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Whats playing the full 90 got to do with anything? Substitutions are part and parcel of the game, especially for forward / attacking players.
Colwill started 5 + 7 subs, so featured in 12 out of 14 or 85% of league games under Mick last season.
He started just 10 + 12 subs out of 32 for Morison, featuring in 64% of the games after Mick left. A drop of 21%. Plus, most of those starts / 90 minutes were end of season dead rubbers, result didnt matter according to the likes of you.
Believe what you want, its no secret Morison is not a big fan, and he was nearly released but for Mick. I dare say if we get a half decent bid he will be gone.
He'll have to develop a fair bit as well. He has no acceleration, he's clever enough to give himself that yard of space but can't speed up in order to go past a player. He's quick on the ball and looks to get things moving quickly, but he just can't penetrate the opposition when he's moving with the ball.
He's got some serious improving to do though. He's good in the final third, very direct, he sees space and attacks it with the ball at his feet. After that, he struggles in my opinion. I don't know what it is, but he doesn't look like the brightest in terms of football intelligence. Without the ball he struggles to get himself in good positions, especially defensively, he has this nasty habit of turning in to the opposition when the better option may be to just hold the ball up and win a foul or wait for support. He's very raw outside of his main attribute, which is attacking the final third. He certainly possesses natural ability, that's for sure.
Nope. Even if you want to go down that route its still 41% under Mick and 38% Morison in the league last season,padded out by the end of season dead rubbers.
After Morison was able to bring in his own players in the Jan transfer window, he featured much less until the last few end of season dead rubbers.
All stats via Soccerbase.
The narrative is clear. He was in and out of the team for the under 23s and Mick put him in the first team at 19, tied him down to a pro contract asap, whilst all the while waxing lyrical about him. So much so he end up getting into the Welsh squad.
As soon as Morison was allowed to bring in his own players in January, Colwill was mainly used as a sub or not at all, even put back in the under 23s for a period, until we were safe and he then played some 90 mins in the end of season dead rubbers. In my mind to appease the supporters as it looked to me like he, Morison, doesn’t know how to play with a 10.
We will soon see once the league starts wether we are building a side around him or not. No doubt you will still do your usual Comical Ali impression and deny what is obvious to others.
Morison was pretty clear that Colwill needed to improve off the ball and contribute more assists.
If he adds those things - and, since those comments have been made, he's been showing signs that he is - then he'll be in the team and he'll be an important player for us. And when that happens, he'll probably go on to a better team for a sizeable fee, because he has that match winning ability.
What he doesn't need is people like Nathan Blake saying he's already "top 6 quality" (ffs seriously) and he then ends up going down the Ben Woodburn route, thinking he's made it already.
That's how I see it and it's one of the reasons I'm not hugely confident in Morison (and haven't bought into some of the crap on Twitter about him being this great manager). It's obvious to anyone who watched us last season that Colwill was one of the few bright spots and he'll only get better
I don’t disagree that Colwill is at least as good a prospect as Doyle, but I don’t see them as similar players which makes the comparisons pretty meaningless.
Your view on Morison however feels to me that it significantly taints your objectivity, which of course is totally your prerogative, but for me devalues some of what you write.
But he might not get better, although I really hope that he does, and he ends up being that creative spark that we have lacked in the final third, for what seems forever. Some players possess certain attributes and then have the ability to improve on their weaknesses or certainly learn how to.compensate for them. I'm not sure Colwill has that ability yet. He's still very raw and he reminds me of Earlier a bit in terms of how everything he did was instinctive, which served him so well, but if Earlier had that little bit of intelligence, then he would have been a premier league striker. I like Colwill and it's obvious he possesses natural attacking flair. I really hope that he develops, or gets so good in the final third that the rest of his game doesn't really matter.
The thing that tells me that he does have that and will kick on further is the repeated inclusion in the Wales squads even though his league form arguably didn't warrant it. He was called up to the Euros having played about half an hour of senior football and has continued to be picked in a Wales squad that's managed to qualify for a World Cup, there's obviously something there otherwise he'd be left at home during the international breaks.
His link up play with Brennan Johnson showed as well that there was more to his game than pure instinct, he suffered in the team last season as we either played incredibly crap hoofball or pretty basic hold it up then get it to the wings, there was very little emphasis on getting the ball down in the middle of the pitch and actually playing, when he was paired with someone who does that in Johnson he shined