So, how does our squad this year compare to Warnock's?

[TaipeiBlade]

Figured it'd be interesting to look at the two since there's just a week to go. For me, we've got a much stronger side this time around.

Keepers - Henderson is better than Paddy. Paddy was a solid keeper, but Henderson is a level above. Moore, I'd put on about the same level as Bennett.

Defence - Wilder's squad smashes it. JOC, Egan, Jagielka and Basham are better than Warnock's center backs. Davis was shit, Morgan was decent. Jags was, of course, great. For fullbacks, I'd put Baldock and Freeman are better than Geary who I never rated. Stevens is far better than Armstrong.

Midfield - I thought Warnock had a decent midfield. Tonge, the two Quinns and Gillespie were all decent players. Driftwood was absolute shocking. Montgomery managed to be both good and bad in equal measure. Again, though, I'd give it to Wilder's. Out of Norwood, Fleck, Lundstram, Freeman, Osborn, Duffy and Ravel ... the only two I'd switch for a pair of Warnock's midfield are Lundstram and Duffy.

Strikers - No question, Wilder's. Hulse was good, Stead was good but not a good enough goal scorer. Shelton and Nade were piss. Wilder's forward lineup is far better.

So yeah, much better side this time around. There's not many players from Warnock's side who I'd think could break into Wilder's.

 

[Danetheblade]

An in form tongue would easily slot into the team.

 

[LoughboroBlade]

I'd put Baldock and Freeman are better than Geary

That’s the one blemish on an otherwise fairly accurate post. Geary had an excellent season in the Prem, and would probably have done well in our current formation. He was with Morgs one of the surprises in terms of making the step up.

 

[true99blade]

Geary was better than Baldock and Freeman for me.

 

[true99blade]

That’s the one blemish on an otherwise fairly accurate post. Geary had an excellent season in the Prem, and would probably have done well in our current formation. He was with Morgs one of the surprises in terms of making the step up.

Great minds ey

 

[Deleted member 1486]

This squad is stronger, but so is the level of competition, so the comparison means nothing.

 

[steve26272]

Not sure it’s that easy to be fair......

The game has changed so much, not sure wing backs were around back then, let alone overlapping CB’s!!

But to be objective-
Kenny was s great keeper, Dean has the inexperienced error that we have seen cost us.
Killgallon and Jags were as good as any CB pairing we’ve had, fast & cultured.
Gillespie was a proven top level player, Tonge was unplayable on his day

Also bear in mind that the opposing team were also upon reflection weaker, Blackburn’s Benny McCarthy finished 2nd top goal scorer on 18
Time will tell, but that season. Warnock spent less than £13m, that’s not much more than we’ve spent on a Bournemouth reserve.

And we missed out on survival because Warnock bottled it in a couple of matches, and Spam cheated the system.

I was/am a Warnock fan. But I think the biggest advantage we have between this season and that is not on the field, but in the dug out

 

[Deleted member 1486]

Killgallon and Jags were as good as any CB pairing we’ve had, fast & cultured.

I think your memory is deceiving you. Killgallon hardly played in the Premier League. He was signed in January, but was injured. He came into his own the season after, but of course, Jags had gone by then.

 

[LoughboroBlade]

Killgallon and Jags were as good as any CB pairing we’ve had, fast & cultured.

They never played a single game as a centre-back pairing, ever. Kilgallon was a bit better for us at Championship level but I think only in that Watford win displayed anything like what was required.

 

[Mojo]

Yeah like others have stated Geary was unbelievable in the Prem.

 

[steve26272]

Apologies, time and alcohol have obviously clouded my memory

On a slightly sarcastic note, do you read threads not to agree or disagree with the opinions offered, just to pick up on 1 inaccuracy in a post of several thoughts??!!

 

[Deleted member 1486]

On a slightly sarcastic note, do you read threads not to agree or disagree with the opinions offered, just to pick up on 1 inaccuracy in a post of several thoughts??!!

I have no idea what the question was, but "not to agree or disagree" mean the same thing

 

[steve26272]

I have no idea what the question was, but "not to agree or disagree" mean the same thing

Do you read threads not “to agree or disagree”

 

[Pinchy]

Apologies, time and alcohol have obviously clouded my memory

On a slightly sarcastic note, do you read threads not to agree or disagree with the opinions offered, just to pick up on 1 inaccuracy in a post of several thoughts??!!

It was rather a big one. Suggesting that we’ve never had a better CB pairing than one that never was a pairing at all...

 

[Deleted member 1486]

Do you read threads not “to agree or disagree”

I know what you're getting at, but it's a forum full of football geeks. If you get something wrong, someone's going to correct you.

It's an easy mistake to make, they were in the squad at the same time. Don't take it so personally.

