Whilst I agree that the 3 at the back formation floating around looks one of our strongest options on paper, for me I still feel our goal scoring problem will not go away. One of the first things I would do as the manager of our squad is go down the entire list and put next to them a figure for the number of goals you’d expect each player to score this season. I’ve done this in my head roughly and struggle to break the 50 mark for all competitions. I’d would say any 2 of Austin, Gabba and Long are capable of 15 each if they were to play the majority of games with the 3rd choice getting somewhere around 10. The problem comes when you get to the midfield. Who do we realistically expect to score more than 5 this season in that department? In essence, whilst 3 at the back looks good, we still rely heavily on our strikers to have a good game each week or the problem will still exist.
No, they are not going to get anything in that vicinity That's 40 goals merely from our strike force; we scored 41 as a team last year, and we're actually averaging fewer goals per game this season. I'm afraid there isn't any chance that any of our strikers score 15, never mind two of them getting 15 apiece with another getting double digits. We simply don't have that talent level up top, and we definitely don't have the supporting cast to assist that. If we're lucky, Austin/Gabbiadini/Long will combine for 25 goals...I'd be kinda surprised if any of them tops 10 goals, honestly.
Boufal needs to play. Gabbiadini upfront on his own isn't such a bad thing, but we need a LITTLE bit of inspiration from midfield beyond the defensive safety first crew.
You don’t think that if we played two up front every game, over a 40+ game season with cups they Austin and gabba would get around 15 a piece? Austin got 10 by December last year didn’t he? Regardless my point is our midfield do not contribute enough. Doesnt matter what the attackers get, without a midfielder or two contributing to a good degree we will always struggle to break 40-50 goals
Have you seen anything in Boufals play up to now to give you any confidence that he can perform at this level let alone start him in the place of any of those that have been toiling away so far
Yes but he needs a run of games. 20 minutes here and there won't help. If it was upto me then I'd give him 6 starts in a row and stick to it regardless of how he performs in the first two. Players like Redmond, for example, have had plenty of chances so far this season without really producing. Only fair that Boufal gets the same sort of chance/opportunity.
I agree, far too optimistic. Gabby is the only striker that I have any confidence in but only if we we play to his strengths which we definitely aren't. This still goes back to selling Pelle and Mane who scored about half our goals and not replacing them
Not just this season, last season was Redmond's chance to find his feet, this season we needed to see some real progress and growth. He's had real opportunity, Boufal has shown me enough to believe he will be no worse than Redmond and honestly, a lot more influential if it works out.
Well I went to the cup game vs Sunderland last season and he was the stand out player. Did enough to warrant starting games in my opinion.
Who counts as a midfielder? I’m not Redmond’s biggest fan but I’d expect him to score at least 5 goals this season. He did get 7 last year.
Not even close to it, particularly as we're already out of one cup. Having two strikers doesn't mean we're going to score twice as much...I'd very much like us to try to get two goalscorers on the pitch when we aren't chasing games, but at best it's likely to elevate a terrible attack to a mediocre one. Take the '15/'16 side that scored rather prolifically for a Saints team, and also had nine European/cup matches: the trio of Pelle, Mane and Long got 39 by my count. With fewer games and frankly a far worse attack, we aren't going to approach that.
This is exactly what I said a few weeks ago. A player like Boufal needs to be told he is playing the next 6 games and be told it is his chance. You can't expect a player to slot in getting brief appearances from time to time, particularly a "flair" type player.
If you just look at individual playets on paper without looking at form we have players capable of 5. Redmond got 7 ladt year, tadic got 7 the year before. I think prowse is capable of that if he starts most games, he's prolific in friendlies lol. Boufal scored 11 for Lille. So on paper I would expect at least 15 from our 1 striker spot, another 15 total from our other attackers, maybe 5 total from our CB's who are capable from set pieces. So 35 plus a few extra from elsewhere. On current form though each of our 25 man squad will score precisely 1 goal each for 25 over the season
I'd be pleasantly surprised if any of our players hit double figures for the season. As a rough guess I will say that we score 35 goals in all comps this year (I have no idea what we are on now btw
I must have missed that game as I have seen little or nothing from him. His best performance in front of me was his small cameo on the left wing against Stoke but that's been it
DL - he hasn't performed particularly well, but that doesn't mean he hasn't shown that he has the ability. Are you saying you haven't even seen the talent that he has?
