What’s happened to Jones?

MidlandsBoroFan

MidlandsBoroFan

Well-known member
Obviously has had a brilliant season and I don’t want to knock him. But he hasn’t looked the same player since his illness. Sometimes teams are doubling up on him, which is fair enough. But even 1 on 1 he always just playing the simple pass inside at the moment. Not many times recently where he just went for it against a full back, when earlier this season he was doing it every 5 or 10 minutes in a game.
 
Crooks losing form, or not playing is what has happened to Jones.
Also refs have sussed the diving - reputation being formed.
 
BlindBoyGrunt said:
He was showing signs before the illness. He doesn't seem to have the same energy or appetite for taking on players. As mentioned above, losing the service of Crooks hasn't helped him, but his head seems to be down.
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Exactly this. Even in a 1 on 1 his heart doesn’t seem to be in it to have a run.
 
I noticed a few weeks before he was out he seemed to be looking for the pass back, and not making a forward run, rather than getting his head down and taking players on
 
If he went further forward and put the cross in today, it would have been to the invisible man and nobody else.

We were so unbelievably slow in approach play that nothing was going to work after we let them mark up and crowd the box in such a gentlemanly fashion.
 
He was on his own in Darlington station not long after the game, looking pretty glum.
 
He missed Crooks today. There was a moment early into the game where he had the ball, hesitated and looked down the line, expecting somebody to make an overlapping run but McGree wasn't on the same page.
 
Sadly and typically for on here anybody who tried to have a sensible conversation about Jones when the hype went supersonic was branded a heretic and ‘anti Boro’. I tried to say some time ago comparing Jones to Spence was simply wrong as Spence was some way ahead in terms of development and experience. Spence is a £20 million player at the moment Jones isn’t. Don’t say he may not be one day but not at this time. Jones is just learning his trade. He has played perhaps 30 or 40 games at a good level. He played really well for a spell and understandably we got excited. He seems to be playing by numbers though at the moment not the spontaneous and unpredictable player as he was when fresh and therefore he is not as effective. This could be because he is playing to tighter instruction or being specifically targeted by opposition or simply that he is shattered. He isn’t taking people on anywhere near as much as he did, preferring to consistently drop the pass back to someone 3 feet away. He is going to ground a lot more as well - once today he tried to get a penalty with a really embarrassing drive. He is having to grow up fast and carry the pressure of being the Messiah on who are hopes depend. It’s a lot to place on such inexperienced shoulders. Let’s let him breathe and see what happens.
 
MidlandsBoroFan said:
Obviously has had a brilliant season and I don’t want to knock him. But he hasn’t looked the same player since his illness. Sometimes teams are doubling up on him, which is fair enough. But even 1 on 1 he always just playing the simple pass inside at the moment. Not many times recently where he just went for it against a full back, when earlier this season he was doing it every 5 or 10 minutes in a game.
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Just getting back in to it that’s all
Give him a chance
 
He's doubled and sometimes tripled up on every game now. Unless he gets the ball in a position where he has a run on the defender it's really tough to go past them and they tend to stay really tight to him as a result, which means he end up coming deeper for the ball.

The bigger problem, and has been almost all season, is that we dont have enough creativity from other areas.
 
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