by URZZZZ »
03 Jul 2023 11:08
Elm Park Kid URZZZZ Elm Park Kid Drinkwater won me over towards the end, but I have no idea what was wrong with him for those first few months. I'm not surprised that no club went in for him last season. He literally looked like a pub footballer for most of his time with us. I can only imagine he's back to that standard or worse.
“Most of his time with us” - not sure that’s particularly accurate. Started off well before getting injured, had an awful period in January time before being one of our better players from mid-February time
Agree with OMA that he’s not someone we should be going back for but out of all the midfielders we’ve had these last couple of seasons, he’s been one of the better performing ones overall (very low bar admittedly)
Have to strongly, strongly disagree with 'overall'. Maybe my memory of this has just become frazzled, but i'm sure that he was atrocious from the moment he joined us. Like, literally one of the worst sets of performances I've ever seen from any professional footballer. I fully accept though that he improved significantly from February onward and was probably our best midfielder towards the end.
From memory he didn’t start playing until the mid September mark and most people agreed up until the Blackpool comeback game - he’d started well (a period in which we’d won 5 in the last 6 games). Had a couple of poor games before picking up an injury and IIRC barely played again until January. Had an awful month (as did the rest of the team) before ending on a high
It’s all subjective of course but I just don’t see how 1/2 poor months equates to some of the vitriol he received at the time. I can fully accept the argument he should have been better than he was given his pedigree mind
Regular midfielders we’ve had the last two seasons, Laurent, Rinomhota, Dele-Bashiru, Hendrick, Loum, Fornah, Ejaria and Drinkwater - hardly an inspiring lot but he’s far from been the worst of that lot IMO
