Sorry if this has been mentioned before, but I don’t think he’s been brought in to be a prolific goal scorer. I think he’s here to give some much needed experience, work hard and chip in here and there with a goal. My only concern is his injury record. It’s quite poor. Having said that I’m seeing him as a Dave Kitson type player (but better) that likes to get around the park and pull defenders about.
Off topic slightly I actually thought Kitson was decent from a talent point of view I just think he was a tad too intelligent for some (not all) of the squad at the time. He would play a ball down off his chest or have a little dunked through ball and some didn’t have the foresight to see what he was going to do.
Anyway I digress. Looking forward to seeing what Mackie can do.
You’re not wrong on Kitson. A bad apple sometimes as he is perhaps too clever for his own good and he clearly didn’t fancy putting his body on the line towards the end when it started failing him.
But despite a lack of class on leaving, he certainly showed a touch of class on the pitch. That wasn’t appreciated by many who expected him to score lots of goals given the level he had previously played at.
I’m not even suggesting he was a great signing as it only worked for about 5 months until THAT suspension before Christmas, after which things went rather sour across the board.
However, he did provide a little insight into how a hold-up player can take the pressure off the defence and intelligently bring younger, quicker players into the game in attacking areas.
After he left, in Hylton and Roofe we had two attacking players who were too good for L2 and we were dynamic enough from so many positions (COD, Baldock, JJK, Sercombe, Lundstram, Maguire, MacDonald - christ, what a team!!) that we didn’t need to have someone holding the ball up so much.
The last time we had someone who could play that role was Taylor and again he was generally under-appreciated by the fans.
The failure of Thomas, Obika, Mehmeti, Gino Van bloody Kessell and all of the other unbalanced combinations last season (thanks Pep) to hold the ball up effectively was evident for all to see. The lack of pace to launch any sort of counter-attack was also evident within weeks (again, thanks Pep) and nails were in the coffin when Hall got injured alongside the Captain.
KR knows this and the jigsaw is falling into place. Should be an interesting season for which I’m optimistic of improvements.
