If it wasnt for Doyle we wouldn’t have got promoted in my opinion, we had a spell when he was out of the team and we were useless. I would like Ogogo was the logical replacement for him this season and due to his age we will probably see a change of the guard after Christmas
Doyle was instrumental in last season's promotion but the standard was a league below and we had many players come into that team through the season, with no previous football league experience (e.g. Biamou, Hyam, Shipley, Bayliss) who he helped immensely but now have a season in men's football under their belt with other more experienced additions to the squad.
That spell when Doyle was out and we were poor has turned into urban legend and the run of results seems to have been chalked up to missing Doyle but there was so many other influential factors. Partly it's been built up to be much more than it was because it coincided with the disappointment of the performance in front of a massive home gate against Accrington and then the FA cup exit to Brighton.
In addition, in the previous game at FGR we lost Davies with a broken collar bone and Grimmer to a hamstring tweak - for me, the real defining moments of those back to back losses.
It was then 3 games without Doyle - lost 0-2 to Accrington, by far the best team in the league, with a visibly unfit Kelly who'd been rushed back to cover Doyle's knock, a completely new look defence and then on the back foot immediately after Dion Kelly-Evan's mistake at RB after 5 mins. Not to mention the woeful 45 minutes from Maguire-Drew before he was subbed off at halftime (never to start again?)
Then we lost 2-1 to Colchester with probably the worst XI creatively we'd put out all season:
Burge
Willis, Hyam, McDonald, Stokes
Vincenti, Bayliss, Kelly, Shipley
McNulty Biamou
3 CBs in a back 4 which include Stokes and 4 CMs across the midfield. The lack of pace in that team was chronic. McDonald's performances were on the decline at that point, he and Hyam not very suited as a pairing (see Yeovil), Willis struggling technically with the ball going forward at RB, Vincenti in front of him brought back out the blue. Shipley and Stokes offering little threat on the other flank and a still struggling Kelly in the middle. While Robins left our only naturally attacking wide player, Kyel Reid, on the bench until the 92nd minute.
Final game was Brighton and hopes there were higher than reality after the Stoke and MK Dons games.
That spell was of course made harder by missing Doyle but it's banded about as one of the reasons he's undroppable this season however it's a tip of the iceberg (and lazy) argument that ignores the far weightier issues that were happening at the time.