Caldwell is comfortably a better footballer than Durham at this point. He is underrated on here. I think a lot of it has to do with people looking at disposal averages and not realising how limited his midfield minutes have been thus far in his career (and how this rises sharply when he does get opportunities in there).
He is a tough, clean ball-handler, made for finals and a better resting forward than most of our other midfielders. I agree that there is some competition at the moment in the midfield- especially with the emergence of Hobbs who I think will be the best player on our list within a few years - itās a good problem to have though.
Iām not sure Caldwell is under-rated. I saw a best 22 the other day that had Caldwell in the starting 18 with Parish on the bench.
I do think Durhams reputation though has surpassed his onfield exposed form. We shall see if his good preseason translates to improved gameday performance.
Caldwell is an elite handballer and very good at the low bullet pass to the forwards IMO along with good goal sense himself. Great as a HF/MID which I think he is best suited. Agree with others, he is entering his prime after 2+ years relatively injury free (after severe hamstring problems.) We should be expecting a really strong year from him.
I thought that was a bit odd saying Shiel wasnāt an inside mid. He is only an inside mid in my opinion, only he gets played elsewhere because we have too many others like him, which was my original point.
The problem is, when Setters needs a spell, I still think we need to run Stringer through there, at least at centre bounces if there is any combination of the others in there. Failing that, Iāll be interested to see if Perkins or at a stretch Durham is sent in there to play that sort of power mid with size type role.
Iām not quite including Tsatas into calculations just yet. Need to see more first.
