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LeJuge

Goals don't concern me......

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It''s the defence that concerns me. Whilst we have been lacklustre up front with the Martin and Holt partnership, I genuinely believe that we have the players necessary to fix that problem. Both Vaughan and Jackson pack an extra yard or two of pace on Holt and Martin. It is the back four which concerns me, we only need to score 1 more than the opposition, the question is how many the opposition are going to score. We got promoted last year on that very ethos, we only kept 9 clean sheets in the league last year from 46 games, we went up because we found the extra goal. It was going to be tougher in all areas of the pitch this year, there really was no doubt about that, but looking back at the first four games.... have we really scored less than expected? West Brom was the first game in which we scored less than could be realistically expected.Wigan - We scored an away goal, Hoolahan took his chance. Wigan missed as many, if not several more, decent chances than us.Stoke - They keep more clean sheets than pretty much everybody, we scored against the best defence in the league. Chelsea - Did we really expect to score at Stamford Bridge? I didn''t, I was prediction 4-0 to Chelsea. West Brom - The first game that we simply didn''t look like scoring. It was clear that we weren''t threatening against West Brom, but no team in this league can ''expect'' to score against Chelsea away, and Stoke will keep clean sheets against far better teams than us this year. In fact they already have, they have kept clean sheets against Liverpool and Chelsea. Actually we are the ONLY team to score against Stoke in the league this year. Wigan have played all three of the promoted teams already, and we were the only one of those teams to score against them. West Brom are hardly shipping goals either, they conceeded 2 to Man Utd, 2 to Chelsea, and got beaten one 89th minute goal against Stoke. As the home team we really should have controlled the game more against West Brom, as somebody on here has already said, the "did a job on us". They really did.  I don''t think goals are going to be a problem. With four games gone Holt has already banged one in, will bang a few more in this year too, we still have Simeon Jackson, James Vaughan, and Steve Morison, all waiting for their chance. One of them will take their chance, I''m pretty confident of that. With Hoolahan and Vaughan in the team, alongside Holt, I certainly wouldn''t bet against us scoring against any team. I don''t think any away team is going to take us lightly this season, and if they do we will punish them. Bolton have shipped 11 goals in 4 games by the way, the most in the division, even more than Arsenal. We WILL score goals tomorrow, I''ll put a fiver on it with anybody on here. COME ON CITY!

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Good post, nice stats Juggy.

I think we have been playing brightly so far, from the comments of manager and players this week, I think they are learning fast.

Good feeling about tomorrow!

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Excellent post, Juge. I was going to say the same thing on St John''s post about the strikers.

In a funny way a 0-0 at Bolton today would please me almost more than a win - because we haven''t looked anything like keeping a clean sheet so far this season, and we can''t keep needing to score two or more to win games.

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Well goals should concern you, you can have the best defence in the world and if you dont score goals you wont win...if we could just score to in a game we would have already won 3, our defence is hardly poor, a pen against Wigan, a last minute against stoke, chelsea was, as you say, to be expected and WBA was an error before the game really got going

Yes please I will take you up on a fiver

OTBC

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[quote user="St.John Cooper"]Well goals should concern you, you can have the best defence in the world and if you dont score goals you wont win...if we could just score to in a game we would have already won 3, our defence is hardly poor, a pen against Wigan, a last minute against stoke, chelsea was, as you say, to be expected and WBA was an error before the game really got going

Yes please I will take you up on a fiver

OTBC[/quote]

''Two''