 

[103SecondsOfMagic]

Apologies, time and alcohol have obviously clouded my memory

On a slightly sarcastic note, do you read threads not to agree or disagree with the opinions offered, just to pick up on 1 inaccuracy in a post of several thoughts??!!

That’s not really sarcasm though is it? Perhaps pedantry if anything.



Sorry mate couldn’t resist! I am also astonished to discover Killa and Jags never played together.
There’s no shame in having many far more important things to remember than our centre half pairing from over a decade ago. Some don’t.

 

[steve26272]

It was rather a big one. Suggesting that we’ve never had a better CB pairing than one that never was a pairing at all...

wiki on Killa-
Kilgallon signed for Premier League Sheffield United on 8 January 2007 for a £1.75 million fee, rising to £2 million with add-ons.[14] Despite recovering from an early injury,[citation needed] he did not make his debut until starting in a 1–0 loss away to Bolton Wanderers on 31 March 2007.[15]

Wiki on Jags-
By the end of the 2006–07 season, he had made 133 consecutive league appearances for United,[23] including every league match in the 2004–05 and 2005–06 seasons and every minute of the 2006–07 season

Stats from the season-

Defenders
2	DF		Leigh Bromby	20	0	12+5	0	1	0	2	0
4	DF		Claude Davis	22	0	18+3	0	0	0	1	0
5	DF		Chris Morgan	25	1	21+3	1	0	0	1	0
6	DF		Phil Jagielka	38	4	38	4	0	0	0	0
14	DF		David Sommeil	7	0	4+1	0	1	0	1	0
15	DF		Rob Kozluk	20	0	17+2	0	0	0	1	0
16	DF		Matthew Kilgallon	6	0	6

So whilst they only played 6 games together, maybe mine wasn’t the only memory faded by Father Time......

 

[SUFC Handsworth]

And on the managerial side the 2019 version far outstrips the 2006 pillock we had in charge back then too.

 

[TaipeiBlade]

Not sure it’s that easy to be fair......

The game has changed so much, not sure wing backs were around back then, let alone overlapping CB’s!!

But to be objective-
Kenny was s great keeper, Dean has the inexperienced error that we have seen cost us.
Killgallon and Jags were as good as any CB pairing we’ve had, fast & cultured.
Gillespie was a proven top level player, Tonge was unplayable on his day

Also bear in mind that the opposing team were also upon reflection weaker, Blackburn’s Benny McCarthy finished 2nd top goal scorer on 18
Time will tell, but that season. Warnock spent less than £13m, that’s not much more than we’ve spent on a Bournemouth reserve.

And we missed out on survival because Warnock bottled it in a couple of matches, and Spam cheated the system.

I was/am a Warnock fan. But I think the biggest advantage we have between this season and that is not on the field, but in the dug out

To be fair to myself, I did say Warnock put together a strong midfield. Other than Monty and Driftwood, they'd all be good additions to Wilders squad.

 

[Sean Thornton]

wiki on Killa-
Kilgallon signed for Premier League Sheffield United on 8 January 2007 for a £1.75 million fee, rising to £2 million with add-ons.[14] Despite recovering from an early injury,[citation needed] he did not make his debut until starting in a 1–0 loss away to Bolton Wanderers on 31 March 2007.[15]

Wiki on Jags-
By the end of the 2006–07 season, he had made 133 consecutive league appearances for United,[23] including every league match in the 2004–05 and 2005–06 seasons and every minute of the 2006–07 season

Stats from the season-

Defenders
2	DF		Leigh Bromby	20	0	12+5	0	1	0	2	0
4	DF		Claude Davis	22	0	18+3	0	0	0	1	0
5	DF		Chris Morgan	25	1	21+3	1	0	0	1	0
6	DF		Phil Jagielka	38	4	38	4	0	0	0	0
14	DF		David Sommeil	7	0	4+1	0	1	0	1	0
15	DF		Rob Kozluk	20	0	17+2	0	0	0	1	0
16	DF		Matthew Kilgallon	6	0	6

So whilst they only played 6 games together, maybe mine wasn’t the only memory faded by Father Time......

LoughboroBlade said they hadn't appeared together as a centre back pairing.

 

[metalblade]

I don't think Warnock's lot were a bad side although the squad was on the weak side. I think Hulse breaking his leg at Chelsea was the killer blow we just couldn't replace him. The main reason we failed though was Warnock's tactic of playing one up front away from home, after we lost Hulse we had no one who could play that role and Colin as ever didn't have a plan B.
The 2019 team is just as good but we do have more options to change the way we play and we do have a manager who can do that. Colin never did cut it at Premier League level I expect CW/AK to do a lot better we will not just be there to make the numbers up.

