He had played there. At least enough that Sheff Weds called him a midfielder and both Accrington & Gillingham described him as a midfielder when they signed him on loan. Equally Hearts signed him and called him a midfielder. Definitely played there and was seen as his strongest position at Hearts. Then they tried him at right-back which coincided with the point we were scouting him and decided to sign him as a right-back.
General Hearts fans reviews when we signed him was that he wasn't a right-back and was much better in midfield.
Clare wore the number 9 shirt for Hearts at one point and was essentially an attacking mid. Was even their penalty taker for a while. We do seem to enjoy trying to be overly clever and changing people’s positions from time to time. Hanson’s a right back. Forde, too. Sykes is... well, we still don’t really know where Sykes plays, but he was largely a number 10 in Ireland. We had Henry playing at holding midfield a year or two ago and had a big speech before the game about how that was where he would end up, and it lasted 45 minutes. Mackie was only ever a winger (whose legs had gone) before he turned up here and got turned into a clogging centre forward. Obviously we know that Agyei is a winger - how could we forget. Sometimes it really is a lot easier to just put round pegs in round holes. Saves a lot of time and hassle and you don’t have to spend months watching both player and team suffer while they effectively retrain on the job. Some can transition fairly well and some can’t, and even some of the ones who can aren’t necessarily happy about doing so. Especially the ones who are sold one thing before choosing the club over others, only to then be told they’re going to be retrained once the ink is dry. It’s like picking one company to work for over another because the role sounds great and suits your skill set, and then you turn up and they’ve moved you to another department doing something you have little or no experience in. If you want a player for a certain position I’m a big fan of just signing one.
Re Hemmings he scored 15 goals for us in his first season, it was just that most of them were in the cups so they’re often forgotten. They won’t show up on Wikipedia where most people go to check stats. Strangely we actually had someone who exclusively drilled crosses along the six yard box in Johnson, and yet Hemmings never really got a sustained run of games starting with him. Thomas was often in the way for the first few months before he did his Achilles and then Martinez and McAleny showed up in January. Plus we had the very young Tyler Roberts and a very abused Ryan Taylor in the first half of the season, who would often limit Hemmings’ minutes further. That goal at Rotherham in the FA Cup, where Johnson whipped a peach of a cross in and Hemmings side footed it into the net, was a thing of beauty. Can’t even tell you how many times that season Johnson fizzed a worldie of a ball across the face of goal and nobody was there, only for Hemmings to be on the sidelines with his hands on his head. Always found it odd that Martinez scored 3 in 17 and had a song that people would sing 10 times a game, while Hemmings was our second top scorer with 15 and was kind of shrugged at. Fair play to Martinez for going on to get a move to Porto but I never thought he was
that much cop while he was here. That’s all I can judge him on - he wasn’t all that in yellow. He definitely had the raw ingredients and his two FA Cup goals were good fun, but he wasn’t hugely effective overall. Like Mackie, people seemed to enjoy singing his name first and watching his contributions second.
Not saying Hemmings is the second coming, by the way. For whatever reason he just didn’t fully settle here, and it seems clear now that he had a lot going on away from the pitch. That said he did only spend one season here before being loaned out for the rest of his contract, and scored 15 times during his stay. I don’t think anyone can class that as a washout. We’ve only had a player score more than 15 goals once since then, which was Taylor with 17 last season. Just one of those weird situations where it doesn’t quite click, despite the fact that he actually did pretty well. Sometimes it doesn’t work out and it’s hard to know why. Football is weird.
Jack Midson, though. Well... we should
never have let him go.
But it could also be a mid table game with nothing riding on it.
