The most obvious thing

[Salopian 1]

is that we do not have a decent striker. (I even have my doubts about Lita, who will not be with us much longer, although I concede that playing on his own up front and having to do so much foraging is not helping. His record with us of six in twelve sounds good, but half of the goals were scored in one match, so in eleven other games he has scored three.)It is a repetition week after week that we create so many chances but do not take them. (Sadly if the defence boobs than we are defeated.) There are no points awarded for share of play, disciplinary record, or whatever!Roeder has been promised some money in January. Does anyone seriously think that it will be enough to buy a decent consistent striker? Roeder also has to find replacements for Kennedy, Sibierski, and Lita at the very least, and even loans cost fees, some substantial.Yesterday we had Russell as the only striker and Patty "in the hole", neither exactly consistent and regular strikers. As soon as I heard the team, my immediate question was how we were going to score. I assume that it was our shortage at CB that meant the Doc was not up front yesterday!The only hope for us, apart from a miraculous signing by Roeder, would be for Cort to come good and stay fit, and for Cureton, Martin or Arturo to learn how to feed off him, but I am not holding my breath. What odds would you give for Cort to achieve this?Looking back, the problem may be largely that we passed over several good if not outstanding strikers in the summer in pursuit of a foreign player (- Iversen?) whom Roeder believed he could sign even on the limited budget he had been given.In the event we entered the season with no teeth up front, and we are in real danger.

[lucky green trainers 0]

[quote user="Salopian"]is that we do not have a decent striker. (I even have my doubts about Lita, who will not be with us much longer, although I concede that playing on his own up front and having to do so much foraging is not helping. His record with us of six in twelve sounds good, but half of the goals were scored in one match, so in eleven other games he has scored three.)It is a repetition week after week that we create so many chances but do not take them. (Sadly if the defence boobs than we are defeated.) There are no points awarded for share of play, disciplinary record, or whatever!Roeder has been promised some money in January. Does anyone seriously think that it will be enough to buy a decent consistent striker? Roeder also has to find replacements for Kennedy, Sibierski, and Lita at the very least, and even loans cost fees, some substantial.Yesterday we had Russell as the only striker and Patty "in the hole", neither exactly consistent and regular strikers. As soon as I heard the team, my immediate question was how we were going to score. I assume that it was our shortage at CB that meant the Doc was not up front yesterday!The only hope for us, apart from a miraculous signing by Roeder, would be for Cort to come good and stay fit, and for Cureton, Martin or Arturo to learn how to feed off him, but I am not holding my breath. What odds would you give for Cort to achieve this?Looking back, the problem may be largely that we passed over several good if not outstanding strikers in the summer in pursuit of a foreign player (- Iversen?) whom Roeder believed he could sign even on the limited budget he had been given.In the event we entered the season with no teeth up front, and we are in real danger.[/quote]or that several good strikers passed over us - helgusson??? and so we had to take a punt on sibs...sure, playing pretty football is one thing, but without a genuine goalscorer - you''re in trouble...possibly, we lack final third penetration...and my mind hacks back to the year stringer got the shove from chase, cos although we played well in lots of matches, we lacked a final third threat, and that saw us struggle in the bottom half of the old divi one, and was enough to see stringer out...but a simple ro-organisation of the current personnel could do it and for free,,,as in...for me, bell should be right wing, and hooley left, with lupes in the hole...there''s plenty of creativy in that line up, just the goalscorer to finish it off,,,

[Mark .Y. 351]

[quote user="Salopian"]is that we do not have a decent striker. (I even have my doubts about Lita, who will not be with us much longer, although I concede that playing on his own up front and having to do so much foraging is not helping. His record with us of six in twelve sounds good, but half of the goals were scored in one match, so in eleven other games he has scored three.)

It is a repetition week after week that we create so many chances but do not take them. (Sadly if the defence boobs than we are defeated.) There are no points awarded for share of play, disciplinary record, or whatever!

Roeder has been promised some money in January. Does anyone seriously think that it will be enough to buy a decent consistent striker? Roeder also has to find replacements for Kennedy, Sibierski, and Lita at the very least, and even loans cost fees, some substantial.

Yesterday we had Russell as the only striker and Patty "in the hole", neither exactly consistent and regular strikers. As soon as I heard the team, my immediate question was how we were going to score. I assume that it was our shortage at CB that meant the Doc was not up front yesterday!

The only hope for us, apart from a miraculous signing by Roeder, would be for Cort to come good and stay fit, and for Cureton, Martin or Arturo to learn how to feed off him, but I am not holding my breath. What odds would you give for Cort to achieve this?

Looking back, the problem may be largely that we passed over several good if not outstanding strikers in the summer in pursuit of a foreign player (- Iversen?) whom Roeder believed he could sign even on the limited budget he had been given.

In the event we entered the season with no teeth up front, and we are in real danger.
[/quote]

 

The good news is that it looks like Michael Owen will be available in January.................

 

Mark .Y.

 

[blahblahblah 2]

With the third highest goals conceded total in the league, I would have thought the obvious thing to tighten up on is defence.  For whatever reason we seem to have an inability to concentrate on not conceding goals for a full 90 minutes.

[still holding out for new heroes 0]

No one to hold up the ball at the top end of the pitch = ball comes back more = more pressure = more errors = more goals conceeded

We need a Iwan.

[lucky green trainers 0]

[quote user="blahblahblah"]With the third highest goals conceded total in the league, I would have thought the obvious thing to tighten up on is defence.  For whatever reason we seem to have an inability to concentrate on not conceding goals for a full 90 minutes.[/quote]this is also very true...