Sandy Pate Best Stag wrote:Tippy Tappy Football wrote:stagmanrob wrote:And no matter how much Clough factors in Hawkins as a centre half, he scares the life out of the majority of us playing there, far more than Rawson ever did. If Rawson was susceptible to a mistake, then how do you judge Hawkins? He's a great option at centre half against the hoof ball teams, but beyond that, please god no.
Oli Hawkins would have chopped Josh Neufville down and prevented the 1st goal at Sutton
Nah, he wouldn’t have got close enough
I think you are probably correct though unless he expected the others to have him covered.
That is the issue with Hawkins actually. He has to be close enough as he is by far and away the slowest player on our books, so much so that all the banter from the other players is about his lack of pace.
I actually thought (as I believe so many others did as well -especially on here) that the switch to 3 centre halves was to accomodate Hawkins there to nullify his weaknesses.
With injuries, and enforced changes, Hawkins has rightfully found himself back where we all thought he should be.
There should be no doubt that he is better off as a striker now. Strikers are judged on goals to minute ratios.
Hawkins' ratio is already skewed because he spent most of the Derby game at centre half. He was thrown up front and pretty quickly showed what he could do. His goal against Sutton was also a goal that I don't feel any other players we have in attacking roles would have stuck away.
So thus far, his minutes played actually up front to goal ratio would be quite good.
So now Hawkins is cementing a place up front (where he should be) then why do we need to persevere with 3 at the back? If we all thought it was for his benefit, it appears that can't be the case if he isn't playing there....it looks as though it is strangely a tactical decision by Clough - baffling if so given the success we had not playing such last season?!?
I say all this, and you just know he'll be in the middle of a back three at Donny now