We are a better team without McGeady

Anyone who says aiden wouldnt get into our team is absolutely deluded.

Aiden would walk inter our side and any side in scotland the guys class it was hard for him being the only attacking threat at celtic park for two seasons.

 

I think we are definitely a better side now than we were with Aiden, that mainly is because we have replaced players like Fortuné with Hooper and N'Guemo with Kayal etc but if truth be told I don't think I'd play Aiden in the first eleven if he was still here. The midfield of Brown, Kayal, Ledley and Commons has been dominating games and although I'd probably swap Ledley for Ki the wingers have been doing tremendous work over recent weeks.

Aiden on form was brilliant, but in the cold light of day, he couldn't shoot, his crossing was mostly terrible, and his passing both in terms of technique and spotting one was poor. Most of the times he had the ball he would rather lose it than pass it, and once teams realised everything was going through him he was doubled up on and became far less effective.

I'll always remember the games he was on fire and had me out of my seat, like the night he tore Benfica apart, but the time was right to move on, we got good money and invested it well, it's something we should be doing more often if we want to move to the next level.

 

Aiden McGeady wasn't really that good at knowing when to release the ball. He never did seem to cotton on to the fact of 'Hey there's 2 or 3 men marking me therefore there must be a couple of our players in space somewhere else........I'll pass the ball to a team mate'. Instead of that he'd try and beat the 2-3 men in front of him. I began to find that pretty irritating towards the end.

I know it's very, very early days but from what I've seen of Kris Commons so far, I think I would rather have Commons. Commons can take a good corner, his crossing is vastly superior to Aiden McGeady's and he looks more of a goal threat and team player than Aiden was.

As I say, it's very early days but I see some things in Commons game that I like a lot more than what I saw in Aiden McGeady's game.

 

Aiden McGeady has it all in his locker apart from the most two important parts to a wingers game, end product and intelligence. As said above, he never knew when to release the ball and when he did, his final ball was pretty poor. My biggest criticism of McGeady was always his lack of end product and after many years of having this problem and the fact he came through the youth academy, I was shocked not to see any significant improvement.

Despite that, I have a massive amount of respect for McGeady. For years, our team was relying on McGeady to provide every ounce of creativity in the team, despite having a poor end product, McGeady was never one to hide and he was always happy to receive the ball.

He was used brilliantly on the counter attack and travelled massive distances carrying the ball, he always tracked back and never forgot about his defensive duties and actually dug us out of a few holes using the good parts of his game. Last of all, he he's one of us, you could tell how badly poor results effected this lad and he was a man who really played for the shirt.

Maybe McGeady would excel in this team, considering we wouldn't be relying on him so heavily and the opposition has got a lot to deal with, meaning they wouldn't be able to stick two men on him. He definitely wouldn't walk back into this side though, we've got some cracking wingers.

The fact McGeady has left isn't why we've improved so heavily though, that's down to our management, scouting staff, the board and the players we've currently got. We got a great deal for McGeady, I really appreciate everything he done for us but it's time to move on.

 

Mcgeady is way over rated. Same move every time.. boring. His 1st priority shoodv been to use the opposition defence as a guide for crossing. Ie defenders worst nightmare is defending a baw when charging back towards there own keeper. Wen that baw shoodv been delivered mcgeady was too busy trying to beat the same guy twice n 3 times. Then deliver a decent baw but defenders by this time have stopped turned and composed themselves ready for his cross. Aw he had to do was drag the defence line back out n try running at them again getting there defence charging towards there own goal again but we never ever seen that from him. So frustrating for so many years. If he had the ability to do that we would all be still hurting from when he left. 7 goals was his best return in a season anaw which is poor cos he did have ability...

 

As of now our midfield is playing well. So who's to say, if McGeady would have complimented it or wouldn't have got a look see !!

Hail Hail

 

mcgeady is a far better player than any winger we currently have , have a word with yourself if you think otherwise. Id take him back at celtic anyday , some of the best defenders around have been made to look ordinary when playing against him puyol,nesta etc...

