Plenty of Bradford City and Northampton Town fans have been all over our capture of Ethan Wheatley, saying how bad he is.
I find that a little hard to digest. You can say how you felt he did for your team with confidence, but I am 100% sure a player in Manchester United’s academy, chased over the summer by Everton, is good at football. The clue is in the club names: we’re not talking about Macclesfield and Eastleigh here. Also, I saw question marks over Alfie Lloyd last season, Justin Obikwu and others, and somehow, we were the team that went up, not Northampton or Bradford, so I’ll trust our recruitment.
In terms of the squad, I think Ethan Wheatley is as close to our Ryan Oné replacement as we are going to get this summer. That does not mean I expect him to reproduce everything Oné gave us during the second half of last season, nor does it mean the two players are identical. This is more about the role we have recruited Wheatley to perform than a direct comparison between their respective qualities.
Oné joined the Imps in January and scored five times in 16 League One appearances. He was raw and occasionally untidy, but big, mobile, and capable of carrying the ball, and willing to run, press, and create disorder in the final third.
That ability to create disorder was important. City had a specific plan for Oné, one which did not necessarily require him to stand between the posts and score every chance that came his way. He could operate centrally, move into the channels and use his physicality to help us establish territory. When the press worked, and the opposition were forced into hurried clearances, we could keep them penned in and build another attack.
That is where I believe Wheatley comes into the picture.
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A replacement for the role
Wheatley does not arrive with particularly attractive senior numbers. He scored three times in 22 league appearances for Northampton Town before being recalled by Manchester United and sent to Bradford City, where he did not score in 11 league outings. Across the League One season, he recorded three goals and one assist in a little over 2,100 minutes.
There is no point pretending those figures are anything other than modest. If we were judging the signing solely by goals, as the internet does, the obvious conclusion would be that we have added a striker who struggled to score in the division below. That concern is entirely reasonable, particularly when City are now operating in the Championship and are likely to create fewer chances than they did during a title-winning League One campaign.
However, reducing Wheatley’s season to three goals misses much of the context behind it. Northampton were fighting relegation and were among the division’s least productive attacking teams. They generated very few shots, scored only 22 league goals while Wheatley was there and spent much of the campaign attempting to survive rather than overwhelm opponents.
Wheatley primarily played in the centre of a front three for the Cobblers. He was often the main striker in a 3-4-3, which meant his responsibilities extended beyond waiting for chances inside the penalty area. He had to compete physically, occupy defenders and help Northampton get up the pitch. That does not excuse every missed opportunity, but it changes how those numbers should be interpreted.
A striker can only shoot when his team gives him the ball in areas from which shooting is possible. Wheatley’s return at Northampton was broadly in line with the quality of chances he received, rather than representing a catalogue of extraordinary misses. There remains work to do on his movement and finishing, but he was playing in an environment which offered limited opportunities to demonstrate either.
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The Bradford question
His spell at Bradford is perhaps more difficult to explain. They were challenging near the top of League One, so it would be tempting to assume Wheatley should have flourished once he moved from a relegation battle into a promotion push. Instead, his minutes fell, and the goals still did not arrive.
That immediately raises questions. Was he injured? Was he simply not fancied? Did Bradford decide other players were better suited to what they wanted to do? All of those possibilities deserve consideration, but their attacking structure is important as well.
Bradford did not use their centre-forward in the same way Northampton had. They tended to play with one striker and two narrow attacking midfielders, often Antoni Sarcevic and George Lapslie, while the width came from the wing-backs. Wheatley entered a side with an established shape and, possibly, without an obvious position tailored to his qualities, apart from that centre forward role. I’d argue that it is difficult for a young centre forward from academy football to be a huge success in his first senior loan. Sometimes, even in his second and third.
We had a clear role for Oné, but I am not convinced Bradford ever had the same clarity with Wheatley. He was a player they added to their attacking options rather than someone around whom they reshaped their approach. It is still legitimate to ask why Wheatley could not force his way into the team. Good players have to adapt, and a striker hoping to establish himself at Manchester United cannot expect every side to be constructed for his benefit. Equally, loan spells are not always neat measurements of talent. Sometimes the player, manager, system and moment fit together. Sometimes they do not.
