"I don’t think this is down to fluid play or tactical flexibility, but just because we’ve had a patchy squad with injuries and we’ve been struggling"
This is spot on - patchy squad means that even with one decent player out (Payne, or Rufer, perhaps Josh in this context) a certain game plan cannot be executed well, no matter how reliable someone like Sheridan is.
As an example, Kosta was devoid of service last season possibly because we did not have a good midfield after Pennington and Kraev (and Al-Taay) left. Piper and Hughes managed to score though against all odds. Now we have Armiento, Eze and now a potential for a good midfield so we are scoring again, especially with Hughes (and Piper) contributing, but so far we found it hard to replace Wootton next to Hughes, with both James and Tuiloma being "not quite there yet" quality. Maybe all it takes is more time, which we hardly have this season.
All of this is really me just thinking aloud, skirting around the topic of "developing young players for a quick sale", and thinking, good grief can we have at least one more season out of Hughes, rather than having to seemingly go through this again next season.
This is spot on - patchy squad means that even with one decent player out (Payne, or Rufer, perhaps Josh in this context) a certain game plan cannot be executed well, no matter how reliable someone like Sheridan is.
As an example, Kosta was devoid of service last season possibly because we did not have a good midfield after Pennington and Kraev (and Al-Taay) left. Piper and Hughes managed to score though against all odds. Now we have Armiento, Eze and now a potential for a good midfield so we are scoring again, especially with Hughes (and Piper) contributing, but so far we found it hard to replace Wootton next to Hughes, with both James and Tuiloma being "not quite there yet" quality. Maybe all it takes is more time, which we hardly have this season.
All of this is really me just thinking aloud, skirting around the topic of "developing young players for a quick sale", and thinking, good grief can we have at least one more season out of Hughes, rather than having to seemingly go through this again next season.