Breaking News Ryan Cresswell signs **subject to medical**

[Angell Delight]

On paper a good signing. With him and Phillips sounding deadly from set pieces, vital we keep hold of Hall.

This is exactly what I was thinking - keeping Hall is vital.

 

[The Blue Stig]

Says on bbc teletext he has signed for cheltenham. shame

 

[McNasty]

Says on bbc teletext he has signed for cheltenham. shame

Did you mean Summerfield ?

 

[RUFC]

CRESSWELL (Ryan) will be a major asset to you.
I'm probably a bit biased because Cressy is a mate of mine as well. But without prejudice, you have certaily inherited someone who give 100% (probably a bit too much sometimes, hence some of the silly injuries).

Cressy is a good team player and is very vocal. Solid and a good reader of the game.

Good in the air and likes to score the odd goal too.

If I could give any criticism at all. He can sometimes be a bit slow off the mark, but with legs like a giraffe im nor suprised.

He will be missed at Rotherham. (And ironically will probably score against us)

Cressy, If you browsing your new club site. You can repay my good coments with a pint tonight. :winking:

 

[Jam_Man]

CRESSWELL (Ryan) will be a major asset to you.
I'm probably a bit biased because Cressy is a mate of mine as well. But without prejudice, you have certaily inherited someone who give 100% (probably a bit too much sometimes, hence some of the silly injuries).

Cressy is a good team player and is very vocal. Solid and a good reader of the game.

Good in the air and likes to score the odd goal too.

If I could give any criticism at all. He can sometimes be a bit slow off the mark, but with legs like a giraffe im nor suprised.

He will be missed at Rotherham. (And ironically will probably score against us)

Cressy, If you browsing your new club site. You can repay my good coments with a pint tonight. :winking:

Thanks for the opinion, lets hope he does well here too.

 

[Bromley Blue]

CRESSWELL (Ryan) will be a major asset to you.
I'm probably a bit biased because Cressy is a mate of mine as well. But without prejudice, you have certaily inherited someone who give 100% (probably a bit too much sometimes, hence some of the silly injuries).

Cressy is a good team player and is very vocal. Solid and a good reader of the game.

Good in the air and likes to score the odd goal too.

If I could give any criticism at all. He can sometimes be a bit slow off the mark, but with legs like a giraffe im nor suprised.

He will be missed at Rotherham. (And ironically will probably score against us)

Cressy, If you browsing your new club site. You can repay my good coments with a pint tonight. :winking:

Thanks for the feedback. Always good to get a better idea of a player you've signed from someone in the know. After all us lower league fans don't have the privilege of the in depth TV analysis the Premier League gets.

Must say I'm a little disappointed Cresswell isn't renowned for his pace though as I think this is one area we could certainly have improved on. Whenever we face pace, especially away from home Phillips and Barker seem to look far more uncomfortable and the defending becomes more desperate.

That said lets see the guy in action for ourselves and see what he brings to the table.

 

[Ayrshire Blue]

This is exactly what I was thinking - keeping Hall is vital.

Add Bilel to that too. Lots of goals from set pieces so it's imperative we keep Hall.

 

[Angell Delight]

☀

Add Bilel to that too. Lots of goals from set pieces so it's imperative we keep Hall.

And maybe even Corr too. We could be very dangerous drom dead balls next season.

 

[Jam_Man]

Great lets encourange them to boot the ball up in the air then, just what we need :smile:

In all seriousness its great to be a threat from set pieces, but Im far more interested in what our defenders do at the back than whether they can score goals.

 

[Jedi Shrimper]

Superb signing imho, as others have already said best of the summer so far. He may not be blessed with pace but he'll still be quicker than Barker, who I can see dropping to a back-up role. Expect Barker to be club-captain & maybe Phillips or someone else as team captain.

Welcome to the Hall, Ryan Cresswell :happy:

 

[Pubey]

I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have given Barker a new contract with the promise of playing week in week out. He'll be fighting for a place along with Prosser IMO. Cresswell will start the first game of the season (assuming he's fit).

 

[Sandbach Shrimper]

Must say I'm a little disappointed Cresswell isn't renowned for his pace though as I think this is one area we could certainly have improved on. Whenever we face pace, especially away from home Phillips and Barker seem to look far more uncomfortable and the defending becomes more desperate.

