Well I had to ask, because you are still wrong. I know that as I went through all our games recently, so knowing you were wrong, its best to ask up front before telling you that your wrong only for you to be on about something else. I will say I am wrong myself to include Palace, as forgot that Vasquez started that game. However here are the last 18 games played without a striker in the starting line up Arsenal (h) loss Spurs (a) loss Man Utd (h) loss Fulham (h) loss Man Utd (a) loss Man City (h) loss Chelsea (a) loss Spurs (h) loss Arsenal (h) loss Newcastle (h) win QPR (h) win West Ham (a) loss Everton (a) draw Man Utd (h) draw Spurs (a) loss West Brom (h) Win Southampton (a) draw Chelsea (h) draw There are our last 18 games that we have played without a striker in the starting line up. - 3 wins - 4 draws - 11 losses So: of those 18 games, 12 were against the top 6 sides of last season. - Man Utd x 3 - Man City x 1 - Chelsea x 2 - Arsenal x 2 - Spurs x 3 - Everton x 1 of those 18 games, just 4 were against bottom half teams of last season. - Southampton (a) draw - Newcastle (h) win - QPR (h) win - Fulham (h) loss - - - of which we gained 7/12 points of those 18 games, we played: 11 home games 7 away games of the 11 home games, we played 8 against teams who finished higher than us. of the 7 away games, we played 5 who finished above us, and just 1 bottom half team So yes, lets do get some perspective of who we actually played when we played without a striker in the starting line up.
In that same time frame, we have played 35 games Of those 35 games: We won: 10 - Newcastle (a) - Albion (h) - Arsenal (a) - Fulham (a) - Stoke (h) - QPR (h) - Newcastle (h) - Wigan (a) - West Brom (a) - Crystal Palace (a) We drew: 12 - Chelsea (h) - Southampton (a) - Liverpool (h) - Man Utd (h) - Reading (a) - Villa (h) - Everton (a) - Sunderland (a) - Norwich (h) - Southampton (h) - Man City (h) - Liverpool (h) We lost: 13 - Norwich (h) - Spurs (a) - West Ham (a) - Liverpool (a) - West Brom (a) - Arsenal (h) - Spurs (h) - Chelsea (h) - Man Utd (h) - Fulham (h) - Man Utd (h) - Spurs (a) - Arsenal (h) So all in all we played top half teams of last season: 20 games - won: 3 - drew: 6 - lost: 11 We played bottom half teams: 15 games - won: 7 - drew: 6 - lost: 2 Now without a striker, we played just 4 of the bottom half teams, 2 wins 1 draw 1 loss So leaves our striker full team, playing 11, getting 5 wins, 5 draws and 1 loss against bottom half teams. Not bad aye But Our striker full team played top half teams just 6 times. getting 2 wins, 2 draws, 2 losses - only 1 against top 6 (Arsenal Win) Its easy to say we have lost loads without a striker, but again, lets look at the quality of opposition.
Latest win (last season - no victories this season), with no striker. West Brom. (ended 8 th place) Win against NewCastle (ended 16th place) Win against QPR (were relegated - ended 20th place) A win against a team who got relegated, a win against a team who just barely avoided being relegated, and a midtabel team. Horrible stats, when you consider, what we could have done with an quality striker. Now we have a one, lets try to use him against a midtabel club.
Indeed, I am not saying we don't need a striker, but I don't like the idea that we only won "insert number" with no striker on the pitch, because the teams we played are completely different, and its a bit unfair to say Michu up front (which is why we played with no striker) didn't do the business.
So if we are losing against the top sides without a striker in the team, we might as well play with a striker against the big sides
That is true, but.....and its a big but, many of those games were after our capital one cup game, so take the results there with a pinch of salt, we all know the team lost that extra 5% after the final.
We also didn't have a recognised striker to play those games as we cashed in and robbed Sunderland of 4.5 million
