Peter Gain
To suggest a player would be better under Danny doesn’t necessarily mean they didn’t perform during Keith’s reign, but if anyone would have benefitted from playing in a flat 4-4-2, or even a 4-2-3-1, it would have been Peter Gain.
He was widely employed as one of two in a 5-2-3, rarely on the left of the front two but almost always in the centre of the park. He did well too, him and Butch are still my favourite midfield pairing for the Imps and perhaps, due to the nostalgia of the era, always will be.
That doesn’t mean Keith got the best out of Gain, still arguably the best technical footballer I’ve ever seen at Lincoln City. He had grace, elegance and a manner which simply wasn’t befitting a physical, direct team. When he had the ball you could feel anticipation rise.
Gain played 258 times for City in all competitions, scoring 22 goals I guarantee you not one was a tap in.
Imagine now, Gain on the left of Danny’s 4-3-3, or on the left wing in the 4-4-2 we tried. Even imagine him on the left of the 4-2-3-1. It would be like setting a trapped dove free, giving him license to get down the line, to cut inside and to drift and create. We saw how Nathan Arnold thrived in 2016/17 on being able to cut inside, or float to the by-line.
Peter Gain playing on the left wing, the position he was born to fill, would be a joy to watch. If only.
Hi Gary,
A good read as always, but what I wanted to day was not that, but that anyone who gives you even a word of grief for being ‘commercial’ or whatever rubbish it is they come out with, they want their little minds checking. I bet they’re the same as the rest of us – regularly checking your website hoping for a new article. They’re probably doing it on the bog at work, getting paid even as they read. Meanwhile they expect you to be entertaining them for nothing because ‘you enjoy it’ (or whatever nut-job argument it is they come up with). On behalf of the silent majority – thank you for everything and don’t let the b*ggers get you down!
How about an “If only they had signed” article? I remember wishing we could afford John Cornforth. OConnor, Ellison etc etc
I second what Dan wrote. No time to write, need to get off the bog.