Francis Green
Whenever Keith’s forwards get mentioned, talk inevitably switches to Simon Yeo or Gary Taylor-Fletcher, the two players who excelled in the 2004/05 season as we lost out to Southend at the Millennium Stadium. Francis Green is rarely mentioned, and yet of the three, he would surely suit Danny’s style of play better than the other two.
Here’s my reasoning. Simon Yeo, as loved as he is, wanted to be in behind. He liked the balls over the top to run on to, but we don’t play that exactly right now. There’s balls into channels to run on to, balls coming off the big man, but not usually an over the top, certainly not as often as Keith liked it.
Taylor-Fletcher was a talent, there’s no doubt about that, but would he have fitted into the philosophy of Danny’s squad? Plus, as neither a target man nor an out and out runner, where would he have played in our set up? In the 4-2-3-1 perhaps he could have sat in the centre of the three, but in my opinion there’s much of the Adam Marriott in GTF; would Danny have worked the team around him?
Then we come to Franny Green, just 18 goals from 82 starts doesn’t mark him out as the one to go for. What he did do though was running, lots of it. I could see him playing the Theo role, being instructed into channels time and again. He could have sat on the outside of a three-man forward line as well as come on to provide support for Matt Green as the game died away. His all-round skill set would certainly have complemented our current squad more than his team mates.
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.