 

This

This team would be near perfect as if it lacks 1 thing it is a winger with lightning quick pace, Forrest will become this but hasn't reached peak fitness yet and probably won't for another year at least.

I'd have Brown, Kayal, Ledley and McGeady as the midfield 4 and it would be simply amazing with Hooper and Stokes up front.

McGeady would still create more goals than anyone else in the team as he always has wether he was a poor crosser or not it's better to have someone who attempts 15 crosses a match like McGeady and maybe onlly gets 10 in the box. Than someone like Commons who attempts maybe 5 crosses and gets 4 in the box. Although McGeady's would only be 66% accurate to Commons 80%, McGeady is getting the ball in the box more. A fact almost always over looked.

 

My sentiments exactly Marky

 

mcgeady was a great player for us and would love to see him back at the club before hes to old mcgeady mite of crumbled in this team or mie of exceld well never no as hes not played in it

 

If mcgeady changed his game and played 1 to 2 touch footy then yeah he would probs defo get a game same goes for Scott brown if he kept playing the way he did before ie. Running with the baw 30 yards out of position only to pass a simple baw 5 yards we would be nowhere near as good as we are today. Yi don't see brown doing that of late it's 1 to 2 touches. The more touches a player takes the less options he will have as everything closes down. 1 to 2 touches is the way forward as the baw moves quicker than any player. Samaras is the same. How many of you were constantly shouting cmon pass the fooking baw. Followed by a big arggggggghhhh ur * get aff. But wen he takes a great 1st touch then releases it. He can be unplayable. A fukn love hooper n stokes wen they do the 1 touch stuff it's stunning to watch and gets fans and even commentators excited. Barca r the masters. Maybe we can be the scottish barca haha

hail hail

 

Aiden was an excellent player for us and arguably whenever he didnt play well over the last couple seasons we didn't play well; i admit i gave him pelters at times for being a bit greedy but he did largely carry the creative repsponsibility for the team for a good 2 years

i think he would get in our team it would be great to see the damage he could do given a free role behind the striker with Kayal, Brown and Ledley behind him; but i guess we'll never know

i do think it was right to take the money for him though, our team is far better than it was last year and the McGeady money funded most of Neil's signings

 

I think Strachan did a lot for McGeady and it was really his time under Mowbray that led to him wanting a change. Despite Aiden's seemingly constant bust-ups with GS, his form and gameplay drastically improved over that time. Strachan used to be highly critical of him, double mark him in training, tell him to stay back in the gym to work on his pace and strength, but when asked said he had Aiden's best interests in mind. In my opinion it worked, McGeady became unplayable at times and he had far more options in his own game than just his tricks, while his crossing improved no end.

In contrast Mowbray's whole game plan seemed to revolve around just giving him the ball and hoping for the best. He was mostly wasted tactically by TM out on the right wing because he would just come inside and then pass it backwards. No penetration whatsoever. Leaving the club seems to be a good move for him ultimately as there is less focus on him in Russia and he can play with greater freedom.

For those talking about him drifting in and out of games, sadly nearly all wingers do this.

 

If McGeady was here he'd be the best winger at the club, he would perform better around better players.

 

Yeah, I think he would fit in perfectly in this team, him and Izzy on the left would be an amazing duo.

 

I agree that Mc Geady was certainly a special talent, however regardless of talent it's a results driven business and Mc Geady didn't always deliver when required.

This current teams secret is that we have six or seven guys who are likely to score in any game, in Mc Geady's time we had one or two who really could contribute, so he really carried that whole team on his shoulders.

 

I don't think they would because McGeady would never pass to him.

 

I heard from a ex hamilton player that if McGeady was kept quiet then whoever was playing against him was having the game of their life! So yeah, he would improve us.

 

good thread but quality is always needed; however i can see your point but i would blame a manager for being unable to integrate or use the talent properly