What is our problem with scoring goals? I mean seriously.. We really do struggle to score goals and I honestly dont know what why. Is it a number of problems? lack of creativity in midfield, manager not direct enough, strikers poor... what is it? Also, why the hell hasn't it been put right?
We seem to crack when it matters most. 2 goals in 4 games isn't great, especially when 2 of those games were at home to beatable opposition. We had great chances in both games and we didn't take them. Our final pass yesterday was very poor (Thuds ball for Davies aside); I counted at least 3 times where Koren could've released a player but instead misplaced the pass (including one into open space where nobody was running). We're getting into the positions, which is great, but the important bit is putting the ball away and we aren't doing that enough. We also look to keep possession a lot, rather than look to exploit gaps. We seem content to pass it around the midfield, even when behind or level, waiting for the opponent to make the mistake rather than relying on our own quality to create chances. As for putting it right, SB knows there's a problem, hence why we tried to bring in Shane Long and we have signed Gedo, Sagbo and Graham. What I don't get is, why don't we ever buy players who are in red hot goalscoring form? I know Proschwitz had got 18 the previous season, so fair play to him, but Brucey had stated he had to adjust to the English game and I think that he suffered with the form of Aluko and Simpson. We either buy players and hope they turn out ok, or buy players that used to be good but aren't on form at the minute. I mentioned their names a lot during the transfer window, but Alfred Finbogasson and Philip Hosiner would've been excellent additions; the latter had an excellent season at Austria Vienna, scoring 30 goals in 36 games. They're out there and they're available, but we don't go for them?
We tried to sign Austin, but we know what happened there. Strikers in red-hot form tend to cost a lot of money.
Finbogasson was rumoured to be available for around the kind of money we were willing to pay for Long...
We have skilful but light-weight attacking players who try to engineer chances by switching passing movements until an opening appears. Koren, Aluko, Brady and Quinn are great on the eye, but sometimes a team needs to be more direct. For me the game against Sheff. Wednesday last season exposed exactly what we lacked. Our players were weaving pretty patterns while their big buggers were barrelling into our 6 yard box - two and three at a time. Last season Chalobah for Watford and Zaha for Palace could run through teams at pace and cause mayhem in defences for others to exploit. I don't know if Sagbo is that kind of player, but we need at least one who can give us that extra dimension to our attack.
Yeah I remember, but when that fell through we sort of faded on the striker front, when we should've gone for the next best thing straight away. Mind you, I'm not writing off Sagbo or Graham just yet.
We probably wouldn't have got Huddlestone though if we had spent a large chunk on a striker. I don't believe the £6.5m was available until deadline day imo.
I think if we get Gedo or Sagbo partnering up Graham up front, then it will take the pressure off him, and he will start taking some of these chances.
I love a good fryup. In the words of Alan Partridge "I'd have that three times a day if I could, but I'd be dead."
I mean, the crosses to him are fantastic, but he looks nervous, lacking in confidence, taking 1 too many touches. The ironic thing is that they get more time on the ball than they did in the championship.
Fair point, but i'm not sure that's to do with the league, just the fact he hasn't scored since January or whenever it was.
Agreed with the first bit, but we won promotion, Wednesday didn't so clearly something worked. However i am not sure you watched the same Chalobah as me or Zola, he described him as a classy ball playing midfielder, he never really ran at sides, and the four or five times i saw him play he probably took on about one player in all of them. He is a great player but his pace wasn't something he used. No idea why Chelsea used to play him CB in their youths mind. I think the issue with us isn't creating chances, we create enough for our strikers, Graham missed two. However our strikers, bar Aluko, never seem to create their own. Fryatt doesn't, Mclean doesn't, Prossy doesn't, they all rely on service. As does Graham, the top strikers run past a man, make a great run, play on the last defender more. When Barmby was here he talked about how Fryatt scored when he ran beyond the last defender 20 times in a game. Aluko isn't that kind of striker, neither is Graham but we really needed someone to do that.
