What do you think of oDonnell bunk? Is he better than Cadden?
He's an interesting one. There are similarities in so much both are athletic and get up and down the park but the key difference would be that SOD's a full back whereas Cadden's a midfielder who has ended up playing right back. O'Donnell is also an incredibly handsome man.
I noticed a post a few pages back saying that Luton fans hadn't been very complimentary about SOD which doesn't necessarily surprise me. He seems to be very much a confidence player. Bear in mind I'm not a Killie fan but to me he seems to be the sort of player who will stand out in a good team but less so in an average/poor side - if that makes sense.
For example he really came to people's attention as an attacking full back in Thistle's promotion side, an attacking team who used their full backs to good effect. He moved to Luton and didn't really make much of an impact. It's easy to forget that he was signed for Killie by Lee McCulloch (ex-Motherwell, Wigan and Rangers) in his short, unsuccessful stint as permanent manager. He was emptied having not won a league game in their first 8 - they were utter dross and couldn't buy a win.
Steve Clarke took over, added a couple of players at most and turned the same group into the 3rd best team in the country and I'd guess that what you saw was a massive improvement in performance as a result of coaching. I suppose that's the difference when you get an EPL level coach taking over a club. In that respect I'd say that O'Donnell was one of Killie's most consistent players under Clarke - but I'd be hesitant to say you'd get the same player if he moved.
Cadden on the other hand seems like he continued his form from Motherwell when he ended up down the road. It's true to say that a number of Motherwell fans didn't really rate Cadden but I'd say that an element of that was the feeling that he had hit a bit of a plateau and after almost 140 games hadn't really 'kicked on'...he also suffered in comparison to younger Academy players like David Turnbull, Allan Campbell and Jake Hastie who had all broken into the side and were playing a level above him. In Turnbull's case several levels.
Since Clarke took the Scotland job you've seen Killie kind of regress to mean, which is a mid-table Scottish Premiership side.
SOD has shown he's the potential and ability to play at a higher level than that and in that respect it's no surprise to have read that Aberdeen were apparently interested in him on a pre-contract. There was vague chatter about Celtic having been interested around the same time they were in for Greg Taylor but I think O'Donnell's performances for the international side kind of killed that.
He's got 11 caps but he's not an international level full back. Liam Palmer's taken that spot and I'd imagine Kieran Tierney will slot in there if he's ever fit again.
Which isn't to say O'Donnell's not a good player but I just wouldn't get carried away by the caps as a reflection of the player.
Motherwell are having an excellent season.
Oxford had many years of awful signings from Scotland, but Cadden, Gorrin have certainly changed that.
It's been a weird season, it's still not clear if we're actually good or if we're just benefitting from teams like Killie, Hibs and especially Hearts having gone off cliffs of varying degrees.
Unlike previous seasons where we've had 2nd & 3rd place finishes where we had players like Ross McCormack, Jamie Murphy, Darren Randolph, Shaun Hutchinson and the like our top scorer this season is a holding mid and our top league scorers are only on 5 goals a piece. On top of that our best player (and last season's top scorer) has been out injured since his £3.25m move to Celtic fell through in the summer on account of a medical.
Yet weirdly we're the 3rd top scoring team in the league behind Celtic and Rangers. Go figure.
I've been having a look at this forum now and again (clearly as I chimed in earlier about the winter break) as I had noticed it's shaping up to be a good season for you guys and there's the Cadden, Gorrin factors.
I'll admit I smiled when I read some posts bemoaning Cadden's crossing. Some things never change eh?
Ally Gorrin's particularly interesting because as I think I mentioned in a post over the summer it really wasn't really clear how good he was, I mean he looked a classy player but given he couldn't get in the team in the first half of the season the small sample size meant there was every chance it was a purple patch of form.
Good luck for the rest of the season lads.
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