We have been defensively sound under Critchley in both his spells at the club, but he has not managed to construct an effective attacking unit, except perhaps for a spell when Ellis Simms and Jerry Yates proved too strong for L1 opponents. He's not making the most of the attacking players we've got, and Beesley Lavery Joseph and Kouassi were all players he was keen to bring to the club, and three of them cost us fees.
I think Joseph was valued at £1m and Bees we paid about 400k. He told us Joseph was a goal scoring no. 9. He believed Bees could step up from L2 to the Championship, when he hadn't even played many games in L2. At Rochdale, he looked like a decent L2 striker. They must've been shocked by how much they got for him. Gift horse.
All four named strikers have been held back by injuries this season, as well as Rhodes, so there's a strong element of bad luck, but the continued choice of CJ ahead of Gabriel and Apter is bewildering to me. And before we signed Coulson the left side was equally unproductive. The loss of Dougall stifled our momentum, and was unfortunate, and Morgan's injury was untimely too, so Critch has had some bad luck, certainly.
I think some people fail to see the things Critch is good at, and some fail to see his weaknesses. But his ultimate crime for me is turning the beautiful game into an endurance test that nobody enjoys, including the players. For that reason I wouldn't be sorry to see him go. I just want to enjoy watching football. With our budget and attendances we don't have a right to win all the time, or to compete in the Championship against bigger budgets, but nobody gives up their Saturdays to be bored rigid by repetitive dull football. Our recent record is
P10 W5 D2 L3 F6 A3 PTS 17
Teams struggle to score against us. We struggle to score. Are we stale and dull by design, or does Critch just not know how to put attractive football together?
Well, if you come out with bollocks like "Apter needs game time so we've sent him back", you either don't know what you're doing or you aren't strong enough to make the right calls, in my opinion. It's an absolute nonsense to suggest that Apter couldn't have offered us something different, and better, in the final third. And we might have made the play offs. He has excellent control, he can beat players, he can cross a ball, he can cut in, he assists regularly, and he scores goals. Let's continue to develop him at Tranmere. And extend CJ's contract. Jesus! It's verging on corruption.