It’s a real hope of mine that he does. That move to Celtic was a complete disaster. Wasted 4 years. He looked bloody good at Bolton as a 17 year old in the Championship.Quote:
Originally Posted by third policeman
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It’s a real hope of mine that he does. That move to Celtic was a complete disaster. Wasted 4 years. He looked bloody good at Bolton as a 17 year old in the Championship.Quote:
Originally Posted by third policeman
No, I'm in Limerick toes to the fire here, couple of days only. But both if I was there, go big as they say.Quote:
Originally Posted by SkStu
I don't see it, no. Inconsistent, still waiting for him to grow into his shoulders and find his voice, very quiet on the field. Definitely the odd nice pass & eye for goal though too. Maybe he'd fare better in a better side. Rumours of players leaving in January, bills to pay so let's see if he's one of those. He wasn't when the club got relegated.
Great to see Luca Connell have a good start to life at Barnsley after a few wasted years at Celtic.
Barnsley in 4th at the minute with a decent chance of sustaining a promotion challenge. If that happens he's already be playing at a higher level than SPL.
I'd love to see a ballsy managerial move promoting a guy like Connell to the senior squad so the senior squad can be the making of him, not his club. Not very likely given that players not getting PL minutes or getting very close to it are being iognored when we play Malta in a friendly.
Can he play in the hole ( 10) ? then yesQuote:
Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
Super finish and well-confident. Looks to be on set-piece duty too, set up a beauty of a cross which the cb somehow stuck wide.Quote:
Originally Posted by SkStu
The worry though, was that the Posh equaliser (as pointed out by Crafty above). If Luca was a sitting midfielder (i.e. protecting, tracking runs) then he failed badly, as tailor covered the entire middle third and got onto the end of the cross for lovely finish in the same time it took Luca to get from the centre circle to the edge of the box without ever looking behind him once. really bad awareness there - or effort - hard to tell which.
We have plenty of legs in our exiting midfield options. It’s guile we’re lacking and that appears to be what Connell offers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kingdom
Much as it's nice to see Connell doing well again after his disastrous Celtic move I still wouldn't be rushing him into the senior squad any time soon. We know he's a lovely ball player and has a decent shot as well, but we also know that he's seriously lacking in other areas of his game.
I don't think he has the engine to be a serious player at senior international level - he'd be the equivalent of playing with a man short off the ball against anyone decent. Worse still, I'm not sure some of his issues are fixable with good coaching - if he doesn't have the pace and engine to play at a high level there isn't much that he or anyone else can do about that.
There’s a lot of surmising about Connell’s lack of pace and stamina on not a great deal of evidence. He’s been an effective player at both Championship and League 1 level and is still young enough to develop. ‘Engine’ is a bit of a vague concept. Does it mean pace or stamina / fitness. The latter is certainly fixable with training, the former is an issue, but there have been players over the years who’s technique and awareness made up for lack of pace. How many times have we cried out for the clever pass, the lateral vision, the little bit of guile required to unlock the low block. Abilities that those endowed with engines simply don’t posses. Even as an option of the bench, it would add to a squad whose midfield options are depressingly monochrome and predictable.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eirambler
I think we need to be careful as to how effective he was at Championship level. He played in a Bolton side that was falling apart - in his 10 appearances they got 1 point and scored 3 goals. I'm not sure how effective anyone in that team was. That's an appalling run of form.
(Bolton did win three games after the New Year, but Connell didn't play any of them)
Effective enough to get a call up to train with the international squad and was highly rated by Bolton fans at the time. Let’s see what happens, but he’s currently playing in a team that’s above Jason Knight’s Derby.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
We've called up some dross before in fairness - Alan O'Brien, Joe Ó Cearúill, Joey Lapira. Looking at the start of this thread there's a suspicion he was given an early call-up to test his allegiance too (which is fair).
Was he highly rated by Bolton fans? There's been plenty of players highly-rated on here before don't forget. This thread is fairly empty around his time at Bolton, an assist on his debut aside. Not surprising given they lost all their other games and barely scored.
It was good exposure at the time but I wouldn't read too much into it. He seems to be doing well for himself this year as you say, and that's more interesting, albeit that I still don't like seeing third tier players in the national squad.
he needs to play at a higher level alright. celtic mismanaged him but facts are he wasnt doing a whole pile at an awful level in scotland. we are creeping into "hes better the longer hes not called up " territory here with him. let him enjoy his football for the year and see what level he lands at next year. agree with stu though , calling up more L1 players isnt a good thing and should be avoided as much as possible IMO.
I’d actually agree with all of that, I have a hunch about Connell but I agree he needs to be playing at a higher level and demonstrating consistency before he becomes a viable option. He’d been written off on this forum when he was in the wilderness at Celtic. The move to Barnsley was a bit of a surprise and their confidence in his seems to be paying dividends at the minute. He’s the type of player we’re missing, but I agree it’s still promise at this stage.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jd2793
Totally agree about not being ready for a call-up at this point in time. Great to see him trucking along and finding a consistent game time and performances but he is not the answer to any of the questions we are asking at the minute.
Pineapple Stu - - take this for what its worth but a very good friend of mine here is a staunch Bolton fan and well connected to those back there and he still remembers him and the buzz around him at the time. Said he was a bright spot in a really poor season and that he was one that the fans felt a future team could be built around. They were really gutted when he left for Celtic. The hard stats you shared mightn't back it up but i'd trust this guys take on it.
Named as Barnsley's December Player of the Month
https://www.barnsleyfc.co.uk/news/20...-of-the-month/
Absolutely crazy that Celtic sent him to the fourth tier of the Scottish league to play football.
Looks like Barry Cotter will be joining him.