 

[LoughboroBlade]

LoughboroBlade said they hadn't appeared together as a centre back pairing.

They hadn’t. In each of the 6 games Kilgallon played not a single one involved he and Jagielka appearing at centre-back together – in fact anyone that actually remembers the reaction to Kilgallon at the time will recall that one of the annoying things about Warnock crow-barring him into the team at that stage was that it was at the expense of Jagielka in his much better centre-back role. The exception to that was his debut at Bolton, where he played at left-back (which I know I had assumed he’d been signed to play in, given our pursuit of Stephen Warnock).

The defence in Kilgallon’s PL games:

• Bolton A (L 1-0): Bromby, Jagielka, Lucketti, Kilgallon
• Man U A (L 2-0): Geary, Morgan, Kilgallon, Kozluk (Jagielka midfield)
• Charlton A (D 1-1): Geary, Morgan, Kilgallon, Armstrong (Jagielka midfield)
• Watford H (W 1-0): Geary, Morgan, Kilgallon, Armstrong (Jagielka midfield)
• Villa A (L 3-0): Geary, Morgan, Kilgallon, Armstrong (Jagielka midfield)
• Wigan H (L 2-1): Jagielka, Morgan, Kilgallon, Geary

Kilgallon was near to useless in his 6 games – Watford being the only instance where he looked solid, and that was I think more due to the woeful opponents. Had we gone with Morgan and Jagielka as the pairing in those 6 games Kilgallon played I suspect we would have stayed up.

 

[Sean Thornton]

They hadn’t. In each of the 6 games Kilgallon played not a single one involved he and Jagielka appearing at centre-back together – in fact anyone that actually remembers the reaction to Kilgallon at the time will recall that one of the annoying things about Warnock crow-barring him into the team at that stage was that it was at the expense of Jagielka in his much better centre-back role. The exception to that was his debut at Bolton, where he played at left-back (which I know I had assumed he’d been signed to play in, given our pursuit of Stephen Warnock).

The defence in Kilgallon’s PL games:

• Bolton A (L 1-0): Bromby, Jagielka, Lucketti, Kilgallon
• Man U A (L 2-0): Geary, Morgan, Kilgallon, Kozluk (Jagielka midfield)
• Charlton A (D 1-1): Geary, Morgan, Kilgallon, Armstrong (Jagielka midfield)
• Watford H (W 1-0): Geary, Morgan, Kilgallon, Armstrong (Jagielka midfield)
• Villa A (L 3-0): Geary, Morgan, Kilgallon, Armstrong (Jagielka midfield)
• Wigan H (L 2-1): Jagielka, Morgan, Kilgallon, Geary

Kilgallon was near to useless in his 6 games – Watford being the only instance where he looked solid, and that was I think more due to the woeful opponents. Had we gone with Morgan and Jagielka as the pairing in those 6 games Kilgallon played I suspect we would have stayed up.

I was in agreement with you lt looked to have been taken that they hadn’t played in the same team that season.

 

[LoughboroBlade]

I was in agreement with you lt looked to have been taken that they hadn’t played in the same team that season.

And I just wanted to reiterate how much I disagreed with the original “best centre-back pairing” comment, given 1. They never played as a pairing, and 2. Kilgallon was one of the poorest centre-backs we used that season...

 

[grafikhaus]

This guy's already done it. So you don't have to.

 

[Pinchy]

wiki on Killa-
Kilgallon signed for Premier League Sheffield United on 8 January 2007 for a £1.75 million fee, rising to £2 million with add-ons.[14] Despite recovering from an early injury,[citation needed] he did not make his debut until starting in a 1–0 loss away to Bolton Wanderers on 31 March 2007.[15]

Wiki on Jags-
By the end of the 2006–07 season, he had made 133 consecutive league appearances for United,[23] including every league match in the 2004–05 and 2005–06 seasons and every minute of the 2006–07 season

Stats from the season-

Defenders
2	DF		Leigh Bromby	20	0	12+5	0	1	0	2	0
4	DF		Claude Davis	22	0	18+3	0	0	0	1	0
5	DF		Chris Morgan	25	1	21+3	1	0	0	1	0
6	DF		Phil Jagielka	38	4	38	4	0	0	0	0
14	DF		David Sommeil	7	0	4+1	0	1	0	1	0
15	DF		Rob Kozluk	20	0	17+2	0	0	0	1	0
16	DF		Matthew Kilgallon	6	0	6

So whilst they only played 6 games together, maybe mine wasn’t the only memory faded by Father Time......

