You’re muddling him up with DeSouza I’m afraid.
Mark Stallard, more like!
I remember his hattrick in a 5-0 victory over Burnley on a Tuesday night in the very distant past.
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The other, perhaps bigger, point isn’t just the fact they were in the squad but they probably would have had a number of training sessions with the first team to prepare for the game.
They maybe academy players but giving them the trust to be in and around the first team even just for training, is the sort of motivation to get them working hard when they go back to the academy. If they catch the eye of the coach they may well find themselves on the bench/pickec in the tin Pot trophy squad
That’s actually an interesting point. Are we going into the season with only one left-back (ne that’s injured) again?
Not sure why we’ve only had one left-back maximum since JJ lost his place a few years back.
All that money spent and still no one to play left-back. It’s such a gaping hole in the squad it’s kind o f mind-blowing we don’t think having more than one player competent in that position might be helpful.
No, DeSouza bagged a hat trick in a 4 nil win up there in 1995.
Stallard played for Bradford though.
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I agree.
I think it’s great a handful of them got the chance to train and sit on the bench. My only point is that it’s not unusual, if anything it’s less than we’d normally expect. And this is totally justified.
Dodds has to focus on getting a first team to gel and that’s what he’s trying to do.
Burnley was a great night from memory!
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I didn’t realise it had to be against Bradford.
I think Stallard’s against Burnley is one of a tiny number of hat tricks I’ve seen in over 30 years as a fan.
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I have said fit before and I’ll say it again:
The way Dodds had us playing the last half of the season - and assuming it will be that formation this season - is that we will live and die by the quality of the full/wing backs. They are the vital positions for this sort of formation.
This is one of my fears for the season so far.
The other, which I am 99% sure is my own mind being scared by the memory of John Fucking Sutton, is that I’m not convinced players that have played in and around the Scottish premier league are good enough for league one.
I hope to be proven very wrong on that last one.
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You’re spot on about players from the Scottish league.
Who was that striker Ainsworth signed from Scotland who’d scored loads of goals the season before signing for us and was abysmal and completely out of his depth in League Two?
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The SPL is roughly L1 standard, i assume the Swiss and Belgian leagues are slightly above L1 but not by very much.
Yeah and I seem to remember there was a season Millwall were in our league and signed a load of Scottish prem players, heavily tipped for promotion and were crap.
I hope these signing work out, but wouldn’t most agree that the core of the Scottish national team would be championship level, so if we are signing players who don’t actually play for Scotland then logically they are league one at best?
Time will tell I guess.
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Was is Craig or something?
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One of my best mates is a Millwall season ticket holder and he still goes on about that season and it was literally 25 or so years ago!
Three big money Scottish moves and not one was a success. All hated with a passion by the fans.
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The obvious rebuttal on my point about Scottish premiership players is Van Dijk and Robertson. But I think they are very much the exceptions.
Rangers and Celtic are lower table Premiership. a couple of others are Championship. the rest are league one/two.
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I think Robertson was more Hull, or at least I think there was once a pic of a youthful looking Robertson with Harry McGuire which has led me to this conclusion!
There was also that Ikpeazu chap that seemed to do well for us in the championship when he wasn’t injured.
I just have to forget Sutton, and channel Uche.
He earned a move to hull after impressing at Dundee - was sold for just over 2 million pounds (he says like he knew and didn’t just read up quickly in Wikipedia)
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