Rob Edwards can transform £25k-a-week star – Middlesbrough supporters should be excited | OneFootball

New Middlesbrough boss Rob Edwards will be confident of getting the best out of January signing Morgan Whittaker.

The summer is always the time for supporters of any club, but especially in the volatility of the EFL, to get excited and begin dreaming about the season ahead, putting previous campaigns behind them.

Middlesbrough supporters are a specific group that should be forgiven for speculating on what may be in store for them, following the impressive appointment of former Luton Town boss Rob Edwards.

Boro missed out on a top six finish and the play-off places on the final day of last season with a 2-0 loss to Coventry City. But if truth be told, that was perhaps a blessing, as the way they were playing, and had played for pretty much the entirety of the campaign, left a lot to be desired, and it could have been a humiliating play-off campaign.

Now, with Edwards at the helm, Boro will be seeking to sustain a more serious challenge for promotion next season and the manager will be keen on getting the best out of some underperforming individuals.

One player in particular who will be expected to kick on next term and begin to thrive after a woeful start to his career at the Riverside Stadium would be Morgan Whittaker, who is understood to be earning £25k-a-week on Teesside.

Morgan Whittaker and Rob Edwards appears an ideal match

Edwards helped gain Luton one of the most unlikely promotions in recent times in 2022/23 with an impressive, well-organised and resolute system and shape.

Pragmatic in their approach, Edwards has shown at Forest Green Rovers that he can play an all-conquering dominant style of football, whilst being able to mix things up with the Hatters.

Both of those approaches saw Edwards deploy a back three in either a 3-4-3 or 3-4-2-1 shape, or a slightly more reactive and defensive 3-5-2 or 3-4-1-2 system.

Either way, it is a shape that has worked well for Edwards at different points in his career using a different style of football, and it is also a shape that saw Plymouth Argyle get the best out of Morgan Whittaker.

Whittaker thrived in a similar system under the management of Steven Schumacher with the Pilgrims, scoring nine goals and providing seven assists in the first-half of their title-winning campaign in the 2022/23 season, before he was recalled by Swansea City, as a winger in the 3-4-3 or a second striker in the 3-5-2.

He has struggled at Middlesbrough, trying to adapt to Michael Carrick’s more deliberate style of football in a different shape, and it has been a slow start for the 24-year-old in a team struggling for fluency.

Finding the fluency with Edwards at Middlesbrough will be key to Whittaker's success

Having to be more controlled and deliberate, both on and off the ball, is perhaps not what Whittaker is best suited to, often being blunted by indecision and hesitation.

With Argyle, at his best, he could make things happen off the cuff and most often in transition, which is something he thrived at under the management of Schumacher.

That is also a style of football that Edwards may well identify as the best way of getting the best out of his Boro side, and that would therefore also majorly help Whittaker.

The new Boro boss has already made it abundantly clear that he wants his team to be full of invention and action in attack, which is different to Carrick's slow build-up, patient and probing approach which doesn't always suit a flair player such as Whittaker.

However, if he is set to be deployed as one of the attackers in a three-at-the-back system, which Edwards clearly prefers, then the space he could have in transition and the directness that system requires from its attackers could well work for Whittaker, and allow him to get his Middlesbrough career truly kick-started.