams are competing for the same players, and as such, you have to look for players you believe can grow and flourish. I think Egbo, Payne, O'Connell, and Wollacott are all decent additions. It's more an issue of not having the players to cover for them (with the exception of JoJo) when they're not fully fit, or that allow them to play in their best position.
For the last 2 and a half years the mix of our 3 center mids has been a problem none of the 4 previous managers have actually managed to solve.
IMO the best combination of 3 we have had, for any sort of consistency, was Watson, JFC and Gilbey in the early Adkins weeks.
We have probably had 20ish center mids in that time. I still don't think any of them were really awful, but we can't quite find the right mix.
I still don't think Fraser is a 10, he needs the game more in front of him IMO. He didn't play as a 10 for MK Dons.
Never been injured before, joins and gets two serious injuries in his first season. Mental
Only averages 20 odd games a season throughout his career though.
This is a good point and I think really representative of what happens/happened as a result of TS cutting back in the summer. Egbo looks decent, but at an average of 20 games a season, that’s probably why we got him and Swindon was his route back into English football last season.
If he was managing more than 20 games a season, he probably wouldn’t have been in our budget this summer.
Payne is a similar example. I think he tries hard, but he’s 27 and has been mooching around the lower leagues. It’s not going to get us out the division.
personally, given how poor our recruitment has been in the last 2 years and the length of contracts given out, I hope the Jan window is more a number of short term reinforcements to make sure we stay up (I think we will, but let’s not leave anything to chance), and then we reassess in the summer (properly). I’ve lost count of the times I’ve said it, but we need a mass clear out in the summer, and I fear if we bring in 3 or 4 on 2+ year deals now, they could be equally as poor as Aneke, Stockley, Mansfield etc and we’re back here again this time next year.
Keep this window very short term in our thinking and use March onwards to think about what the future looks like
When Ali Maxwell was on CharltonTV a while back, he talked about how Jack Payne was too good for League Two and that he only dropped down there because he was a fan of Garner's. The big issue with him has always been his size and what position he plays best. He's been played wide and as a box-to-box midfielder for us, and I don't know that either are his best position. I think he's better when he has a free role/as a 10, but we have Fraser there, and so Payne has been asked to graft more than he might otherwise have done.
We have a lot of midfielders, and some decent quality in midfield, but we don't haven't really had a natural box-to-box player this year. I think that was supposed to be McGrandles, but he signed injured, missed most of pre-season, got hurt, and then got hurt again. A fit JFC would be another option there, although given the two knee injuries I don't know if that's as realistic as it might have been 2-3 years ago. Gilbey did it last year, and...yeah. He works hard, but there's a question about lack of technical ability with him.
As such, we've played Payne and Albie there in a three. Both can play there, but it's not really either ones' strongest position (full disclosure, I'm not entirely sure what Albie's best role is). And then we played Fraser there in a two, and while he worked hard, he influence in the final third was drastically limited.
I feel similarly with Egbo as to Payne in that there is enough quality there to take a shot with him...if you have four senior fullbacks. We don't, we have three. As such, he missed a lot of pre season due to a contact injury, got thrown back into the fold almost straight away, looked knackered after a bit, had to keep playing, and got hurt.
Both Egbo and Payne for me show that the problem was not necessarily the players we signed in the summer, it was the lack of a complete squad that we put together. Going to the lower leagues for talent is what you have to do when you're in League One and have no international scouting base or ability to sign players from abroad. It's a small pool, lots of teams are competing for the same players, and as such, you have to look for players you believe can grow and flourish. I think Egbo, Payne, O'Connell, and Wollacott are all decent additions. It's more an issue of not having the players to cover for them (with the exception of JoJo) when they're not fully fit, or that allow them to play in their best position.
I still don't think Fraser is a 10, he needs the game more in front of him IMO. He didn't play as a 10 for MK Dons.
Fraser himself said in an interview some while ago that he's not a 10, but more of an 8.
I can definitely see him as being popular with the others in training and behind the scenes. He seems to have the "character" that Powell prioritised in particular.
Comments
Rumour has it that Christopher Nolan got inspiration for that scene in Interstellar where Matthew McConaughey shouts through the bedroom wall at his daughter, who is in another time dimension, from Curbs trying to find where Cory Gibbs had disappeared to.
Typical that both long term injuries occured in the same game I think.
“Eoghan is actually better news than we expected,” Garner revealed. “We feared the worst with Eoghan but it’s actually weeks rather than months which is a big positive. When it’s the knee joint and the type of symptoms that were initially presented you’re fearing it could be the season or a large part of it, so we’re really fortunate that it’s not as serious as we feared.
“I would definitely hope he’d back this side of Christmas and we’ll get him back as quick as we can,”
Ironically we have probably an absolutely perfect replacement in Sessegnon but can't put him there as we have no left back cover.
personally, given how poor our recruitment has been in the last 2 years and the length of contracts given out, I hope the Jan window is more a number of short term reinforcements to make sure we stay up (I think we will, but let’s not leave anything to chance), and then we reassess in the summer (properly). I’ve lost count of the times I’ve said it, but we need a mass clear out in the summer, and I fear if we bring in 3 or 4 on 2+ year deals now, they could be equally as poor as Aneke, Stockley, Mansfield etc and we’re back here again this time next year.
We have a lot of midfielders, and some decent quality in midfield, but we don't haven't really had a natural box-to-box player this year. I think that was supposed to be McGrandles, but he signed injured, missed most of pre-season, got hurt, and then got hurt again. A fit JFC would be another option there, although given the two knee injuries I don't know if that's as realistic as it might have been 2-3 years ago. Gilbey did it last year, and...yeah. He works hard, but there's a question about lack of technical ability with him.
As such, we've played Payne and Albie there in a three. Both can play there, but it's not really either ones' strongest position (full disclosure, I'm not entirely sure what Albie's best role is). And then we played Fraser there in a two, and while he worked hard, he influence in the final third was drastically limited.
I feel similarly with Egbo as to Payne in that there is enough quality there to take a shot with him...if you have four senior fullbacks. We don't, we have three. As such, he missed a lot of pre season due to a contact injury, got thrown back into the fold almost straight away, looked knackered after a bit, had to keep playing, and got hurt.
Both Egbo and Payne for me show that the problem was not necessarily the players we signed in the summer, it was the lack of a complete squad that we put together. Going to the lower leagues for talent is what you have to do when you're in League One and have no international scouting base or ability to sign players from abroad. It's a small pool, lots of teams are competing for the same players, and as such, you have to look for players you believe can grow and flourish. I think Egbo, Payne, O'Connell, and Wollacott are all decent additions. It's more an issue of not having the players to cover for them (with the exception of JoJo) when they're not fully fit, or that allow them to play in their best position.
IMO the best combination of 3 we have had, for any sort of consistency, was Watson, JFC and Gilbey in the early Adkins weeks.
We have probably had 20ish center mids in that time. I still don't think any of them were really awful, but we can't quite find the right mix.
I still don't think Fraser is a 10, he needs the game more in front of him IMO. He didn't play as a 10 for MK Dons.
Discussing the Man U game now, and why it hasn’t been picked for TV.
”I am surprised they didn’t pick our game because WHEN there’s an upset…”
And I'm a fan of roll necks