If he’s aiming to progress to the EFL, he’ll need to become tougher physically. He’s a skilled player but can be overpowered too easily. Perhaps it would be better for him to spend more time with Gateshead? I believe that might be the case.

He’s a talented player, and there’s no reason he couldn’t advance and eventually become an excellent asset for a football league team. He’s always had potential; it’s just that we outgrew his abilities at the time, and he needed to play regularly. It will be interesting to see how things unfold. I could easily envision Ed Francis fitting in with a League One team, where he’d likely get more time with the ball.

i liked ed francis, but i thought he did better when he had michael doyles guidance and after doyle left with ian burchnall he seemed to struggle to take his chances. i always felt it he would attract interest from teams higher up, gateshead are a good team for working with players who just need a little more time to get to their best.

it would be great to see him stepping up and doing well.

Well, I think it made sense as to why we allowed Ed Francis to go.

He slipped too far down the pecking order and didn't really progress as we did; I remember saying at the time he was a few seasons off being ready for League Two. He's got there by playing regularly and in a side which does push players to perform well. He really needed a fresh change, but I would be cautious against him making a jump just to play at a higher level too soon because he could find himself out of favour for more experienced players.

Good player but with more game time under his belt, I believe he'll only get better. I would hate to see him end up being one of those players who constantly get loaned out for experience, yet never really settle.

Technically he's a very good player but I agree he did struggle with the physicality at times. I'm sure playing more regularly at Gateshead will have helped him improve. It didn't help he was a similar player to Matty Palmer, just not as good, and it never really made sense to play both of them. I always thought his positional awareness off the ball wasn't great either and to make it worse he was pretty slow so had a tendency to be caught out.