Main takeaways - highly press-resistant (much needed for us!), very good at progressing the ball from deep, needs to improve without the ball.
"Looking at the percentile ranks above, Hayden Hackney posts elite numbers across our Ball Retention Index, Progressive Distribution Score, Final Third Access Score, and Press Resistance Score, ranking in or around the top 10% of the dataset in each metric"
brap2 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 02, 2026 11:05 am
Honestly never watched him, had a preconceived idea in my head of what he’d be like so did a bit of reading and watching clips and yeah…looks a bit lightweight and a bit lazy, can play a bit for sure but it’s a step up.
Maybe him + some workhorses around him in a three allows him to dictate the game but he isn’t what I’d thought he was, which is like a pass merchant.
Championship player of the season so doubt he's lazy.
Worth bringing in if we think he's ready. Looks like a different midfielder from what we have. Not worth it for a project though, we have enough young midfielders we aren't sure about already.
Lots of positives there, looks like his strengths align with our weaknesses fairly well. Him and garner would probably balance each other out fairly well.
Kerryblueboy wrote: ↑Tue Jun 02, 2026 4:01 pm
Come on brap if he was coming from some obscure league you would be all over it he is a very good player
I like the championship for buying players no issue with it at all. The kid might be great as well not being negative, just what he looks like and from what I’ve read.
Always wary comparing stats for players from different leagues. He's clearly an exciting talent, but what led Premier League teams to avoid him last summer when he was posting similar numbers?
Concerns about his work off the ball are perfectly valid, especially in this version of the premier league, where it’s as physical as it has ever been.
Hope is he either develops that along the way, or we can compensate for it with the players around him.
I wouldn’t feel great seeing him as part of a three, but as a ten I’d really like it.
We don’t have anyone like him in the squad though and desperately need good footballers in that midfield over players that can run and tackle but not do much else.
Trowel wrote: ↑Tue Jun 02, 2026 4:36 pm
Always wary comparing stats for players from different leagues. He's clearly an exciting talent, but what led Premier League teams to avoid him last summer when he was posting similar numbers?
True, it's a flawed comparison but not a useless one. Helps us understand the type of player he is compared to those players, but doesn't guarantee the same output at a higher standard.
People said the same about G0yokeres.
I guess our team must feel confident enough he can make that step up after another season of consistently good championship performances.
I thought we should’ve signed him instead of KDH last summer.
Got no particular issues with it. I don’t love what having two roaming deep midfielders does for the balance of a team but at least his skills appear complementary to Garner and Iroegbunam.
In a perfect world, we’d go for a more stationary playmaker type to pair with two run everywhere, do everything types but I suppose those are a dying breed in the modern game.
