I'm also (like others) starting to lean towards the idea that a creative midfielder is more important than a striker. Sorry if mentioned, but when is Austin due back? Was 3 months originally wasn't it?
Ask your lovely Mrs to explain. I am willing to bet any and all backbone in the Godders household emanates from the distaff line.
Just watched the highlights. It's all such fine margins again. Clearances off the line, excellent saves. We just don't get any luck at all, do we?
I haven't watched yet. I see this a lot, and in individual games it does seem to be the case. But surely it happens too often to be all down to luck doesn't it? Plus if they wanna give us all of our luck in one lump on the 25th then that would be okay too
The problem was not the performance. The problem was that we had a model of Stonehenge that was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf.
Yes, it occurred to me as I typed, "but what about the averages?" I believe that we have decent squad. We have Austin injured, Long out of form and Tadic not really firing. The team is like an unfinished jigsaw at the moment. Is it just that some of the pieces are in the wrong place and so it can't be completed, or are we missing a couple of pieces? It's a given that most teams in the EPL think that they need a couple of extra players. But then we have the Academy and I wouldn't want to go backwards on that. Any striker or midfielder that we bring in has to be a definite step up from what we have. I have asked this before, but those who feel that we need to buy in January, please tell me who do you think might be interested/available?
Its a risk, that's for sure. I can't even decide if its our main problem. The ponderous build up makes it hard to tell. I just don't want to get to March and be near the bottom six. They are showing some good fight down there. With our luck, good fight might not be enough. We just can't grind like Burnley & Hull do.
Well I certainly feel we need to buy in January. But it's hard for fans for mulitple reasons to guve suggestions as we don't know budget, wage limits or demands, and perhaps most importantly we don't have access to our scouting network. We're constantly talking in the media about how advanced the 'black box' is etc. So it's not really up to fans to name potential signings. Particuarly as we tend to scout unknowns. How many of us knew a lot about Virgil or Mane a couple of years before they were signed?
We aren't using the Academy players much as is, beyond defense. Sims and Reed have combined for about 200 minutes in the league, and that's it for strikers and midfielders; neither even makes the bench unless we're missing multiple options. There really aren't many minutes for them to lose in PL action. Regarding targets we're known to have looked at, said before that I'd be happy to have Gabbiadiani, even if he isn't an out-and-out CF. Sebastien Haller isn't terribly exciting, but if we're going to lump crosses into congestion, having one of the most dominant aerial presences in Europe isn't the worst idea. We've been linked with Alassane Plea as well, who played under Puel last year and can run I'd take Bojan, who seems to be out of favour. Sandro Ramirez's tenure with Malaga has only just begun after moving from Barca, but he's young and fun and good and Malaga is neither, so they might be willing to take a decent wedge. Also, Gerard Moreno at Espanyol might be a cost-effective addition; not the most imposing presence but he can finish, most of the time! For bigger reaches, Moussa Dembele? Ayup. I'm not sure whether he can sold until the summer (he's on loan) nor what the asking price would be, but Moussa Marega of Porto would add some get-up-and-go. Would Ajax sell young Kasper Doiberg? Almost definitely not. Should we pelt them with bricks of £100 notes and see if they relent? Yeah, why not. As for non-striking creative/scoring CM/CAM types, I would have loved to get Yunus Malli from Mainz, but Wolfsburg picked him up for a very reasonable price last week. Dani Parejo has been mooted, and would be a very nice pickup, though at 27 he's older than our usual type. Allan at Napoli is a proper box-to-box type...good ball winner who likes to start moves and run in the general direction of the opposing goal, and seems to be out of favour a touch at the moment. Hector Herrera at Porto is a genuine CM who can actually score goals, and might be available because Porto has more CMs than we do. Youri Tielemans is probably becoming increasingly unrealistic, but I don't care.
There are two advantages to being a fan in Canada: one, you can watch three or four games in a row and finish when it's still only mid/late afternoon, allowing the opportunity to do something thereafter. Two, a large chunk of the season happens in winter (last Saturday: -20 Celsius and 1.5 feet of snow; this Saturday: -15 and windy), thus depriving one of any motivation to do anything but watch football.
Agreed. Yesterday we always seemed to take a route to the wings and hit hopeful crosses - we really needed someone to drive through the central midfield - if only to keep their defence honest - Burnley were all to happy to allow us to hit those high crosses into the box.
We're 3rd in the league in headed attempts on goal; we're in a four-way tie for 14th in headed goals with three, and if memory serves at least a couple of those came from dead ball situations. I'd be pretty happy to allow us to hit high crosses into traffic, too.
I was having this very discussion with Mrs Onionman yesterday and I was wondering whether to post about it. Rather than guess, I wondered how many of our decent chances were going in. What's a decent chance? Dunno, but a shot in the area probably does well enough. So here are the stats of the teams around us. I'm not comparing us to Chelsea or to Hull as that'd be daft. These are the teams in the two places above and below us as of tonight. Stats are from Squawka. So it's pretty clear we ARE creating chances, and our shot accuracy is roughly right. We're just not converting them into goals. So here's the bit that's going to cause the ruck. I think our lack of goals is just bad luck. I've done enough statistics in my life to know a small sample size when I see one. Humans are very good at seeing patterns that aren't there and creating reasons for them - we're seeing a run of bad luck and deciding that we're not creating chances (not true) and that our inability to convert them is anything but bad luck (debatable). It's either that or we have players who have sneaked into the Premier League who, from inside the area, are able to get shots on target at about the rate other teams do but in such a way as to make it not go into the goal. Possible but unlikely. This is going to be deeply unfashionable but I think all we have to do is carry on creating chances in the way we most definitely are and wait. Vin
Alternatively, many of our shots from within the area could come with said players under significantly more pressure than the shots created by other teams, because most of the shots we fashion take place in crowded penalty areas. Or more of our shots in the box could be coming from 17 yards rather than 7, or from outside the width of the goal. Or our players are genuinely not good finishers, which might not be a greater stretch than "they've just been unlucky this whole season". Using this shot chart, compare our map of shots aimed at goal (so, goals + saves + blocks) to West Ham's; notice that they have a massive cluster of shots within the width of the 6 yard box and within 12 yards of goal. It's where most of their goals have come from. We don't. In fact, if you set it to "goals + saves" only and flip through the teams, a pattern will emerge: the teams that have the tidiest 6 yard box are the ones that score few goals. Hull, Watford, Sunderland and ourselves are all notably less empty than the rest of the league...that's 4 of the bottom 6 in goals scored. We're volume shooters, in effect, in a sport that rewards getting the extremely high percentage shots that result in the majority of goals. Also, a remarkably large number of the shots we have gotten from good areas have been taken by non-goalscorers. Take a look at Long's all-shots chart...he only has one shot all season from within the width of the goal and within 15 yards. He missed it wide. Redmond's chart involves mostly shots taken from acute angles or 12+ yards. Only two players on the team have a nice big block of shots in the really dangerous bit of the pitch: Austin, and Van Dijk. Which is more evidence that, if he wasn't so essential in defense, perhaps we ought to be starting him up top.
