Flecky

[sufcboy95]

Be interesting to see him play where osborn has been playing for a half, he looks decent in glimpse when he’s running with ball, however not consistently enough.

When Berge is fit he plays next to Norwood for me

 

[Fulwood Blade]

Is this problem about Flecky though?

We defended for years with 3 x CD's - at our best it was Bash/Egan & JOC which was very effective. We had sitting in front, Norwood.

Both Bash and JOC were relatively quick and 6' 4" each with Egan juts over 6' 1" foot, which gave us strength and cover.

We're now asking Egan and Davies (same height as Egan) to defend as a 2 with Norwood in front - it simply isn't going to work as it did and flecky is now being asked to do a different roll.

The issue with us for me is we're not defending the centre halves as we should and look very open when teams push on us - even Barnsley gave us the run around for 20 minutes.

Flecky is being asked to be different, especially with us playing 2 x No:10's on regular occurrences - he is playing deeper and when Norwood goes off is asked to step into the deep lying role.

UTB

 

[Il Coltello]

Fleck reminds me of my grandad who despite being in his 90s denied he had become incontinent.

Eventually the time comes where you have to do something to deal with the situation, without wishing to tarnish their memory or cause them upset.

We decided to slip half a viagra in his tea to stop him pissing on his slippers. Not saying that would work with Fleck necessarily, but you get the idea...

 

[Darthblade]

You're right, however those hollywood balls are still more than Fleck contributes.

Agreed …. I would have them both dropped tbh
UTB & FTP

 

[Maidenhead]

Norwood plays some great "hollywood" balls, but he can't tackle, can't head a ball, doesn't track back and gets drawn into ball watching on the edge of our area when we're defending. He's a luxury we can't afford at the moment when we're so poor at scoring goals and we concede at an alarming rate in a piss-poor division.
UTB & FTP

Usually I would agree with this but I thought Norwood got stuck in today and did much better than he has done recently

 

[Everblade]

What’s noticeable a lately is how many times he’s got caught in possession, partly linked to poor ball control when receiving the ball

Perhaps his team mates are passing to him when they shouldn’t, I don’t know?

He’s not showing the form he once did but I keep hoping he’ll get back to his old self

Flecky has also took over the position of chief pointer, not a good sign.

 

[LJBlade]

Guedioura was a very strange signing, for all the "What about Gordon Cowan/Gary Speed/Stuart McCall?" comments, they hadn't be playing in semi-retirement in Qatar before we signed them.

As for Hourihane, I think it's another James Harper situation - the club underestimated just how far he's fallen off a cliff. To be fair, the Swansea fans' comments should have warned us.

Hourihane has started two games and in the first one United fans were singing his praises

 

[Guesty]

Hourihane has started two games and in the first one United fans were singing his praises

Again though a lot of it was what the Swansea fans said - he gets decent stats because of his set pieces (two assists at Hull) but otherwise flatters to deceive. He absolutely wilted against Millwall and was actively hiding for most of the 37 minutes he lasted before getting hooked.

 

[Alfred Hood]

Fantastic Megadrive game

 

[ChipButtyBlade]

Jimmy Fleck was mentioned by Adam in the RS match commentary on Sunday,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Adam obviously reads this forum.

 

[Nah den]

I think Fleck has been spent for a good while now. Unlike some of them he does retain some goodwill amongst the fans as evidenced by the reaction to his decent performance against a woeful Peterborough team. That game aside his output has been limited.

I've watched him closely over the last couple of seasons and I see someone who is largely going through the motions. He stands in the right places, he will 'jocky' his opposite number when they have the ball but will rarely actually put a tackle in. It's all so passive.

I don't know if it's fitness (ultimately all players peak at some point, some sooner than others) or confidence or something else. I mention confidence because there have been a few incidents in recent games, edge of the box, everyone screaming shoot, and he's desperately trying to get rid of it to a team mate.

I think the goodwill is warranted as he was a big part of our rise over the last 4 odd years. But there's no space for sentiment in sport, and he probably needs replacing sooner rather than later.

 

[CaptainMorgans]

It's sad to see the demise of Fleck. He's given us some great times and in a good team he's excellent. Sadly, he isn't someone who is going to get a bad team going and he tends to go missing and / or play quite poorly when the chips are down. Probably time to say goodbye, but then again he's on a decent number here. Not sure who's going to keep that gravy train going.

 

[guancheblade]

Guedioura was a very strange signing, for all the "What about Gordon Cowan/Gary Speed/Stuart McCall?" comments, they hadn't be playing in semi-retirement in Qatar before we signed them.

As for Hourihane, I think it's another James Harper situation - the club underestimated just how far he's fallen off a cliff. To be fair, the Swansea fans' comments should have warned us.

So what you are saying is Roygbiv is better than our entire scouting department?

 

[Guesty]

So what you are saying is Roygbiv is better than our entire scouting department?

I mean, I don't know that for a fact, but also definitely yes.

