There was a time when we could only dream of Div 1 football. The views expressed in my posts are not necessarily mine.
The headed goals one is really strange. We get plenty of corners. We have players who seem to be able to put in a decent delivery. We even seem to have focused on just trying to score direct from the corner lately because Gelhardt has shown he can do that. The bit that always seems to be missing is our big guys winning a header. Jones and McLoughlin's scoring records have been mentioned, but look at Hughes too. He's a unit, he should be getting the odd one, or at least coming close, but no. Greaves last season had the best or close to the best aerial duel stats in the division, yet he hardly ever won one in the opposition penalty area. It's baffling. It really does feel like we have some sort of artificial handicap where we're just not allowed to score various kinds of goals. Another one, every so often you hear about a player having scored his last 10 penalties (like Mbeumo last night) or similar. Toney had an even better record for the same club. I'm not sure there's been a City player in my time who has taken 10 penalties for us. Where do teams get all these penalties for players to take? Such a big source of goals seemingly but not for us.
the penalties thing is down to lack of bodies in the box. goes back to something i saw mentioned in another thread about the harder you work, the luckier you get. people think Liverpool and Man City get so many penalties as they are lucky or refs are bent, they just spend so much time in the oppositions penalty box, its just stands to reason they are going to get fouled more often.
You're probably right, and the other part is that with our ever-rotating cast of attackers no one is ever here long enough to take more than one before they're shipped off again.
Goalscoring defenders ? I always recall Anthony Gerrard, was always good for 5 or 6 a season, latterly think Curtis Davies weighed in with a fair few together with big H too. Since then I'm struggling to think of any that caused a threat
His last 2 seasons with us Greaves got 6 goals and 6 assists Makes him one of our best goal outputters
We’re joint lowest in the championship this season for headed goals with 3. Norwich and Preston also have 3. The average across the league is 7. The team with the most is Coventry, with 18. We managed 3 all season last time around too. We weren’t bottom of the league for headers that year as Plymouth only had 2. It was 6 the season before that. In 19/20 we scored 11, which was the last time we managed more than the league average. 07/08 was our best ever season for headed goals in the championship, with 16.
For all the discourse about goals from outside the area being rare, they still seem to account for a decent portion of ours. I count 9/39 for around 23% Coyle v Plymouth Belloumi v Cardiff Drameh v QPR Simons v Burnley Simons v Derby Burstow v Swansea Kamara v Leeds Gelhardt v QPR Crooks v Sheff U
Yea id even forgot burstows n gelhardts etc Weve def scored way more long range goals than most teams this sesasons Shows how biased we can be
We don't score enough goals to be competitive. End of story. That's why we are a point away from the relegation zone. Our average is a goal a game. There's a certain Yorkshire team, who many consider to be a rival and who many will nash their teeth in horror when they are promoted, who have scored twice as many goals as us. That's why they hold a promotion place. The first half of the season was supposed to be 'you score 3, we'll score 4' football. That was laughable. The second half? Mid-season rebuild which included signing an expensive forward who is yet to score. Our other expensive forward rarely gets on the pitch (no worries, he's one for the future) and we pin all our hopes on an aging ex-top flight player, who, while the best of the bunch, still has hardly set the Championship on fire. So hang your hopes on form, blame injuries, blame inexplicable managerial sackings and poor appointments, but the fact remains that we don't score enough goals to be competitive. That's it.
Just saying it like it is. As someone once said, it's a simple game football, take this round thing and kick it in that net. Do it more than the team you're playing against and you win.