What Oné had around him
There is another piece of context which should not be ignored when comparing the pair. Oné joined a City side which became increasingly dominant as the season progressed. By the end of the campaign, we were creating chances almost at will and brushing aside opponents who could not cope with our intensity.
Three of Oné’s five league goals came in matches in which City scored four times, against Plymouth Argyle, Blackpool and Northampton. That does not diminish those goals. A striker still has to get into the right position and finish, but those were games in which the entire team was in full flow. Oné was able to capitalise on the pressure and opportunities generated around him.
Wheatley never experienced that at Northampton. Bradford were promoted, but they were not a traditional free-scoring promotion side. They finished 15th in League One for goals and outside the top eight for both shots and shots on target. Their success was not built on creating a constant stream of opportunities for their forwards.
There is a counterpoint. Bradford’s goals-to-shots ratio suggests they could have been more prolific, and Wheatley was one of several players who might have contributed more. Context cannot become a shield used to deflect every criticism. At some stage, an attacking player has to produce goals and assists.
The concern becomes more pronounced when considering the team Wheatley is joining. We are unlikely to dominate the Championship in the way they dominated League One. There will be afternoons when we resemble Northampton more than the City side Oné joined. Chances may be scarce and strikers could be required to make the most of one or two openings rather than four or five.
If Wheatley struggled to score in a team near the bottom of League One, why should we expect a dramatic improvement in a newly promoted Championship side? It is a fair question and one which can only truly be answered on the pitch.
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More than goals
The answer might lie in what we require from the role. Our attacking play is not always built around patiently manufacturing clear sights of goal. Many chances come from graft, pressure and disruption. We pin opponents in, press high, force mistakes, win corners and earn throw-ins in dangerous areas.
A striker can contribute to that process without registering a goal or assist. If Wheatley chases a defender into a poor clearance, competes for the next ball and helps City keep an attack alive, his work may eventually produce a chance for Reeco Hackett, Freddie Draper or someone arriving from midfield. None of that will appear beside Wheatley’s name in the conventional statistics.
That does not mean we should abandon goals as a measure. He is a forward and will ultimately need to score. However, five goals accompanied by relentless pressing and effective physical work might be more valuable to us than eight goals from a player who contributes little outside the penalty area.
Wheatley is 6ft 2in, athletic and comfortable carrying the ball. He has enough technical ability to operate across the front line and is not necessarily restricted to playing as the central striker. There may be occasions when he comes into the side through one of the wider positions, particularly if City want another powerful runner around Draper or Ben House.
Recruitment teams and coaches do not always get these decisions right. We have seen enough loans fail at Lincoln to know that pedigree is no guarantee of performance. The club’s recent permanent recruitment record has produced plenty of successes, but the loan market has been more uneven.
Still, City will have signed Wheatley because they see attributes which fit a specific need. The task now is to place him in situations where those attributes become evident to everyone else.
Concluson
It is possible that the concerns raised by Northampton and Bradford supporters will prove accurate, but that can be said of any player who signs. Perception and output are different – Justin Obikwu scored three goals for us, and he went to QPR for £1m. How did we react to that? Okay, he hasn’t played yet for QPR, but the point is that simply looking at goals is not a measure of how a player fits and works.
Perhaps Wheatley will work hard, compete physically and show promising flashes without ever carrying enough attacking threat. There is no guarantee that another year of development will suddenly turn him into a prolific Championship forward. That uncertainty is the nature of signing a young player. We are not recruiting the finished product. They are backing themselves to identify a profile, define a role and help Wheatley take another step.
He is not a direct replica of Oné, because this Lincoln City will have to be a little different from the one we saw last season. Nevertheless, I expect City to use him in much the same way: as an athletic, powerful and technically capable forward who can run, press, carry the ball and make life uncomfortable for defenders. If he scores regularly as well, the deal will look inspired. If he scores five all season but creates enough chaos for City to establish pressure, win set pieces and generate chances for others, he may still have done precisely what he was brought here to do.
That impact is far more difficult to measure than goals. It might also be the key to understanding why Lincoln City wanted Ethan Wheatley.
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