 

[Lane Ender]

John Fleck the Invisible Man

 

[mancunianblade]

With a back 4 we need a DM. This DM comes at the expense of Fleck

 

[coolasanidiot]

Norwood doesn't hide. Fleck does. If ever needed a bombshell up his arse its Flecky- when on it makes us a good team- but most matches lately total passenger - its literally like playing with 10 men.

Like someone earlier for first 20 mins on Sunday Flecky did not show at all.

 

[Champagneblade]

When he scored against Arsenal there was talk of him going there for 20m.

Funny thing is, we'd have been daft enough to turn it down!

 

[Badger Blade]

He's nothing more than a body in midfield now, he now lacks any sort of outstanding trait to justify his selection whereas at least Norwood can ping the ball around, switch the play and try and set something going.

When we had Nick Montgomery, he was no sort of footballer but the bloke ran his nuts off and its that kind of commitment to making tackles, tracking back and doing the shit jobs that allowed everyone else ahead of him to do their thing. Without Claude Makelele, Real Madrid's "Galacticos" wouldn't have won a damn thing and we could do with a Lidl version of him.

 

[sitwell]

Flecks turn now ,Yay.
Who will it be next week ,I reckon Egan or Baldock.

 

[Bayingblade]

Fleck appears overweight, but his main problem is his right foot.

He can't kick a ball with it.

This drives me mad, Bert. They do nothing but play football yet can only use one foot. It's like employing a one armed typist. Do they not realise that being able to use both feet would make them better players? What the fuck do coaches do?

 

[247Blade]

Norwood plays some great "hollywood" balls, but he can't tackle, can't head a ball, doesn't track back and gets drawn into ball watching on the edge of our area when we're defending. He's a luxury we can't afford at the moment when we're so poor at scoring goals and we concede at an alarming rate in a piss-poor division.
UTB & FTP

Rubbish at free kicks and corners too

 

[247Blade]

Be interesting to see him play where osborn has been playing for a half, he looks decent in glimpse when he’s running with ball, however not consistently enough.

When Berge is fit he plays next to Norwood for me

Not convinced... I don't think Berge is interested... hope I'm wrong... we need to try something

 

[Hagansbootlaces]

Flecks been injured, the back injury he had last year was pretty serious, he played through some other injuries, but he hasn't been at his best, same with Enda, who now seems to be coming back to his best.

As someone mentioned earlier, you can't fill tgat void that JOC left, he was such a solid figure, Fleck & Enda knew where he was, and what he would be doing regards movement, the 3 of them covered each other.

Fair to say Fleck and Enda have never had tgat luxury with whichever player has been put into JOCs position

 

[Bert]

This drives me mad, Bert. They do nothing but play football yet can only use one foot. It's like employing a one armed typist. Do they not realise that being able to use both feet would make them better players? What the fuck do coaches do?

Bert spends every game saying "Wrong foot" when half our players have the ball on their useless foot.

 

[Myleftpeg]

Bert spends every game saying "Wrong foot" when half our players have the ball on their useless foot.

Spend most of every match saying much same thing wrong pass to wrong player

 

[wizadry]

He hasn't brought anything for a while. First touch is woeful, doesn't/can't shoot, can't tackle and doesn't have a particularly wide range of passing either. He's been immense for us, but out of all of our players I think he's dropped the most.

I don’t disagree he’s underperforming overall but the player who has dropped off most out of all of them is another favourite of mine Stevens, unfortunately he’s done.

 

[Champagneblade]

Flecks been injured, the back injury he had last year was pretty serious, he played through some other injuries, but he hasn't been at his best, same with Enda, who now seems to be coming back to his best.

As someone mentioned earlier, you can't fill tgat void that JOC left, he was such a solid figure, Fleck & Enda knew where he was, and what he would be doing regards movement, the 3 of them covered each other.

Fair to say Fleck and Enda have never had tgat luxury with whichever player has been put into JOCs position

If only we'd tried to sign a midfielder and a left centre back instead of that all important 6th or 7th striker!

 

[Tezza1889]

Flecks turn now ,Yay.
Who will it be next week ,I reckon Egan or Baldock.

Some have already criticised Egan and boldock..

Thing is when CW dubbed fleck "Jimmy" how did "John fleck" take it..

Regardless of anything that's your gaffer making you look a prick, also in and around the time wasn't he calling them league 1 players to boot.. How's that make you more confident..

 

[Torrix1889]

With the right players around him and leaving him to do what he's good at, (driving forward, linking up with Stevens and Osborn) Fleck can look outstanding at times. Although at the moment he is certainly a shadow of the player he was 2 or 3 seasons ago his alarming drop in form for me is a perfect example of our overall ineffective central midfield which is very poor. As much as I like Illiam and MGW as flair players the balance is still nowhere near right and the consequence is very little support both offensively and defensively leaving huge holes all over the park which the better sides exploit easily. This has to be the priority for January but it has been a priority we have failed to address properly for the last 5 windows...

Norwood had a much better game against Barnsley but they still exploited our weaknesses through Fleck who seems to either give the ball away cheaply at the moment or lunge in late for half arsed tackles. And to think it was a toss up between him and John McGinn for the Scots not so long ago....poles apart now.