Cod Almighty | Article

by Mark Wilson

26 July 2005

Michael was hailed as a big signing in the summer of 2004 and formed one of the jewels in the crown of the sparkly new line-up under sparkly new management. Many of us felt that although he had been hyped a bit (he did come from Sunderland but had hardly played a game for them) a second division squad player should do well in the fourth division. He got off to a poor start, though, when he missed a big chunk of pre-season and looked unfit and lacking in confidence when he finally played. This was despite Town making a fair start to the season and general levels of optimism around Blundell Park beginning to pick up from zero.

As the season took a nosedive in the run-up to Christmas and on into the new year, Reddy continued to struggle as a target man who wasn't strong enough to play that role and who really wanted to use his pace to beat people with a ball played for him to run on to, or straight to feet. The team as a whole looked disjointed and not sure of itself and Reddy personified this.

Then Martin Gritton arrived and (for this correspondent anyway) Reddy began to deliver. Freed of the target man role, and being allowed to play off Gritton, who was prepared to get stuck in, hold the ball and flick headers on, Reddy looked a different player. This was highlighted away at Orient when a slightly stunned away end watched us pass and move the home team off the park. Reddy and Gritts looked made for each other and the goals came accordingly. The same could be said away at Notts County before Thomas Pinault inspired the second-half self-destruction. 

This will be a critical season for Reddy. He turns 26 in March and will know that he is at his peak as a player in the next couple of years or so. If he wants to play at a higher level he must impress to get a move or help Town on to better things. He showed last year, with 18 goals from 58 senior starts, that he has the potential. We will all be hoping that with a good pre-season behind him he can find the net earlier and add to that tally. Moreover, his contract is only for this season and at the very least he will be playing to get an extension. Ideally he will have started this campaign well enough to be talking contracts before Christmas so that we don't see him go out of the door on a free at the end of the season.

I expect Reddy to be Rabid Russ's first choice number 9 and when goals are thin on the ground the other strikers in the squad (all 47 of them) will rotate around him. But I further suspect that the best partnership will be the one we already have: Gritton and Reddy. What could make a huge difference is the quality of balls into them and what happens when Gritton holds the ball up for the midfield to join in the play. I don't want to sound ludicrously optimistic but I think Mr Kamudimba could make the Gritton/Reddy partnership a very good one.