Mr. Zucchini Head wrote:WIZEB wrote:I'm afraid Jez's decent improvement has had to be sacrificed for the time being with 3 victories since Gaz's return.
You've got to find a way to balance long term thinking with short term success though. It's great winning games here and now, but then what? Gaz retires again and we are back to square one?
Fwiw I think the difference Ellis has made has been fairly minimal. Yes it's good to have him back to give a bit of leadership, and he can still hit with the best of them. But his importance has been overstated imo, it has been very much a cameo role for him. I'm fairly confident we would have won these games without him. We just needed a little bit of confidence.
If there is one player you can point to and say he has made a world of difference since he returned, it's Westerman.
Whilst I agree with you that Radford needs to balance long term thinking with short term success I have to disagree about the difference being minimal made by Ellis. The impact of his leadership has been huge and its no coincidence we have won with him back.
You only have to look at him during the warm up with him talking and barking out instructions to the team to see what he brings and what we lost in terms of leadership when he retired.
It may well only be a temporary measure but his impact on the team during his comeback however brief it maybe can not be understated. One of the things that sets Ellis apart from other players is he manages to get players around him to up their game and its those little extra percentages that make the difference. Thats why he is a player that is rare breed and isn't replaceable in a sense.