.. and you were proved right Proud. Suffice to say that in the last half of the season neither Wood nor Nugent weighed in with enough goals.
At least now were out, we can look towards next years signings a bit sooner. Anyone wanna sticky a transfer rumors/wishlist thread for the summer?
I was right though wasn't I? - I saw your post in the other thread! I was actually making the point that for every view there (should be) an equally valid counter argument. End of the day, if we get rid of Pearson and we fail, people will blame the lack of consistent management. Stick with Pearson and fail, people will say we should have got rid ages ago. People will always look for excuses - just look at those that thought Knocky shouldn't have taken that penalty. They wouldn't have said a word if he'd scored. We're all experts in retrospect.
Bit harsh. Wood and Nugent were (tie) fifth and eighth highest scorers in the league. Vydra only finish fourth with two more than Wood. I don't think we scored enough in Feb/March as a unit, although we did finished with 11 in six, Wood getting a couple of those and Nuge getting the two play-off goals.
Don't think it's harsh at all - its irrefutable - Nugent for instance went 17 games without a goal - that's a fact. Jeff Schlupp came back from his loan with Man Utd and immediately started to notch - if you are going to get promoted you can't have a front line strike force so out of sorts for such a prolonged period ... as has just become all too apparent.
Too easy to just blame it on the strikers though. We didn't score enough in Feb/Mar full stop. Sixteen goals is about the norm for a player like Nugent. If that's not enough we need to get rid now because he'll never get much more. Twenty goals for any striker (11 (for us) in the second half of the season, which is when you said he struggled) is a good tally. Of the strikers representing our promotion rivals, only Vydra and Murray scored more than Wood, and half of the season Wood was with a very average team (which proved to be below average without him). Again, it's about looking at the balanced picture, not zeroing in on our 11 game bad run. Overall they did well, but they, and the rest of the team, where not good enough for about 1/4 of the season.
I think you are trying to massage the stats and timings to fit an argument - I didn't 'solely' blame the strikers at any point - but I think it is reasonable to expect your strikers to weigh in with the majority of the goals in the last 16 or 17 games of any season - they didn't. Hence my point, in response to Proud that whilst he was correct in his prediction (and therefore I wasn't), neither Wood nor Nugent scored enough goals in the period from which we made our respective predictions - mine being that I thought Wood would overtake Nuge because Nuge is not a natural centre-forward for me.
No, I'm saying it was unrealistic to expect much more than we got from our strikers. They deserve as much credit for the work up until the end of Jan as they deserve stick for their performances in Feb/Mar. But people only like to hand out the latter. The overall outcome, no matter what order things happened in, was about par for the course for those two players. The same goes for our league position.
Unrealistic to expect Nugent to score more than once in 17 games? ... be serious. WTF are we paying him to do? ... stsnd-up? ... he's not John Bishop.
I didn't say that. I'm saying that pre-Feb, he was exceeding expectations. Post Feb, he under-performed. The end outcome was an average season for Nugent. No better or worse than expected. If he'd performed all season how he played in the second half, he'd be out on his arse in the summer.
But I think what FF is saying is that we're expecting him to keep some sort of standard up for the whole season. No good scoring 17 goals in one half if you can't back it up in the other.
When drawing up expectation we should all be aware that form comes and goes. How often do you hear: "he started the season brilliantly but tailed off" or "he struggled at the start of the season but really came along"? When a player hits form, we as fans all hope it last forever. It's not realistic. Even top strikers struggle, some for vast periods. Rooney, Torres, Owen... it's always happening. Looking at things in balance though, did anyone really think Nugent would get more than 16 goals at the start of the season? The whole basis of Filberto's bet was that didn't think he would get many more...
By your logic then, if Wood scores a hat trick in his first seven games next season, he then doesn't need to score again all season because he's already done his job? - you know that's complete bollox I hope. Real Madrid must be kicking themselves that you're not Messi's personal trainer. He could have stopped playing at Xmas LOL. Carry on dressing it up as you will but it's still rubbish - any player worth his salt - particularly forwards in terms of scoring goals - should always be looking to beat (not match) what they have done previously. If you have equalled your previous ever goal scoring record by Xmas, then don't notch again for the rest of the season you should be livid rather than thinking it's 'OK overall' - what an opportunity missed (the last four words summing up our season)
My expectation of Nugent was about 15 goals for the season. His early season form was exceptional. However, expectation levels change with the situation as i'm sure you'll agree and I was more surprised with his lack of form in the last 20 or so games than his form in the 26 previously.
I agree with every word. - as you might expect I'd add this - we were creating bundles of chances before Wood joined but our conversion rate to shots on target was abysmal - if Nugent was a better finisher he should have scored far more than he had before Wood joined. Initially Wood improved that conversion rate dramatically. What followed is almost inexplicable - we still created chances (apart from Barnsley away), lots of them, but both Wood and Nugent's form in front of goal tailed off abysmally - and not just them the whole team
The way you lot are going on you would think it was impossible to go up without a striker bagging 20+ goals per season. Now, can I think of a club who has managed to do that without said prolific striker...?
I can't think of anyone who said it was impossible to go up without a striker bagging 20 goals a season. Although it is fairly obvious that your chances improve when you've got one.
If Wood miraculous somehow managed that, it would be a brave man that leaves him after that. Where would you draw the line? Ten games? Fifteen? Twenty? Overall performances and contribution would be important too in deciding. It's not that far off what actually did happen with Wood, but over half a season. Not that many fans have called for him to be dropped. Messi's price tag would dictate that there's no target on the number of goals he should be scoring. I don't know what you mean by "he doesn't have to score" (well I do, you're being facetious)... of course a striker should attempt to score every chance they get. You make it sound like they've been missing on purpose because "they've done their bit". As fans we need to accept that what has gone before doesn't necessarily dictate what is to come. At the end of the season you have to look at the bigger picture. Wood and Nugent did about as well as expected. Agreed, Nugent in particular would have wanted to improve on previous seasons - I'm sure he will be disappointed, as any good striker would be - and I agree that this could have been his best chance of achieving a career high tally after he got so many so early. But his end of year report should read "satisfactory", not "could do better".
