Originally Posted by
Loramski
It's difficult for me to be constructive about the Fagan-Walcott situation, I'm completely missing something there. All I can do is put the facts up and hope the answer reveals itself at some point. We obviously saw Benjamin as the better bet of the two, Dunfermline obviously don't. If we felt he wasn't physically strong enough, Dunfermline obviously do. If we felt there was an injury concern, the number of 90 minutes he's played up there says different.
I don't get why Bulut didn't even bother to have a look at him in the cup games when he was on the bench. Blackburn and Sheffield Wednesday had gone with 20 minutes to go but he didn't bring him on even though he only used four subs both times. It's not as though we've had a big pool of centre halves this season, if he was a central midfielder it'd make more sense.
What I don't really want to do is start speculating but the situation is so baffling that it's hard not to. You could well be right that the club have been impressed by Benjamin's attitude and, equally, I don't think it's impossible to conclude that Bulut isn't impressed by Fagan-Walcott's apparent insouciance. Much in the same way that I imagine Warnock wasn't impressed by Ajayi's.
However, the way Ajayi committed to far from glamorous loan spells when he was here made me think there was more heart and determination in him than his demeanour let on and Fagan-Walcott's spell at Dunfermline makes me think the same. Don't judge a book by its cover and all that.
Isaak Davies is going to be an interesting one. Tsunoda too. Bulut (or whoever) will have a blank canvas to start with when it comes to setting up for next season but if we, say, get Kieffer Moore and a couple of wingers in June then it's going to commit us to a style of play that might not suit Davies and Tsunoda (if they're good enough of course). Obviously we can't wait for pre-season to finish before recruiting so this might need a bit of forward thinking, not something we're renowned for.
I've no idea if Bulut attends u-21 games. He's got a different approach to previous managers in that senior players have very rarely been given games, even when coming back from injury, until Sawyers and Robinson popped up recently. That may suggest he sees them as a waste of time but he seems to integrate the youngsters into first team training more than others have so it's not like he's uninterested in that section of the club.
I've probably been guilty of reading too much into u-21 and Academy games over the years. My eldest tends to laugh when I show him goals from that level and I know where he's coming from. I like Ashford but the goals against Bristol and Swansea would have been dealt with comfortably at Championship level and even Colwill's for Wales u-21s the other night seemed a bit farcical to me (Wales second was a beauty though).
Equally, I think I've underestimated the importance of training. So much going on there that we don't see or know about. Fitness, stamina, ability, attitude, character etc all being put to the test day in, day out. Maybe Bulut sets up practice games that have an intensity about them that tells him more than u-21 games do, in his opinion. Hockey and football are much different, of course, but my youngest absolutely swears by the importance of training. He concludes a lot from it, about coaches and players, and is rarely wrong about either.
That's not dismissing the youth games, I'd still catch a few if work permitted. I'm just saying I probably read too much into them in the past.
Sorry that was so long, I'd better stop now or I'll use up the internet.
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