Dom Blizzard

He is now fit and I think that is the difference.

Keepitgreen":1hr5u7t5 said:

Interesting you should say that of Blizzard. The rest of the squad rate him very highly.

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I posted this 3 weeks ago on the reserve game thread. We're now beginning to see what the players see.

We are. I'm eating humble pie because what we're seeing now is a whole new player.

It's a mixture of having all defensive responsibilities removed (because he's certainly not a defensive player) and also his fitness. He's been so refreshing to see.

He ran our midfield today and should have won man of the match. A completely different player to the lost defensive midfielder who couldn't win a tackle a year ago, now as others have said above he's fit again and being played in a more creative role and not shoehorned into a midfield pairing alongside Hourihane.

I think the introduction of Thomas also helped him hugely, suddenly we had an outlet, a player running down the wing offering both an option for a ball forwards but also dragging defenders out with him away from our normally under-pressure midfield, with Banton and Lewi we have two wide players who do most of their running on the ball but off it seem very stationary, leaving us with very little forward momentum going forwards. I also noticed the same effect with the introduction of Purrington, a natural left-back who isn't afraid to go forwards. Certainly at the start of the game where we were looking to take the lead he overlapped Lewi once or twice giving us that forward momentum on the wings that we've severely lacked this season with Mellor and McHugh, who aren't overly keen on making a run forward with or without the ball.

I like the look of our team, I've never doubted the ability of the players JS has at his disposal. If he gets them playing as they did today on a consistent basis there's no reason why we can't start challenging for the playoffs, of course it's just one game but it's a positive sign to see the team attacking the opposition for the full 90 for once. There are still improvements we could have made on today and it helped that Hartlepool offered very little challenge, but it's a start :scarf:

i voted him as man of the match with nathan a close second.blizzard "hit" him frequently on the left and with nathans natural ambition to go forward(mr sheridan please note), he will cause havoc this season.i would also play tyler harvey in place of alessandra,another "natural" in my opinion

Feel like seeing last season's Hourihane. Both of them are largely improved by the start of season, and score sometimes. I am expecting Dom can lure the promotion for us.

Apparently he was an important player in helping Yeovil get promotion when he was there a couple of seasons back so hopefully we're starting to see the form we signed him for.

This thread is a joke. He was written off months ago as a terrible signing. No way could the fans be jumping to an early conclusion....

He's done well this season so far, but let's see what happens after a few more games. Jumping in and calling him rubbish is as bad as jumping in early and saying he's brilliant. Always knew there was something in him but let's judge over a prolonged period rather than a couple games. Rather see praise than abuse obviously however.

I have come to the conclusion that many of our fans are poor at spotting talent and potential. I exclude myself of course.

Amazing such a bad man manager has managed to stick with him through thick and thin.

The thread on Blizzard started on 06 Sep 14 is well worth a retrospective look! Some real accurate judgements made that day - and a few that don't look so good without the infallible gift of hindsight! However, many of the contributors recognised that fitness is the key and that he may well now be properly fit for the first time since he joined.

Had a few reasonable games now but I'm still unconvinced by him though. He only has 1 pace and lets just say its not going to be a threat to Usain Bolt.

Better now he is fit and got a few games under his belt but not the world beater some people are heralding on here.

If promotion rides on his shoulders I fear we are Doooooomed !

i liken him to steve adams and i rated him very highly.

Steve Evans":23oggsns said:

i liken him to steve adams and i rated him very highly.

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O'Connor is more like Adams. I was pretty young at the time but from all I remember of Adams and also all I've heard about him, he was about doing the dirty work in tight situations between the back four and the midfield.

Blizzard to me is more of a luxury player. He's based higher up the pitch, great with the ball when you're attacking and good positional play but not one to do the niggly defensive work effectively when clinging on to a 1-0 lead like Adams and O'Connor do.