Marc Roberts = BCFC these last 4 years (54 replies)
And in places it might be factually incomplete...but I hope you'll get the general gist of what I'm trying to say.
Which is that in many ways Roberts' arrival and subsequent career at B9 sums up our last 4 years.
So to start at the very beginning, as Julie Andrews advises.
A good team is built around a solid spine, and part of that solid spine is a good old fashioned centre half.
And Roberts looked every inch of that : tall, brave, just been Barnsley's player of the year, will win everything in the air all day long. And he was young so plenty of chance for our coaches to improve on what was a rough diamond.
And in fact he was part of a pretty good period of recruitment of players equally who were young and talented and just needed to be moulded. Let's see how many I can remember...Mrabti, Mahoney, Villalba, Pedersen, Crowley, Sunjic.
Then let's add a decent crop from our youth set up : Viv, Dacres Cogley, Trueman, Lakin, Bajrami, Striker who went to Forest Green, Defender who went to Pompey, keeper who went to Crawley, Boyd Munce, Concannon, Wes, and a couple of injured guys we took a chance on : Montero, McEachran
And that's even leaving Jude to one side.
Now of course not all hot 20-somethings make the grade - but that's something like 20 decent prospects - not one of whom (leaving the exception that is Jude aside) that has made the progress you'd be reasonably confident to expect. The great teams of the late 60s and mid 70s built their success on much less supply than that.
So you have to think it must be something to do with the coaching and expectations behind the scenes.
So getting back to Roberts - what do they do with him in training all week?
Surely the manager says
Marc - your first job is to defend - so if you have to hoof it out, do it. But if you've a bit of time just give it short to one of the team. Got it? And midfield. If Marc has the ball, make yourself available so he can give you a simple pass. Got it?
Not rocket science, is it?
That seems obvious to me, and I can't for the life of me understand why game evidence shows that it doesn't happen. I don't want total football, or tiki taka...just that when our defenders have the ball and a bit of time for them to be able to calmly and constructively maintain possession and play our way out of defence. This is what all 23 other clubs seem to be able to do - and we can't or won't, irrespective of manager.