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Connolly


Rod Le Shearer
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..Was horrible last night - and has been ever since our first couple of games this season ! Recently he hasnt shown any glimps of any imaginable quality to justify his place in the team.

No pace, no strength, finishing like a schoolgirl, passing/decisions like a half-wit. Granted, he gets a couple of tap-ins now and then, but so would any other striker feeding of Lambert, Lallana & co.

No wonder Adkins is looking for new strikers. We need a back up for Rickie, and a new striker to partner him. Two strikers, Nigel, and promotion will be much more likely. Only Rickie is a forward good enough for a top two championship club, with Guly as an acceptable option for some games.

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He's hardly going to win a 50-50 with Matt Mills FFS; but can be very effective if he has a target to play off as he showed at Forest and Brighton *****il Lambert went off). Definitely has something to offer but we need a more reliable option there -a player who can play with and without Lambert.

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Oddly enough (given his experience) he seems to be the first player to shrink when we are under pressure. He performes reasonably well when the team is playing well, but is too often the biggest underperformer when the team is having a bad day. Anybody else noticed this ? This suggests to me he is relying on the rest of the team, and doesnt really add any value in his own right.

I wouldnt want him on the bench either,as he isnt an impact player. Release him ASAP, and use the wages on someone who make things happen,rather than waiting for things to happen.

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It's harsh to say he's been poor since the first couple of games. Was fantastic at Forest last week, and like above, the whole team was poor last night so it's hardly fair to single anybody out.

 

We all know we need another striker. He missed linking up with Lallana it seemed. Him and Guly did okay but the final ball was lacking.

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I've been saying it for months and I haven't changed my mind; Connolly is one of our best players when we are playing brilliantly. If we are anything less than brilliant he goes missing. It would be unfair to pick him out for last night, although he was our worst player along with Harding IMO, however he was never going to score. Lambert, one decent cross or a free kick and we might have nicked a goal. Guly can find himself a yard of space and nick a goal when you least expect it. Other players have a bit of pace or trickery which makes them a threat, but not Connolly. If you stick it on a plate he is a good finisher (see Boro and Forest) but otherwise I don't rate him.

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If the gift from Leicester had fallen to a player like Nugent instead of Connolly we'd have gone 1 up and the whole match would have been different. You don't get gifts like that very often and you just have to take them,a few minutes after Nugent blasts one in from a similar range and it's goodnight nurse.Connolly had time to take it forward a couple of strides and hammer it past Schmeichel, a class player doesn't miss those. Connolly is vastly overated.

 

Other than that, all our chances fell to midfielders or defenders, why aren't our "strikers" getting on to the end of that stuff.

 

Midfield always get the blame but they can't be "à la foire et au moulin"

Edited by Window Cleaner
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Basically the forward problem we have is that we only have 4 forwards at the entire club capable of doing a job at this level Lambert, Guly, Barnard and Connelly (I don't count Doble as an option as when I've seen him he was not any where near). We went into the season with 2 of our 4 option having major issues- Connelly injury prone and old (he cost us nothing so anything from him over the last 3 years has been a bonus), Barnard injured and other non football related issues. Basically any fool can see that you can't go into a season expecting to get promoted from the NPC with basically 2 competent forwards. IMO we have been 2 strikers light all season and you can't expect to spend a total of £2.5M on a strike force to get out of this division - this is the problem!

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He needs the better players around him, when he links up with Cork, Lallana and Lambert he is a brilliant player. Isolate him like last night it is pointless playing him. I think we need a forward to play off the last defender and this isn't his strength his is creating space and losing defenders which requires better players to pick you out (granted he has missed whilst doing this) Last night he was **** because the whole team were, especially the midfield and full backs who decided against the passing game partly due to the pressure Leicester's top 6 put on them.

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Actually Connolly and Guly both had half decent games last night, specially 2nd half (difficult for me to see much of what they were doing 1st half, wrong end of the pitch). No decent support from midfield, but both were working tirelessly to make things happen. They are not great as a pair though to be fair. Some of the things Connolly was doing in the 2nd half were high class, but no-one else on the pitch was quick enough or alert enough to take advantage, AL and RL are very much on the same wavelength as Connolly and so it works better when the three of them (or even two of them) are together. Granted Connolly scuffed one decent chance he had, which is not good, but you cannot fault him getting into good positions or for his workrate. I heard someone text into Solent saying he was gash, maybe it was the OP. Anyone who thinks he is gash really doesn't have a clue. He was a mildly bright spot in an otherwise totally crap performance.

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Bit harsh on Connolly, service was really bad.

 

He should have done better with the chance he had but even that was from their mistake rather then us creating anything.

 

We need an option when Lambert is missing to win the ball in the air, Guly and Connolly were never to going to win anything and our midfield or the full backs didn't really supply too much too feet.

 

The only decent balls were the inswinging crosses from Fox on long distance free kicks creating the only other chances.

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Can't verify this but I heard that Connolly's mother died on Sunday so fair play to him for playing, but not entirely surprising if he was somewhat distracted.

 

Blimey, fair play to the lad if true. FWIW I did think he looked a bit distant and distracted, didn't seem to be quite on the same wave length at times. Not suprsing if that's the case!

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Can't verify this but I heard that Connolly's mother died on Sunday so fair play to him for playing, but not entirely surprising if he was somewhat distracted.

 

It was announced she was taken ill for the Forest game with Adkins making a point of saying fair play to the lad for coming out for the game (as by the sounds of it the club was fine to let him have the time off). Very sad for the guy if she just passed away.

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  • 9 years later...

Hate to necro a thread since I'm not long here, but....

David Connonlly is doing co-commentary tonight. Before the game, the Harry Kane stroy came up, along with gentleman's agreements. Connolly said he had such an agreement with Saints. That a new contract was on the table for him, as he dealt with his dying mother and he needn't worry about it. Then he had an (other) knee injury and that agreement vanished. Instead he was released.

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19 minutes ago, Holmes_and_Watson said:

Hate to necro a thread since I'm not long here, but....

David Connonlly is doing co-commentary tonight. Before the game, the Harry Kane stroy came up, along with gentleman's agreements. Connolly said he had such an agreement with Saints. That a new contract was on the table for him, as he dealt with his dying mother and he needn't worry about it. Then he had an (other) knee injury and that agreement vanished. Instead he was released.

To be fair to the club, not sure we expected him to get injured getting down to pray.

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1 hour ago, Holmes_and_Watson said:

David Connonlly is doing co-commentary tonight. Before the game, the Harry Kane stroy came up, along with gentleman's agreements. Connolly said he had such an agreement with Saints. That a new contract was on the table for him, as he dealt with his dying mother and he needn't worry about it. Then he had an (other) knee injury and that agreement vanished. Instead he was released.

Interesting anecdote and to revisit the background on the original thread, I didn't know about any of that. I only recall he struggled for injury with us. Seems a bit shocking but not entirely surprising, tough decisions have to be made sometimes and we let go a lot of decent performers as we went up the divisions. In the strikers department alone we also showed the door to Barnard and Sharp despite all of them providing useful contributions in their short times here. Can't blame him if it left a bitter taste in the mouth though.

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