Nolan to Chesterfield

Quoted from mariner91

I think it's unfair to compare stats in games with Conor Townsend to games where he didn't play as I think it's universally agreed that he had a huge effect on our performances and results.

With Conor was played 9, won 7, drew 1, lost 1. So 22 points. Which means games without Conor and without Nolan would read:
Played 19, won 8, drawn 9, lost 2. Points haul of 33. Which isn't hugely different to games with Nolan. The difference in the main was the horrible form at the end of the league season but that was down to players losing form, not solely from having Nolan in the team.

He's undoubtedly a loss in my opinion but not irreplaceable.

If you take our record with Nolan in the team (7-4-7) over 46 games that would leave us with around 64 points. (11th this season)
If you take our record with Conor in the team (7-1-1) over 46 games that would leave us with around 112 points. (Champions)
If you take our record with neither in the team (8-9-2) over 46 games that would leave us with around 80 points. (Exactly what we ended up with)

So the stats actual say that generally we were a team heading towards 80 points. Connor Townsend improved us and our results. Jon Nolan did the exact opposite.

Yep, blame our terrible end of season performances on Nolan. Blame him for our defence going to pieces, for Arnold's loss of form. Don't consider that he was involved in everyone of our playoff goals.

Give him some credit ffs, our results coincidentally went downhill but that was always going to happen when you replace Townsend with Robertson/ Horwood. Even without affecting our results, he still showed he was a fantastic player and more than capable of L2.

I'm not begrudging him a move, this is football and you go as high as you can. Would anyone blame Amond for leaving after we picked him up off the 'scrap heap' so to speak? I hope not.

                                                                   JON NOLAN

  I think we should draw a line under the above and move on to a Hursty rabbit out of the hat special

Quoted from MarinerMal

If a full back has far more impact on the team than the midfielder then how effective was the midfielder?

I think you should look at how much better Monkhouse looked playing in front of the pace of Townsend as opposed to the more pedestrian Robertson and Horwood.

Quoted from Grantley

Yep, blame our terrible end of season performances on Nolan. Blame him for our defence going to pieces, for Arnold's loss of form. Don't consider that he was involved in everyone of our playoff goals.

A good defence normally has a solid midfield protecting it. This is Nolan's massive weakness. Take a look at the first leg against Braintree. Akinola charging towards the penalty area. Nolan has the chance to foul him and take a card for the team. He pulls out of the challenge and leaves Gowling exposed. Does anyone think Disley or Clay would have done the same and let Akinola continue his run? Never. He also gives the ball away too much. Look at the Promotion Final. It was Nolan who got robbed of the ball when Jon Parkin inexplicably missed at the far post.

I just think we can do better and it's no great loss.

Quoted from MarinerMal

If a full back has far more impact on the team than the midfielder then how effective was the midfielder?

You clearly didn't get to the games Townsend played in.

The interesting connection between Nolan and Townsend is Monkhouse.

Townsend and Monkhouse were a great combination - a fast overlapping full back and a ball winning midifielder.

With Townsend gone, we struggled to replicate that and Hurst made several attempts -
Marshall was best shot but injured and inconsistent until making an impact v Braintree.

Nolan was a creative force going forward compared to Clay but made us weaker defensively.  It turned out he was best in a midfield 3 along side Clay and Disley but that would mean dropping Monkhouse.

Only in the second leg v Braintree and v FGR did PH get it right.

So strangely losing a defender weakened our attack and signing an attacking midfielder weakened our defence!

This thread is hilarious. Hurst signed Nolan and said he was someone he'd always tracked and when he became available, he swooped. He plays him in every game from that point, we win promotion and for me Nolan was the difference in midfield. Nolan is then cherry picked by a League 1 side and still people are saying he isn't all that. I suppose Hurst and the Chesterfield manager are not very savvy with signings then.  

Quoted from GollyGTFC

A good defence normally has a solid midfield protecting it. This is Nolan's massive weakness. Take a look at the first leg against Braintree. Akinola charging towards the penalty area. Nolan has the chance to foul him and take a card for the team. He pulls out of the challenge and leaves Gowling exposed. Does anyone think Disley or Clay would have done the same and let Akinola continue his run? Never. He also gives the ball away too much. Look at the Promotion Final. It was Nolan who got robbed of the ball when Jon Parkin inexplicably missed at the far post.

I just think we can do better and it's no great loss.

He gave the ball away a whole lot less than our other centre midfielders. I agree he wasn't great defensively but then I think PH got the set up wrong for a long time with him in it. He excelled in a three which offered him a more solid base from which to dictate play from. What he did though was dictate play a lot more than Disley or Clay have ever done, had a wonderful set piece delivery from which we scored some very important goals and was the first midfielder we've had since Bolland who was capable of carrying the ball forward. He's not a complete midfielder but that was why he was playing for us in the National League. In my mind, he was worth changing the system for as he has undoubted quality on the ball that is rarely seen at the level we were playing at. Doing that got us up, so it's a no brainer in my opinion.

Quoted from ginnywings

This thread is hilarious. Hurst signed Nolan and said he was someone he'd always tracked and when he became available, he swooped. He plays him in every game from that point, we win promotion and for me Nolan was the difference in midfield. Nolan is then cherry picked by a League 1 side and still people are saying he isn't all that. I suppose Hurst and the Chesterfield manager are not very savvy with signings then.  

I think it just a emphasises that a team is the important issue not the value of the players within that team. To me, Nolan was at his most effective when both Clay and Dis were alongside him (Wrexham and Braintree away), Monkhouse was far more effective when he played with Townsend, Amond looked better with Bogle than he did with Hoban etc...