Re: Article on Blues' front two issues/solutions

BigBarryBoozer

Skim read as working but ultimately it boils down to this.

We spent upwards of £10M on Jay Stansfield on a 7 year contract, we were not going to drop him for either Kyogo or Ducksch, so it was figuring out how to get the most / best out of him as well as including another striker and making it work.

They failed as they decided to go with a weak, poor off ball forward in Ducksch which meant we gave our prized asset the job doing the work of two players.

If we had signed a Priske type last Summer and had the option / ability to go a little more direct / forward more quickly I feel we would have had a much more balanced and consistent team.

We have now found that out with Priske and Stansfield. It works, two players doing great off ball work and goals will come. Two players in there early 20's, on long term deals with huge upside.

It's dissapointing it took the majority of this season to figure it out.

Personally, I think Ducksch is our best 10 and Priske our best 9, and we saw a glimpse of what that might look like at Norwich. I understand that Ducksch is slow, can’t press, plays everything first time and doesn’t really jump for headers (neither does Stansfield by the way). I get all that. He does make the press worse, though weirdly our defensive numbers are basically the same when he plays. I get all that

Not having that, cant be having players that cant do this and cant do that, are 31/32, probably one of the highest earners and thinking 'thall do' rather than a player who is 22, gives his all, on a 7 year deal. Our prized asset, it's mental.

There's a long list of things Stansfield can't do as well, and one of those things is 'score as many goals as Ducksch'.

Though I do agree for the future we should play the two younger lads.