Bump.

The way things have worked out it looks like I'm going to get my wish...

Assuming his body holds up, I'm quietly excited about what Tex will be for us as a midfielder in 2011.

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It's never as good as it looks and it's never as bad as it seems.

Problem with Tex is that his positive attributes recommend him for numerous roles whilst his weaknesses are ones which are hard to mask in any role. As a result, he's a player who is expected to be able to perform many and varied roles, hasn't really been allowed to settle anywhere and certainly not in his preferred position and hasn't had his deficiencies properly addressed because he hasn't been settled into a role to then start fine-tuning him for that role.

Nevertheless, he has some impressive attributes - express speed and huge endurance amongst them. To me that says play him in the midfield. With his size he can play inside, with his speed he can play outside, whatever the other mix of midfielders calls for. He can and will use his body to make space for others, notwithstanding his lousy tackling and he can tag and he can use his relentless running to blow opponents up. He also can rest as a full forward in the Brad Pearce style, and if we go with someone like Waite as a full forward ie someone who can take a run in the midfield, then we effectively get another rotation into our midfield compared to most set-ups, which with the new substitute rule would work to even more advantage.

So whilst he can perform a variety of roles, midfield changing forward is to my mind the preferred one to take best advantage of his specific gifts.