Jacques Maghoma as well all know, has had a very marmite start to his Birmingham City career. What I mean by that, is either you think he is brilliant or he is terrible and I must say, I’ve not heard of many people being in the middle.
Due to Demarai Gray’s departure and David Cotterill being injured for a few games last season, it gave Maghoma the chance to shine as a wide player after he had made a few appearances there in pre-season friendlies. As an attacker, he was fairly effective from my point of view but I noticed that his shooting never seemed to be the most accurate. He was able to beat his man and cut inside but the lack of composure was a big deal and he also didn’t seem to like coming into the box from wide positions.
However, I have noted that he is good at retaining possession as he is strong and can use his body well. He is also faster than he appears to be, often skinning full backs with relative ease and using the strength that I have just mentioned. With these attributes then he is surely in contention to partner Clayton Donaldson if we can’t rely on bringing in another striker.
His shooting would get easier from a central role because he is good at placing shots either left or right. I have seen him do this for Burton Albion in the past on numerous occasions. It just seems to be a problem for him when he is cutting inside from a wide area because he tries to whip and curl the ball into a corner and he simply cannot do this very well. But neither can Donaldson. He was our top scorer last year and won several awards and yet he wouldn’t be able to score from outside the box in a wide area like Maghoma has been trying to do.
So we need to play to his advantages. Get him up top with Donaldson in a partnership so they can out muscle defences and really put pressure on the opposition. By doing this, it means that it would allow us to bring in some more pacy wingers who are used to doing a job out wide and whom are able to cross the ball better than Maghoma.
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