Matt Crooks

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B_G

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Definitely not the player he was last season under Warnock. What's changed?

I noticed on Saturday against Rotherham that he looked as if he'd been asked to sit a lot deeper. It looked as if he was instructed to sit alongside Howson, with Mcgree pushing a bit higher up the pitch.

That's not his game at all. When he first came he was a genuine box to box midfielder. He was hitting tackles in our own half but also driving in the box and scoring goals at the other end. He doesn't seem to do either now. What is going wrong? Is it the system? Did he ever fully recover from Covid? (That's when it all seemed to go wrong and he definitely doesn't seem to have the same engine now). Is he unhappy? Was he just in a purple patch and are we now seeing the real Crooks?
 
TeaCider said:
Played deeper on Saturday to make us more solid defensively, which worked as it was the first game of the season where we never at any point looked like conceding.

He's on 2 goals and 2 assists from 9 games.

Last season he was on 2 goals and 0 assists from his first 9 games.
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Don't come on here bringing logic and facts into the equation and letting them get in the way of a good old bit of flak! ;)
 
No tav to do the running so he looks static and cumbersome.

I think this goal threat is a little over blown as well.
 
TeaCider said:
Played deeper on Saturday to make us more solid defensively, which worked as it was the first game of the season where we never at any point looked like conceding.

He's on 2 goals and 2 assists from 9 games.

Last season he was on 2 goals and 0 assists from his first 9 games.
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Surprised by those stats... didn't realise he hadn't scored in his first 9 games last season.

Irrelevant of the goals and assists during those games, he without doubt played better in those first 9 games last season. I remember watching him in the first few games of the season and thinking that we had really got a diamond in him. He stood out and I'm sure will have got a few motm awards.

I don't think he's stood out once this season. He hasn't been terrible by any means, but I just don't think he's influencing games as much as what he was this time last year.

Agree with the point that we looked more solid on Saturday and we definitely needed to address the fact we have been leaking goals, but not sure its the best use of Crooks. If we need to play 2 holding midfielders in front of a back 3 to become solid at home we have problem with personnel. That means either Howson isn't good enough anymore to be playing that holding role or something is badly wrong in the back 3.
 
TeaCider said:
Played deeper on Saturday to make us more solid defensively, which worked as it was the first game of the season where we never at any point looked like conceding.

He's on 2 goals and 2 assists from 9 games.

Last season he was on 2 goals and 0 assists from his first 9 games.
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I find your use of objective and rational option entirely out of place on this message board, please cease and desist at once!

It usually the case when the team is struggling to start irrationally criticising players.

Crooks has been a brilliant signing, but of course he has some strengths and weaknesses like all players, more so at this level.

He's struggled a little since covid I think, but the form of the team has impacted on his levels, as it naturally has with others, but he's a physical presence, looks after the ball way better than some acknowledge and of course adds goals and assists.

Wilder would be crazy to leave him out.
 
Crooks best position is behind the striker, making those late runs into the box.

I don't think him sitting deep in midfield alongside Howson will continue, nor will it continue to work.

Personally, I think we need to drop McGree, put Crooks behind the front 2, and have Howson plus 1 other sitting, allowing the wingbacks to push on.
 
Jonny Ingbar said:
I find your use of objective and rational option entirely out of place on this message board, please cease and desist at once!

It usually the case when the team is struggling to start irrationally criticising players.

Crooks has been a brilliant signing, but of course he has some strengths and weaknesses like all players, more so at this level.

He's struggled a little since covid I think, but the form of the team has impacted on his levels, as it naturally has with others, but he's a physical presence, looks after the ball way better than some acknowledge and of course adds goals and assists.

Wilder would be crazy to leave him out.
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Just to be clear, I aren't suggesting he's left out the first team at all. More of a question of how do we get the best out of him again. Because I don't think we are at the minute.

Do you think his performances are at the same level as they were in the first half of last season?
 
B_G said:
Surprised by those stats... didn't realise he hadn't scored in his first 9 games last season.

Irrelevant of the goals and assists during those games, he without doubt played better in those first 9 games last season. I remember watching him in the first few games of the season and thinking that we had really got a diamond in him. He stood out and I'm sure will have got a few motm awards.

I don't think he's stood out once this season. He hasn't been terrible by any means, but I just don't think he's influencing games as much as what he was this time last year.

Agree with the point that we looked more solid on Saturday and we definitely needed to address the fact we have been leaking goals, but not sure its the best use of Crooks. If we need to play 2 holding midfielders in front of a back 3 to become solid at home we have problem with personnel. That means either Howson isn't good enough anymore to be playing that holding role or something is badly wrong in the back 3.
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We do have a problem with personnel.

