A few months too late but today Latics finally picked up one of our preseason recommendations in David Thompson. The ex-Liverpool midfielder, released by Blackburn, has signed a ‘prove yourself’ contract until the end of the season. Thompson was closely followed through the door by Neil Mellor, signed on loan until the end of the season. Both players fit the ‘hardworking’ criteria for being a Jewell player, and should have too much problem understanding him, but hopefully have a little bit more to give. Both definitely will be looking to prove something.
Although recovering from Injury, Thompson had already looked to be out of favour at Blackburn and it certainly looked like any bid in the summer would have seen him move away from Ewood. That wasn’t the case and fairly soon into the season he was sidelined with knee problems. Now fit to play he had returned to the fringes of the rovers first team and was on the bench for the game at the JJB earlier this month.
The most apt description of his play would be tenacious although he is a decent passer of the ball and according to our manager has ‘quick feet’. The 28 year old has played in the Premier League for Liverpool, Coventry and Blackburn without ever really capturing the sort of headlines his early days suggested. David can play either in the centre or on the right of midfield and although the most obvious candidate to make way is Garry Teale, it would be interesting to know how secure Kavanagh feels at the moment.
Mellor is a bit of enigma, Liverpool website are quick to point out that he’s scored 6 goals in 15 starts for them, but there will be numerous substitute appearances to throw on top of that and his form whilst on loan at West Ham, wasn’t that impressive. That aside, there’s no getting away from the fact that he’s considered one of the better young talents around. Due to a bad time with injuries he’s become a bit of the forgotten man at Anfield and even if he’s not taking the ‘with a view to a permanent signing’ bit of the deal you can be sure that he will at least be trying to prove himself worthy of a place in the Liverpool squad, if he manages that then we should have a fun end to the season.
So there you have it, two players with the potential to either reinvigorate our season, or keep Studs and Cribley company in front of the club television, but is that the end of the new additions? I think Mellor joining writes off any thoughts of Dean Ashton (if they were realistic in the first place), but Earnshaw is a completely different type of player. Elsewhere on the transfer front Fulham have signed Wayne Bridges which could open the way for Matthew Taylor to make the move north, maybe JR can send him a map?
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