Never as a centre-back pairing, yet we’ve never had a better one? What false memories led you to that conclusion? It would, incidentally, be a very long way from the best even had it existed. I remember them in the same team at Aston Villa, where Ol’ Big Nose set out a team to lose by as few goals as possible. Both were absolutely dreadful, particularly Kilgallon.

 

[Pinchy]

And I just wanted to reiterate how much I disagreed with the original “best centre-back pairing” comment, given 1. They never played as a pairing, and 2. Kilgallon was one of the poorest centre-backs we used that season...

Yes, okay, but apart from that...

 

[Pinchy]

They hadn’t. In each of the 6 games Kilgallon played not a single one involved he and Jagielka appearing at centre-back together – in fact anyone that actually remembers the reaction to Kilgallon at the time will recall that one of the annoying things about Warnock crow-barring him into the team at that stage was that it was at the expense of Jagielka in his much better centre-back role. The exception to that was his debut at Bolton, where he played at left-back (which I know I had assumed he’d been signed to play in, given our pursuit of Stephen Warnock).

The defence in Kilgallon’s PL games:

• Bolton A (L 1-0): Bromby, Jagielka, Lucketti, Kilgallon
• Man U A (L 2-0): Geary, Morgan, Kilgallon, Kozluk (Jagielka midfield)
• Charlton A (D 1-1): Geary, Morgan, Kilgallon, Armstrong (Jagielka midfield)
• Watford H (W 1-0): Geary, Morgan, Kilgallon, Armstrong (Jagielka midfield)
• Villa A (L 3-0): Geary, Morgan, Kilgallon, Armstrong (Jagielka midfield)
• Wigan H (L 2-1): Jagielka, Morgan, Kilgallon, Geary

Kilgallon was near to useless in his 6 games – Watford being the only instance where he looked solid, and that was I think more due to the woeful opponents. Had we gone with Morgan and Jagielka as the pairing in those 6 games Kilgallon played I suspect we would have stayed up.

Those last two games demonstrated how totally out of his depth he was, him.

 

[LoughboroBlade]

I don't think Warnock's lot were a bad side although the squad was on the weak side. I think Hulse breaking his leg at Chelsea was the killer blow we just couldn't replace him. The main reason we failed though was Warnock's tactic of playing one up front away from home, after we lost Hulse we had no one who could play that role and Colin as ever didn't have a plan B.

I disagree. Plenty focus on the negative away tactics and the Hulse leg break as deciders – I don’t think either is actually the decider. I don’t think anyone can really guarantee that we’d have picked up anything more with 2 up front in games we played one. We went with 2 up front away to Charlton and could only get a draw, so I don’t know why it’s assumed that 2 up front would magically have given us better results.

Similarly, the Hulse break was obviously important, but it’s not accurate to say we didn’t really have an answer to it. Our best attacking performance of the season was, without a doubt, the 3-0 win over West Ham where Stead partnered Nade up front. For me, the lineup we put out that day was the best lineup we could have played without Hulse:

Kenny
Geary, Jagielka (c), Davis, Armstrong
Gillespie, Montgomery, Tonge, Kazim-Richards
Stead, Nade

The problem was that we after that performance decided to tweak and tinker too much with the lineup. Jagielka was moved to accommodate Kilgallon. Davis was injured, but the obvious replacement would have been Morgan. Shelton was suddenly introduced. Kazim-Richards started to find himself on the bench. Obviously the most obvious tinkering happened in the Wigan game but the other instances are what in my opinion saw us relegated.

That started with the Charlton game. Warnock had switched the team up at Old Trafford seemingly to try and give players a rest after the West Ham win. I remember thinking that was fine if we reverted to the previous lineup on the Saturday at Charlton. But we didn’t. Morgan was in for the still-injured Davis, which was fair enough. But Jagielka, put into midfield at Old Trafford, didn’t revert to defence – Kilgallon stayed there. Jagielka in midfield meant Tonge moved to the left (so CKR wasn’t brought back in). And up front Warnock seemed encouraged enough by Shelton’s performance at Old Trafford to keep him in over Nade. The result, in one of our most important games of the season, and our last good remaining chance at an away win, was that we were weaker in defence, midfield, and attack than we had been in the excellent West Ham game.

That’s why we were relegated in my opinion. We for some reason didn’t trust that lineup against West Ham again that season (even with just Morgan in for the injured Davis) and Warnock went into Ranieri-esque tinkerer mode to try and be too clever by half.

 

[Rudders]

He doesn't get a lot of love on here due to his last season playing for us but Tonge was excellent in the premier for us particularly good in wins against Wet Spam and Spuds towards the end of the season. Honourable mention to Hulse for the early season, was surprised how crap he made John Terry look. Think as he (Terry) was a media darling I expected him to be ace, but against us at home he was crap and Carvalho carried him all game (and most of his career maybe?!)