Did anyone catch the piece SKY did on us around 2 months into last season? It was in their League round-up, and they gave us about 10 minutes. We were about 4th at the time, and the piece centered around Lee Carsley, featuring interviews with him and Aidy.
The main gist was that Carsley had made the difference. He did all the mopping up at the back, often "dropping in" as a 3rd CB and breaking up play just in front of the back 4 in the "Makelele" position. He was a constant communicater and battling leader, and the pundits spoke about him getting another 10-20% out of our other players-most notably perhaps Ben Turner, who in interviews elsewhere spoke about what an inspiration and help Carsley was proving to be, both on and off the pitch.
Meanwhile, we were also stronger in central midfield as Arons narrow role from the right gave us enough bodies in the middle to finally match teams playing 433/41212. The role also gave him more freedom to get forwards, resulting in his best ever goalscoring spell with the club by far.
Marlon King had barely kicked a ball for us at that stage. Take away the points we got with Carsley in the side when we were doing well, and the points won by Aron with those goals, and we would have been relegated last season. Never mind McIndoe as an experienced sub later on who contributed to good results under AT. Doyle came in from the cold and for a spell last season was one of our best players. He tackled ceaselessly, and whatever his actual footballing ability, he knew exactly what to do in certain situations, always gave his all, scored a cracking goal, was a former skipper and player of the year, and was vastly experienced.
Now, we have replaced ALL of those players with Thomas and Bigirimana-incredibly gifted, but utterly unproven and inexperienced. I'd say that makes us weaker in midfield. Take away Westy, Turner and King, and it makes us weaker everywhere else too.
