Perhaps not unexpected result yesterday but once again we fail to hit the net. This is becoming a worrying trend...especially at home. Ridiculous defeat aganist Sheff Weds, and again, two points conceded after outplaying a rubbish Birmingham side last Saturday. If we don't win when we are playing well it will come back to haunt us when we have a lean spell as we are bound to do. Can't see us getting much against Leicester but you never know, at least they do play football. Suggestions on a postcard to Sir Chris Powell c/o CAFC please.
Good question, 05. Probably the only positive from yesterday is that Danny Haynes came on and played 25 minutes without pulling up injured. While he is fit he has to start, the question is who partners him up front? Probably it will be Kermit but if it was BWP, Waggy back at LM and Wiggins at LB that would be a team with enough pace to worry defenders. I wonder if Hughes would still be able to cut it at this level? If so one possibility would be to bring him in, allowing Stephens to get forward a bit more.
I don't think Waggy deserved to be dropped yesterday, he's been creating good chances often and it's only a matter of time before they start going in. I also agree that Wiggins should come back in, I like Ceddy but Wiggy is much better going forward.
Top quality goalscorers, who will more or less guarantee you goals even with an average service, are extremely expensive and beyond our means. The last one we had was Bent. If we involved in a relegation or promotion battle it might be worth hiring someone like Kevin Phillips, but for us building for the forthcoming season is more important than whether we finish 7th or 21st this season, so we don't need to pay high wages for someone to come on for the last 25 minutes and who might hang up his boots at the end of this season. Looking at the next level of goalscorers, those who would normally put away (say) 20% of good chances, we have four, Kermorgant, Fuller, Haynes and BWP. And we only have those because there are, or were, big questions over their health and fitness which deterred richer clubs from signing them. Of our young strikers, Sho-Silva looks the most likely to make the grade but must be at least two years away from holding down a first-team place. So I reckon our best hope is to borrow someone from a bigger club who is not getting many games, like Schlupp, Ecclestone or Waghorn. (Not them specifically, just examples of what might be available). But I am not sure whether we have the money even to borrow these better levels of player. But the reason our present strikers don't get enough goals is the lack of creativity in midfield. And the reason for that is our lack of defensive ability in central midfield since Hollands dropped out of the picture for whatever reason. What we lack in quality there we have to make up in numbers, with Wilson, Stephens, Pritchard and Jackson all spending a disproportionate amount of time in our own half chasing and harrying, whereas Hollands or Andy Hughes would have killed an attack with one well-timed and strong tackle. So if you want to score more goals, acquire a decent defensive central midfielder. Sounds odd, I know, but I believe that is the key. If our other midfielders could then create 10 goalscoring chances a game, our present strikers will put away a couple on average, and that is more than good enough to get promoted. It is a lot cheaper in the transfer market and in wages to improve your defence to let in 10 fewer goals a season than it is to improve your attack to score 10 more but the end result is the same. Lastly, goalscoring is not the be all and end all. Hull City are second in the table and have only scored two more goals than us. Obviously Steven Bruce knows how to organize a defence. At one time I thought our back five would be equally sound, but Wiggins got injured, Hollands went awol, and Hamer drops the occasional clanger. If we can tweak the defence just a tad, we might do a Hull and rack up the points even though scoring relatively few goals.
One of the things that astounds and confuses me about JJ is that whatever sort of form he's in, he still manages to stick the ball in the net - sometimes it's the only positive thing he does during a game. Amazing.
not a bad "only positive thing ".Sounds like gary lineker.jimmy greaves etc from that description tewkes
As long as Yann doesnt score against us again. The good news for us is Chris Wood should be back for Tuesday. We really need the 3 points after Hull played twice while we didnt play at all so we need to catch them up a little. Good luck after tuesday of course There's only 1 Chrissy Powell
Kismet for Kermit, Proud Fox - he'll be prowling around, don't you worry. You must be delighted with the way Wood's settled in and delivered straight away - smart bit of business, that. Hope the build-up banter is as good as it was with you guys earlier in the season.
Yann will get alot of abuse on Tuesday. Wood has settled in very well and looks to have created a deadly partnership with Nugent, and at an intial 1.25M Wood was a steal plus he is only 21 years old. Yeah hopefully some more banter like earlier in the season but a different result
