TOPIC: Wells & Madden

Both scored today.

Not good enough according to the Abbotmeister but have now managed 140 goals between them since they left.

Nice work Greg.

Honest answers please nobby....

Did you see a prolific striker in Madden?
How much longer/many chances would you have given Madden?

I just didn't see it in him. Far too lightweight and just didn't look like an out and out goal getter.

Wells on the other hand was a dreadful decision as I'm certain we could have signed him on basic wage for a couple of developmental seasons.

Jumpforfun wrote:
Maybe if we'd played Madden upfront instead of out wide he may have done better. As for Wells totally agree, he knew what he was getting when he signed him then let him go coz he wasnt ready. Mental decision but then again Greggy boy made a few of them.

Madden only started seven games so I'm not sure he was given that much of a chance.

Think I saw about three/four of those games and he was terrible in all. Had all the presence of a malnourished stable lad

said it on the last forum, i thought he would become a goal scorer, he made good runs, always seemed to be in the right place, just could not finish the chances.

Happyblue wrote:
The last sentence there is the "difference" though, If you make runs and score goals you showing your metal, If you make runs but fail to convert, you're no better than the other average strikers around. It's fair to say though, he's done far better elsewhere!

Bruntonpasty wrote:
Like i said above, when he played he didnt play through the middle. He went on loan to Yeovil played through the middle and guess what? He started scoring and has scored fairly regularly since. Maybe not at championship level when Yeovil were there but hes been a fairly good lower league striker when hes played up front.

Don't think we're doing too bad on the goalscoring front to be honest....

khg 2 wrote:
Your right but thats not really what the thread is about.

Bruntonpasty wrote:
Disagree, finishing is about confidence and he just lacked it , a average striker does not make the runs, also he was making runs and was never picked up,

strikers will always be judged on the goals they score or the chances they create for others, it's goals that win games after all. I think DB is pretty much on the mark, he wasn't played in his best position. Abbott tinkering about again!

Dancingbear wrote: Your right there,it's about players that no longer play for us and a manager who thought Craig Curran was a decent striker,similar threads pop up every time an ex player scores....

Bruntonpasty wrote:

yeah that is very true , also he didnt really get a run in his first full season as he was up against Miller and zoko for the main striker role when both were having good seasons

Didn't we pay 100 k euros for Madden? He really couldn't finish. Was on trial at Burnley before he came to us, they obviously didn't see anything in him

If i remember correctly Madden was played wide, but on the odd occasion that he played up top he was used as a lone target man. Is it any surprise he failed miserably at that.
Secondly it has been said he could get into goal scoring positions but couldn't finish. Finishing can be coached, being in the right place can't. Lets not forget the infamous comments about us coaching ability out of players.
Madden since he left us has shown he could score regularly if he has a target man strike partner, that was the one thing we didn't have for the vast majority of Abbotts reign. We even found a potent partnership when Pericard joined us, so he split them up.

I think there was a couple of fundamental reasons why madden failed here. Our pattern of play at the time was to hit Miller from back to front, get hold of it and then link in the more creative players like, JPM, Zoko and Loy. Problem was when Madden played as a striker it was usually because Miller was not available but we still played t the same pattern, poor madden couldn't get hold of the ball from back to front so got eaten up by big centre halves.

Other reason is that madden is a box player, box players thrive on a smaller pitch where the % of play in the box is higher than on a large expansive pitch where a lot of play has to be done just to get an opportunity to get he ball in the box.

Danny kearns has scored 5 in 4 for glenavon, doesn't that deserve some cumbrians.net recognition?


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Happyblue wrote:
Perfect description of Craig Curran right there.

Madden did absolutely bugger all when he was here, and correct me if I'm wrong but a lot of United fans were saying 'better to get rid' at the time. As for Wells I didn't see enough of him, but I would have thought if he had showed any form of goal scoring ability, whether it would be in the reserves/training or elsewhere etc, then I'm pretty positive we would have taken a longer look at him no matter who was in charge. This kind of thing happens at every football club in the world!!
But because it was Abbo..................................??

