Lee Evans

[winsumluzsum]

Nov 27, 2024 11:39:59 GMT iot said:

I think this is another example where form and the level played at isn't necessarily the issue, but that the profile of the footballer just isn't well suited to international football and even more misaligned with Bellamy's style. As others have pointed out, he seems to be one of the stand out players in League 1 this season and is performing better than Sheehan and certainly Savage and plays broadly the same position, yet they are selected ahead of him. The reason for this of course is that they are very different types of central midfielders.

Unless Lee Evans' game has drastically changed in recent years, judging from when I saw him play he was very much in the Will Vaulks mould of a midfielder. He's quite old-school where he likes to get stuck in, plays box to box, and has a decent strike on him where he can chip in with a couple of goals from around the box. But he's much more suited to a direct, physical game and much less suited to a patient posession based system.

Crucially, you couldn't rely on him or Vaulks to play the no.6 role in Bellamy's system. To my mind, we only have three players who can do that - Ampadu, Allen, and Sheehan while Savage and Crew appear to be the youngsters they're trying to bring through. It was interesting when Bellamy was asked about the Turkey away performance in a post-match interview, and he seemed to be annoyed by how much we were dominated, the first thing he brought up was how we failed to 'bounce the ball off the 6' sufficiently. That's a new one on me, but I think it's crucial to understanding Bellamy's system i.e. that you ping in a ball to the no.6 when he has someone on him, who can then play it out first time usually to someone in space and we build from there - the Rodri / Busquets role. It's a crucial component of us being able to dominate posession and impose ourselves on the opposition. That's what we need, and the likes of Evans and Vaulks don't offer that. They could potentially play as an 8 but I don't think they offer enough technical quality, which is why Bellamy's backing the likes of JJ, Wilson, Ollie Cooper, and Cullen for those positions. 

I'm not sure the comparison to Will Vaulks works. Vaulks is a work horse with good defensive stats and decent other stats, but nothing special. Lee Evans has best in league stats for 5 passing metrics alone. That should very much marry with Bellamy's requirements, along with his good defensive stats. He has 5 assists already this season, and has excellent long ball stats, again something that would commend him to Bellamy.

I wonder what Bellamy makes of Evans, and how close the decision was between him and Sheehan. I imagine it was a close thing. Against Iceland 8 Swans or ex-Swans academy players made it onto the pitch. Clearly Bellamy rates the players produced by Swansea (and has said as much). Perhaps Evans' fortunes would have been different had he been a Swan.