I thought Simmo looked lively on Saturday when he came on. Got stuck in straight away, winning a foul just outside the box, and his run into the box for the pen. He clearly wanted to get a goal under his belt by taking the pen, but the longer he was waiting for the ref to push everyone back behind the 18 yard line the more nervous he was looking. Needs a goal, but he looked lively enough to me.
We need Aluko, his flair and attacking intent scares defenders and brings our other players into the game. We need to move Koren back into midfield, and start Proschwitz alongside Sone and it'll be fine. Big Nick holding the ball up and Aluko getting forward with the likes or Elmo, Brady, Meyler and Koren all making advancing runs for Proschwitz to find them. He'd also give us more height and threat from corners and more solidity when defending set pieces. Taking Aluko out of the time now would be stupid. Yeah we won four games without him, but honestly, since his return, he's been the main driving force. Not to mention the fact he's out top goal scorer... We need a new striker rather soon, and hopefully another Keeper. But I'd have Simpson and Proschwitz for the Cup Game, and then Proschwitz and Aluko for the Posh match. Koren isn't a forward, and his one-on-one showed that, but he's done his best up there. Any criticism towards him is unfair because he's managed to do the job out of position for us, and is on 7 goals.
Proschwitz definitely deserves a start tomorrow and lets see how he does. As for Saturday, I like the idea of Aluko playing off Proschwitz with Koren, Meyler & Quinn joining in from midfield. Koren didnt have a good game on Saturday but along with Brady, Quinn, Meyler & Elmo, he has the quality to pop up with a bit of magic that can unlock a defence. For this reason, these 5 players should always be on the pitch
You're right, our shots in general are just ****ing appalling for the standard of team we're supposed to be. When we actually score a goal with a good shot that hits the corner or has some power behind it I find myself going on about it for weeks on here because I was so pleased with it. I remember last year when Josh King equalised against Boro I was going crazy about it and even though the match meant nothing that late in the season I really enjoyed that goal but that's probably because it was a proper shot which I'm not used to seeing from us. I agree with that. I think with strikers people are too influenced by numbers are forget what they've actually seen. Simpson has been largely the same player that everyone was raving about a few months ago, the only difference is he hasn't been scoring as much so suddenly people are saying he can't trap a ball and he's just a hard-working type which, from what I've seen, is massively untrue. I really don't think he has. I remember one good shot against Leicester which should have been a goal but apart from that he hasn't had a shot or even beaten a man or anything that I can remember. He receives it with his back to goal now and then and then loses it. That's his entire contribution at the moment.
To summarise, the further in to the season we go, the more teams will suss us out. At the minute we don't have a plan B and we need another striker. If we get a decent striker in on loan, I think we will be fine
I think too much is made of being 'sussed out'. Back in September Milwall 'sussed' us and we ****ed 'em up good and proper. Warnock had us sussed and we ****ed his boys up too. The issue in games like Wednesday is that we were ****. As Bruce keeps saying, every team will come and try to stop us playing but the thing is they won't all succeed. The key is to play our best and it won't matter about tactics. Getting a striker in will go a long way to finishing this team off because we won't need 20 shots to score if he's anyone decent.
I have got to say i hope i am a bad judge and Nick proves me wrong but the bits i have seen of him and in the full 90 mins in the cup game then he does not look the answer to our problems, against Orient against poor centre backs he certainly did not dominate which a good forward would. I really hope he continues to improve because his heading has but for me he still has a long way to go at this standard, lets hope he does well tomorrow night
