I know what you are getting at Rene but I think the rest of the back 4 and Scales certainly should be included in the hard work club.
With Clunan and Butterfield I don’t think it’s a question of work ethic but rather the kind of players that they are. When opposition put 4 in midfield and make it a battle (like Boston did in the second half and in their home game) we stop dominating the ball and rarely win it back in midfield. Jimmy then tends to pull the wide forwards inside to help the midfield. Neither Smith, Roberts, Laws or Wilson are particularly good at suddenly becoming combatative midfielders and we lose our creativity and most of our goal threat. Also Elliott/Whitehall then become the only out ball. The full backs stop bombing on which again reduces our threat and choices of outball.
Have seen this happen in way too many away games as well as the occasional home game.
Easy from the stands of course but if you are trying to hang on to games you need to sacrifice Butterfield and one of the wide forwards and replace with 2 combatative midfielders. Shrimpton is the only one we have at the moment so Pugh would have to come back to be the other.
The other alternative (and the one I would favour) is to stick to plan A. Stick to our shape and style and trust we can score more goals than most NLN opposition. Yes you are going to lose 1 or 2 games with the criticism that comes with that but I think we would win an awful lot more than we would lose. Winning 2 and losing 1 every 3 games gets you very close to winning the league. 3 draws in 3 games drags you into the middle of the play off pack.
The make up of our squad is totally geared for Plan A. Time to be brave Jimmy. What would your hero Jurgen do? His team got battered for 45 minutes yesterday but he kept his front 3 up there and ended up winning because they had better quality up front.