Fee in the region of a Premier League player's bar bill
https://www.independent.ie/sport/soc...-42295580.html
I loved watching Cotter at Rovers. He added a bit of dynamic chaos in flat games.
Might have been the making of him.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eirambler
Doubt it to be honest. Cost him a couple years of development at an appropriate standard more likely.
Another good performance in Barnsley’s win yesterday, with glowing comments linked at the bottom.
Takes them in to the play-offs. Great to see some young midfield guile emerging for us from the top six, alongside Knight, in him and Azaz (3 assists in 70 minutes), who looks really impressive.
https://barnsleyfc.org.uk/threads/th...season.319120/
More positive reviews and a MOTM performance for Luca tonight. Seems to be thriving. Good to see.
One of the fans on the match thread at the forum MIW linked above said “he’s been our best player this season by miles”.
Adds an assist from a set piece. Lads on fire.
Too good for League 1?
Some will say he only played ten games and got his game because Bolton were a mess but he showed some quality during those games in the Championship.
Curtis Flemming was bigging him up on OTB after Mick called him up as Bolton's best player when they played Boro. Pity he had to waste his time playing at a **** level Scotland for a couple of seasons.
Its pretty impressive he's gone from the level he was playing at to standing out in League 1. It does show the natural ability he has and hopefully he'll be a championshop level player at least in the next couple years. Hopefully he's got himself a new agent at this stage.
In the next couple of years? Barnsley are in contention for play offs so that's an outside chance of promotion. But he's still only 21 and there are very few midfielders of his type doing very well at League One level. Surely there's a good chance he moves on in summer if they don't go up?Quote:
Originally Posted by Exgrad
I think he could do a job at celticQuote:
Originally Posted by Olé Olé
I saw this article about Evan Ferguson and Andrew Moran floating around on twitter this week.
https://trainingground.guru/articles...Zw2e1U.twitter
To be fair, Ferguson was always likely to come good anyway, but it was interesting to read the work they have done at Brighton to get the best possible outcome for Moran.
"Talent management was really important though - where he played, how long for, who he played with, what his strength and conditioning programme was going to be like, what psychology support he needed.
The club put together a bespoke programme for the midfielder, overseen by Morling, which covered S&C, sport science, psychology, nutrition and coaching. Communication between the different departments was key, to ensure everyone was working towards the same goal.
“We had multi-disciplinary meetings and information went daily and weekly across the departments, so that everyone knew what they’re doing," Morling remembered. "Then it comes to a stage where you dip him into the 23s, he has a bit of first team training, and all the while you're careful about how much game time he gets where.
“The talent management of 18s to 23s to first team has to be fluid and you have to have people in between each, with someone on top to make sure each stage is being done in the right way for the right reasons."
Quite a contrast to the "chuck him in the B team and then send him to Queen's Park for two years" approach used by Celtic with Connell.
Read that last night and enjoyed it. As Morling said it's no surprise that Brighton have had the most homegrown minutes of any team in the premier league in recent seasons.
The part about Will Clark asking Morling to look at Moran because no on will look at him because he's tiny hits home as we had young lads playing for us that even got overlooked for district teams and Limerick fc at the time because of their size but technically they were very good. Hopefully Moran makes it because he's the type of 10 that we've been crying out for. Similar would add Vata into that because he's the one that's impressed me most from that 2005 group along with Ferizaj.
I think Barnsley deserve a lot of credit for taking a chance with a player who had been cast into the wilderness at Celtic. Good to see that it's paying off. Always had a good feeling that Connell would come good. Would be very surprised if he didn't get full caps in due course.Quote:
Originally Posted by Olé Olé
Connell being lauded once again in the Barnsley fan forum’s MOTM poll after beating Portsmouth to go fourth. Great experience gained this season at just 21. At this rate, him and Azaz could progress to pair with Cullen in our future midfield three…
https://barnsleyfc.org.uk/threads/ga...chimes.319992/
Some seriously positive comments on there alright. Hard to believe so many people were quick to shout down anyone who questioned Celtics judgement or shared what they had observed of him in The Championship and L1 player for Bolton as a 17 year old. Either way, hope he keeps progressing as he has been over the last 9 months. Great ceiling with this guy.
He should be, but won’t be, selected for the squad. He’s excelling in a League where Knight is hardly pulling up trees.Quote:
Originally Posted by SkStu
Apart from pace, he has the tools to be a top player. He reminds me a bit of Andy Reid. Not weight related. Andy played in a deeper midfield role for a while and was able to make space for himself to spread the ball with his left and pick out some great passes. Hopefully Luca keeps progressing. He's in the frame for a call up.
Great to see him going well, but I'd say he's a good bit off a senior callup all the same. Just too many others ahead of him and playing at a higher level at this point in time. Hopefully he can get himself up to the Championship before long and then he'll have a better chance to make his case for selection.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eirambler
So who is ahead of him? Browne, Hendrick, Hourihane, McGrath, Brady? Hardly an all-star cast. Connell is making more impact in League 1 than Knight, and apart from Cullen and maybe Molumby he is a more promising prospect than the mediocrities and has-beens who have been squad regulars. He also offers something completely different, the kind of guile and creativity that we lack and that could feed Ferguson and Obafemi with the supply that might otherwise be lacking from our midfield artisans.
Depends where you're planning to play him, but as a 6 he'd be behind Cullen, Coventry and Hodge. Molumby can drop back there too.
If you're looking at him as an 8 he's probably behind Knight, Molumby, Smallbone, Browne and Sykes. Most of those are established Championship players, he's down in League 1. If he can step up a division successfully he could come into contention alright. But, right now, he's a long way off.