DeckchairBlue wrote:
Not really as Curran never actually made many good runs, Madden was very different to Curran, always said Madden would be a good goalscorer always said Curran was useless

bluebry wrote:
Abbott himself said Wells would come good but he couldnt afford to wait another year. He also paid good money for Madden, If it was clear he didnt fit into the way we played at the time why the hell did he pay a rumoured 100k euros for him?. Its no coincidence that hes scored for every other manager hes played for as id guess they have the nouse to play people in the position theyre best suited to.

I was watching some of the old games on United player and forgot how awful madden was for us.

And your point is

Dancingbear wrote:
Managers swap and change players positions at every football club in the world.
But because it was Abbo.......................................??

The annoying thing about Madden was that while he didn't shine here, we sent him out on loan to yeovil and he started banging them in from the start. Everyone jumped up and down and was shouting why couldn't greg set up a style of play where he could do the same here because our strikers were frankly shite at the time. But no, after a couple of months loan we sold him to yeovil for an 'undisclosed fee', with most estimates being about 20 grand. He kept banging them in for yeovil and they got promoted to the championship and we scuttled about in the lower half hoping the season ended before the relegation places caught up with us. Madden obviously a) wasn't shite and b) wasn't someone else's player when he came good, he was still our player. But hopeless abbo couldn't get him to work, much like a caveman poking an iphone with a stick and our board sold him for the price of a modest house extension.

bluebry wrote:
Take away the fact that it was your mate Abbo. A lower league manager signed a striker for circa 100k played him out of position then sent him out on loan. Whilst on loan he was played in his preferred position and guess what? he started scoring goals. Instead of bringing him back and playing him in his preferred position to see if he carried on scoring he decided to sell him for 1/4 of what he paid for him. Striker has then gone on to consistently score goals wherever hes played and manager who sold him got the sack. Its not a question of it being because it was Abbott or anyone else. It was the Carlisle manager so im sure whoever was the manager who did it would cop the same flack for it on here. Id also guess most other managers wouldnt have gone 3 years of whatever it was without a proper rightback either but thats a different story

The Clown also had an obsession with turning Strikers into Wingers all because he could play a five-man Midfield to cover his mate Thirlwell.

We had a few promising partnerships upfront with Pericard/Dobie&Miller;&Loy; to name two which seemed to work well but were shunned for a negative gameplan.

Dancingbear wrote:
'Dancing', he was never my mate I only ever met the guy once, so I hardly think he suddenly became 'my mate'.
Abbott made mistakes, probably quite a few of em, I believe at times he was quite stubborn and wouldn't listen to other people, whether that is a good or a bad thing being a football manager I don't know (although that attitude never did Alex Ferguson any harm) .... you will have to decide!! he was also here probably too long, but you cant blame him for that.
As far as signings are concerned, admittedly he made a few gaffs, but tell me one manager that hasn't?
The final season he was here he did make a lot of strange decisions, irrational behaviour, trying to find that winning formula perhaps!!!!!, did this make him a bad manager? I suppose its a personal choice.
Just sometimes I don't think (and this is a personal view) he deserved the amount of stick he got, two Wembley appearances and improvements every year until the last two, tells me he wasn't quite as bad as some people would have you believe, and especially after the shambles that Ward left..

Apologies. I didnt think the T key was broken on your computer so i wrongly assumed he must have been your mate.

Abbott tried to get Madden back after he scored a few at Yeovil but he literally wouldn't come back as he hated playing for Abbott!

As for improvements every year under Abbo we finished fourth the season before he took over under the much maligned John Ward!

Abbott was not as bad as some make out, was he great thats a hell No, the thing was he made one major decision he stayed at carlisle way too long he became stale he let Nixon walk all over him, thats why he never made it a manager must have the bottle to stand up to an owner to get his way. I suspect with curle we don't have this problem if he has a problem he tells it very straight some times in a very weird way but he gets his point.