That said lets see the guy in action for ourselves and see what he brings to the table.

But how many centre-backs in League Two do have pace? We always go on about our lack of pace at the back but most centre-backs aren't very quick. If they were they might be playing another position. It'd be very difficult to get an old-fashioned centre-back who's strong and solid but also pacey. I don't think you necessarily need lightning pace as a centre-back as long as you read the game well enough (John Terry, for example). And in any case he'll be quicker than Barker.

 

[The Blue Stig]

Mis read it this morning. top signing tho many more to follow hopefully

 

[FarmdogSUFC]

Glad we've signed 2 defenders in Creswell and Straker. Our defence let us down last year so it's important we have a solid back 4. If we win each game 1-0 next season and it's through solid defending, I will be very pleased

 

[Jam_Man]

Glad we've signed 2 defenders in Creswell and Straker. Our defence let us down last year so it's important we have a solid back 4. If we win each game 1-0 next season and it's through solid defending, I will be very pleased

Did it ?

Our goals conceded tell a different story and show we had the 3rd best defence at home and the 6th away?

We conceded less than Crawley and Crewe who got promoted, less than Cheltenham and only one more than Torquay.

Our defensive record was only really bettered by Swindon and Shrewsbury, the latter of which scored 20 goal less.

 

[Angell Delight]

I think the defence did well last year, however it sounds like the signings of Straker and Cresswell are upgrades so hopefully we'll have one of the very best back lines in the division next season.

 

[Bromley Blue]

Did it ?

Our goals conceded tell a different story and show we had the 3rd best defence at home and the 6th away?

We conceded less than Crawley and Crewe who got promoted, less than Cheltenham and only one more than Torquay.

Our defensive record was only really bettered by Swindon and Shrewsbury, the latter of which scored 20 goal less.

Yeah I agree with this. The defence did well last season and to be honest I'm still putting my finger on why we didn't go up. It was always going to be a tough league last year with the money being thrown around at Swindon and Crawley but we did compete and should have gone up at the expense of Crawley really.

But in Gilbert and Barker we have 2 players who most of us recognise could be improved upon despite our defensive record last year. In Cresswell we have a player who captained a side who should have been challenging last season. I believe if Rotherham had replaced Le Fondre with a better calibre of striker than Alex Revell then they would have made the playoffs.

 

[Jam_Man]

Yeah I agree with this. The defence did well last season and to be honest I'm still putting my finger on why we didn't go up. It was always going to be a tough league last year with the money being thrown around at Swindon and Crawley but we did compete and should have gone up at the expense of Crawley really.

But in Gilbert and Barker we have 2 players who most of us recognise could be improved upon despite our defensive record last year. In Cresswell we have a player who captained a side who should have been challenging last season. I believe if Rotherham had replaced Le Fondre with a better calibre of striker than Alex Revell then they would have made the playoffs.

The main reason we didnt go up is because 3 teams above us did much better than average promotion winners. Bear in mind our performance on most years would have been guaranteed promotion winning, and in the year we went up with Tilson it would have won us the league.

This fact seems to be ignored when our overall performance is judged.

Where we could have improved last year though was those games where we lost at home to the likes of Aldershot and Bradford, games where we had little creativity and only conceded one goal. Generally our attacking and defending stats are good, but it was those types of games where we struggled that if we had that extra bit of guile we would have gone up.

An upgrade on Barker and Gilbert is a great start.

Dont mention the floodlights...

 

[FarmdogSUFC]

I'm not saying the defense did bad last season, I'm saying it let us down. By that I mean lapses in concentration at times meant we'd concede silly goals, Accrington, Aldershot, Dagenham spring to mind

 

[Jam_Man]

I'm not saying the defense did bad last season, I'm saying it let us down. By that I mean lapses in concentration at times meant we'd concede silly goals, Accrington, Aldershot, Dagenham spring to mind

Its a harsh comment to make seeing as we had one of the best defensive records in the league. If the defence did let us down, they let us down less than most of the other clubs including Crawley and Crewes.

As for conceding silly goals, they arent always the defences fault. Conceding from a set piece involves the whole team.