The End

I think the strikers get a lot of underserved flack! We as a team rarely create genuine goal scoring opportunities, we hardly ever get behind and penetrate teams, whilst we may play some nice football further back on the pitch, it is all far too slow, the pass appreciation is terrible. We also seem to be a very lazy team when on the ball, players don't seem brave enough to make dangerous runs and the player with the ball often only has the one option to pass to.

 

I think the end came quite a few weeks ago, looking forward to next season and what it will bring for us.

 

Win as a team, lose as a team, including us supporters.

Some are way too quick to point the finger of blame.

 

I can't agree with this when you consider not long ago we had some real strikers in Deano and Frazier, I like to go to games thinking the strikers might score and Fryatt and Mclean don't give me that feeling, if we start with those two next season then we might aswell pack up any hope of doing well.

 

Did I say Fryatt was better than Windass or Campbell?

What's McLean got to do with it?

Fryatt is better than Folan, Ghilas, Altidore and VOH

 

Oh stop it

I know what you mean but I'm not just looking at stats, I'm talking edge of your seat moments where we really should be scoring but we miss pretty much every time. King's goal against Boro was one of the only times this season we've had a decent chance and just hit it with conviction into the corner. NB and Chester seemed to agree with me in their post-match interviews today that we've missed far too many chances and it's cost us. It's not just a few games, it's probably more than half of our home games this season we should have won but didn't. Teams like West Ham and Birmingham haven't been any better than us but they just don't break down in front of goal like we do.

You've quoted me saying I don't blame the top scorer for a lack of goals and said I blame the top scorer for a lack of goals. If you're going to decide what I've said I can't really win!

As I've already said, Fryatt had loads of 1-on-1s earlier in the season and missed nearly all of them. I don't hate the guy, I think he's really, really good at carving out chances from nothing, the way he just turns his man and is suddenly through on goal is incredible at times but he's missed way, way too many chances this season from good positions. If you look back to the Donny game for example we drew 0-0 and the two best chances fell to Fryatt; he dragged one wide after taking 20 or 30 touches and scuffed the second one from almost on the line in the second half. Against Bristol City it didn't matter because we won 3-0 but he missed 4 1-on-1 chances through on goal before eventually scoring the 5th. People (including me) were happy for him because it was his first goal in about 3 months, but it's easy to forget all those missed chances. Against Blackpool on the opening day and West Ham at home he should have won us the game with simple chances (Simpson and Barmby also missed easy ones against Blackpool). They are just the games off the top of my head that I vividly remember him missing easy chances in but there were plenty of others particularly in the first half of the season. He may be our top scorer but he's played almost every game this season as the spearhead of our attack, he's been in a free-flowing team that creates loads of chances (again that applies more to the first half of the season) and yet he didn't score between mid-November and mid-February except for one penalty. He wasn't out of the team or injured in that time he was playing every single game and missing a hell of a lot of chances. If someone like McLean missed anywhere near that many chances he'd be hung, drawn and quartered in Victoria Square.

I think Nick's comment above sums it up. Anyone telling me Fryatt is 'the best finisher we've had for years' all I'd suggest is that you just go back and watch some highlights from ouyr games this season. Even his goals have generally been very scrappy, I can't think of one example of a goal where he's caught the ball well or placed it particularly accurately in the corner, it's always just a scuff with Fryatt (or sometimes no shot at all), sometimes it goes in but far too often it's more like a backpass. Deano, Campbell and JVoH were much better in front of goal than Fryatt, McLean has actually scored much better hit goals (Forest and Coventry away), even Adebola in pre-season caught one better than I've seen Fryatt hit in a year and a half.

 

You said he was one of the best finishers we've had at the club for years, if that was the case then maybe we wouldn't have lost to so many crap teams like Cov and Pompey when we needed his finishing skills.( reply to city agro)

 

Personally Im really thrilled we still have a club to support.

 

Oh **** off.

 

Fryatt has scored 12 goals in a fromation that failed to provide him with DECENT service.
How many chances does Rooney or Ronaldo have a game? Can't remember seeing Ronaldo convert 100% of his chances to goals.
Every striker misses more than he scores, otherwise we'd be seeing players with 40+ goals at the top of every goalscoring chart.
To score 12 I think Fryatt has done ok, not brilliant but better than ****.
Bit of a let down the last month or so, but is it that bad an outcome having to play in the Championship again? We were never good enough to reach the play-offs, if had scraped in we'd have been gutted to lose out like against Orient a few years back.
I can't wait for a good summer of fine tuning, then lets see Barms team have a crack at it next season.

 

[video=youtube;1b26BD5KjH0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b26BD5KjH0[/video]

 

I'm not saying he's a terrible player or even that his goal tally isn't enough. I don't worry about goal tallies too much because there are so many variables. We had about a month where we didn't create chances between Leicester and Millwall games (in fact that's just 4 games) since then and for the entire season before that we were carving teams open left right and centre but constantly wasting chances to win games through missed chances.

 

I think we've done alright all things considered.

 

There's no need to talk sense, Dutchy.

 

I don't know why you find the subject so hard to talk about. Every time I bring it up it's totally relevant, usually after a game where we've thrown away yet another chance of picking up points due to missed chances, and I always back the point up with specific and factual occurences of the theme I'm talking about, yet every time you fail to even discuss it but just dismiss what I say as bullshit without any response to the occasions I mention. Anyone can just say "That's wrong." but it doesn't really make much sense unless you have a particular objection to any of the claims within the post. I can't force you to talk football, but I don't think it's really right that you just have a paddy every time I try to talk about it.

It really shouldn't bother you so much, we seem to get along fine on any other topic and if I criticised any other player it would be fine but when it's Fryatt you get all uppity. Are you his dad?

 

That wasn't even about Fryatt.

 

No, just a bromance.