ZipHound Well yeah - we signed O Shea (6ft 3), Meyler (6ft 2), Ezatolahi (6ft 2), Walker (6ft 7), gave Meite (6ft 1?) a long contract and signed an aggressive FB in Yiadom.
This to add to first teamers Jaakkola, Moore, Ilori, Blackett, Bodvarsson who all above 6ft. From standing near Rino I’m guessing he is 6ft plus as well
As usual with Clement it wasn’t so much that he didn’t recognise the issue, it’s just that the options were either cheap and low cost or just not good enough. He certainly didn’t try to make the team ‘smaller’
Well the big players he signed have hardly played apart from Meite so nothing was solved.
Well that’s kind of my point. Neither have McNulty, Baldock and Sims when he was here
I fully expect Clement in the summer tried to make us a bigger more physical side (Kelly and McNulty would never have been part of his backbone) but due to cheap gambles not being good enough, but mainly injuries to Eza, Rino and Bod - just hasn’t turned out that way and we’ve ended up going back to lightweights from the U23/ back up squad
Looking back at say the Brentford away game which I think was just before Eza got injured, the only players in the side below 6ft were Barrow and Yiadom who I think is a little under
Even now we could well line up with:
Martinez, Yiadom, Blackett, Miazga, Moore, Baker, Rino, Swift, Ejaria, Meite, McCleary for our next game. None are small and certainly not midgets
Anyway round about way of saying its the injury to Bod and Eza/ surprising rubbishness of Meyler which has been the big issue rather than not identifying the problem. Where I would concede, and maybe didn't at the time is that Gomes should have brought in a DM rather than Ejaria or Baker on loan in Jan. The midfield is obvs a little soft, even with Rino in there