We've got a 34 year old as our main DM, somebody who had never really played as a defensive midfielder before joining us.
Howson was largely good for us in that position last season, but it wasn't what we'd bought him for and you can see he's struggling a bit more in the position this season.
That's not Howson's fault, it's the club's.

Our recruitment team badly let us down in the summer by not signing a replacement who actually specialises in that position.

His competition is now an injury prone 30 year old who's not played in months.
 
TeaCider said:
We do have a problem with personnel.

We've got a 34 year old as our main DM, somebody who had never really played as a defensive midfielder before joining us.
Howson was largely good for us in that position last season, but it wasn't what we'd bought him for and you can see he's struggling a bit more in the position this season.
That's not Howson's fault, it's the club's.

Our recruitment team badly let us down in the summer by not signing a replacement who actually specialises in that position.

His competition is now an injury prone 30 year old who's not played in months.
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Do you think Crooks' performances are the same level as last season?
 
I'd be interested to see Crooks running stats from last season compared to this, my bet is he is running at least 10% more, which will be effecting his impact on the last third of the pitch. His body frame isn't suited to the '8' role, last season he was covered by the understanding with Jones & Djiksteel covering for his weakness in recovering, plus he doesn't have Tav doing the majority of the midfields recovery runs. He's generally blowing out of his **** after 60 mins, not surprising having to haul a 6'4" 15st body constantly in 20 yard doggies cos we can't keep the ball generally for more than 3 passes
 
Because your first response (along with H_O) implies that I have incorrectly made the observation that he isn't playing at the same level he was last season. I'm glad we've cleared that up.

My post was to open a discussion about why that is? There's no need to get overly defensive. It seems you believe that Howson is the problem and Crooks is having to take on more defensive responsibility. I think that's fair and probably correct.

Hammies_Tash said:
I'd be interested to see Crooks running stats from last season compared to this, my bet is he is running at least 10% more, which will be effecting his impact on the last third of the pitch.
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Would be interesting to see this as you are right, he looks completely blown constantly. But he has done since he had covid...
 
The weaknesses in Crook's game is he can't run and he's not very good at recovering the ball.

He's a player who wants to already be in position when we have possession. He wants to receive the ball, pass the ball out wide to Jones, and make his way into the box at his own pace... We seen it all season last year, and he's very good at it. Jones runs to the byline to cross and it gave Crooks an extra 5-10 seconds every time...

The problem with wanting to play like this is, if we lose the ball, someone has to recover it.
Tav had one of the highest recovery ratings in the league last season, and Howsons was pretty high too.
So Crooks biggest weakness in his game was always masked out, because that weakness was one of Tavs biggest strengths.

Without Tav, and with Howson arguably a little bit slower at recovering this season... Crooks has to adapt his game to compensate. I think Mowatt is also having to adapt his game in the same way.

I'd also love to see running stats of Dijksteel in the RCB position vs. McNair, because I think Crooks has to compensate even more defensively when McNair plays too.

He's not being allowed to play the game he wants to play, or the game he's good at anymore.... He's almost like a spare part.
 
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I think @TeaCider is right, I think he's being used in a deeper position to stop us being overrun in midfield.

He seemed to play higher up the pitch 2nd half vs Rotherham, so the plan was probably to keep things tight 1st half and ensure we don't concede, then have a go in the 2nd half.

A lot of this is a result of no longer having a player like Tav in the midfield. We don't have a player who can track back and win the ball now.

I'd be tempted to try Luongo in place of Crooks to be honest. I think McGree is going to score near enough as many goals as Crooks did last season so how much longer can we justify playing Crooks purely on his goalscoring ability.
 
B_G said:
Because your first response (along with H_O) implies that I have incorrectly made the observation that he isn't playing at the same level he was last season. I'm glad we've cleared that up.

My post was to open a discussion about why that is? There's no need to get overly defensive. It seems you believe that Howson is the problem and Crooks is having to take on more defensive responsibility. I think that's fair and probably correct.



Would be interesting to see this as you are right, he looks completely blown constantly. But he has done since he had covid...
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I thought he was fairly poor at the start of last season, getting shifted round various positions from right wing, centre mid, striker. He only came good when settled into his current midfield role, which came under Wilder.

So a drop of form now compared with the peaks of last season, but not compared with the same time last year that you said.
 
Crooks, he chips in with the odd goal now and then, and some people think he's a world beater.. he is.. and was... and always will be a bang average midfielder...

Strengths... scores the odd goal, puts himself about a bit...

Weaknesses... Cannot trap a bag of cement, loses the ball due to his poor 1st touch, poor at tracking back due to his lack of pace, has to foul constantly when caught out of possession, giving away silly free kicks and picking up yellow cards...

The problem with Crooks is more apparent, now we are lacking any pace in midfield, thanks to Mowatt Howson making up the 3 Midfielders...
 
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