To me, Ernie's systems have never relied on a back to goal guy and I think that's in part where Stein is the odd man out. When you think about Allsopp and Archie, they just relentlessly ran at the opponents and out paced them until the ass fell out of opponents and were run off the park. Carlos gave them the ball in the right places to do that. Brockie and Stein are not speed merchants but Brockie works best from open broken play and catching the defence unaware. I think that's where Kenny (and after thinking he was gonna be huge, I have egg on my face) is probably best utilised and probably what Ernie thought was a clone of Archie. Pace, ball skill, run the ass out of the opponents and Carlos slips it to him in the right place. The difference is that Archie and Allsop popped up everywhere along the front line where Kenny is glued to the flank he is put on and tries to out foot race opponents from positions where he gives himself no room to do so and probably does not have the footwork trickery other than 'I can run'. Ifill can do that but is in the body of geriatric with matching pace. If you combined Ifill and Kenny, you have the player that makes Ernie's system work - a clone of Archie.
To me, Ernie's systems have never relied on a back to goal guy and I think that's in part where Stein is the odd man out. When you think about Allsopp and Archie, they just relentlessly ran at the opponents and out paced them until the ass fell out of opponents and were run off the park. Carlos gave them the ball in the right places to do that. Brockie and Stein are not speed merchants but Brockie works best from open broken play and catching the defence unaware. I think that's where Kenny (and after thinking he was gonna be huge, I have egg on my face) is probably best utilised and probably what Ernie thought was a clone of Archie. Pace, ball skill, run the ass out of the opponents and Carlos slips it to him in the right place. The difference is that Archie and Allsop popped up everywhere along the front line where Kenny is glued to the flank he is put on and tries to out foot race opponents from positions where he gives himself no room to do so. Ifill can do that but is in the body of geriatric with matching pace. If you combined Ifill and Kenny, you have the player that makes Ernie's system work - a clone of Archie.