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[quote user="LeJuge"]It''s the defence that concerns me. Whilst we have been lacklustre up front with the Martin and Holt partnership, I genuinely believe that we have the players necessary to fix that problem. Both Vaughan and Jackson pack an extra yard or two of pace on Holt and Martin. It is the back four which concerns me, we only need to score 1 more than the opposition, the question is how many the opposition are going to score. We got promoted last year on that very ethos, we only kept 9 clean sheets in the league last year from 46 games, we went up because we found the extra goal. It was going to be tougher in all areas of the pitch this year, there really was no doubt about that, but looking back at the first four games.... have we really scored less than expected? West Brom was the first game in which we scored less than could be realistically expected.Wigan - We scored an away goal, Hoolahan took his chance. Wigan missed as many, if not several more, decent chances than us.Stoke - They keep more clean sheets than pretty much everybody, we scored against the best defence in the league. Chelsea - Did we really expect to score at Stamford Bridge? I didn''t, I was prediction 4-0 to Chelsea. West Brom - The first game that we simply didn''t look like scoring. It was clear that we weren''t threatening against West Brom, but no team in this league can ''expect'' to score against Chelsea away, and Stoke will keep clean sheets against far better teams than us this year. In fact they already have, they have kept clean sheets against Liverpool and Chelsea. Actually we are the ONLY team to score against Stoke in the league this year. Wigan have played all three of the promoted teams already, and we were the only one of those teams to score against them. West Brom are hardly shipping goals either, they conceeded 2 to Man Utd, 2 to Chelsea, and got beaten one 89th minute goal against Stoke. As the home team we really should have controlled the game more against West Brom, as somebody on here has already said, the "did a job on us". They really did.  I don''t think goals are going to be a problem. With four games gone Holt has already banged one in, will bang a few more in this year too, we still have Simeon Jackson, James Vaughan, and Steve Morison, all waiting for their chance. One of them will take their chance, I''m pretty confident of that. With Hoolahan and Vaughan in the team, alongside Holt, I certainly wouldn''t bet against us scoring against any team. I don''t think any away team is going to take us lightly this season, and if they do we will punish them. Bolton have shipped 11 goals in 4 games by the way, the most in the division, even more than Arsenal. We WILL score goals tomorrow, I''ll put a fiver on it with anybody on here. COME ON CITY![/quote]I''ll have a virtual fiver on that with you.  They''ve had to play Liverpool, Man Utd and Man City, after all.  If we only ship 11 goals to that lot with the form they are currently in, I''ll be relatively happy.Your post is a good one but I would be more concerned about goals and think they will be a problem throughout the season - I wouldn''t expect too much from Vaughan who had a pretty average season at Crystal Palace and is subject to lengthy injury lay offs.  Not saying he''s a crap player, but I wouldn''t pin too much hope on more than 5-6 goals from any of the players you''ve mentioned except perhaps Morison who looks like he could do a bit.Still as you say, 1-0 is 3 points while 1-1 won''t get us there so let''s hope the defence can tighten up.

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The ideal result today wiill be a win and clean sheet.

Giving the team confidence all the way through-the defence to keep a clean sheet and the attack to score goals.

Give me 1-0 to us now and I''ll go a week without a Mars bar!

We need a win soon anyway-yes, we''re "learning" but can we win whilst we learn, please?

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Remember Holt only got 1 goal in the first 6 games of last season, but he came good. His stats have been really good so far we just need to create better chances. The only dangerous balls we seem to be creating are crosses. We need Wes or Fox to come in to provide something through the middle.

I think what we need to do is stop playing a basic 442. Its too predictable and doesn''t suit our players. Time to go back to the diamond or try 4-2-3-1

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Scoring first has been an issue too. It changes the balance of a game. This is why it''s so

frustrating when De Laet has gifted Wigan and West Brom the opening goal

in games we clearly had the potential to win.  Even in the Chelsea game we were naive to sit back thinking they couldn''t score from range. The one game we should have won: Stoke, where we scored first. So yes, our defence needs to smarten up.But we also do need a genuine threat up front to get a foothold in games. There are echoes of our last season in the Premiership where we had spells of dominance in possession, and pressure in the opposition penalty area, but were unable to convert that into goals. Once Dean Ashton arrived that all changed. At the moment Wes has been the only sharp stick in attack - creating and scoring. Lambert needs to find a way to fit him in.

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Bit early to judge our forwardline. Vaughan has barely played and needs some game time to settle. Pilkington looked dangerous but is in the same situation. Holt has created the 4th most chances in the league so he''s doing a job. Morison looked good in the Wigan game and I reckon Jackson could do well with a bit of confidence same as last season.

Goals will come in time, its a marathon not a sprint just ask Blackpool.

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Three goals in four games, but remember:

i) only one of them was scored by a striker

ii) two were gifted by keeper errors

i) only one came from outfield play, and this was scored by a CB.

This is not a good record, but I still have some hope, if

a) we can convert more of the chances we are creating - we are very wasteful at present

b) midfielders, including Bennett and Pilkington can do what they did very effectively last year.

c) Vaughan remains fit

d) we can avoid giving penalties away and perhaps gain one or two ourselves

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I agree with the OP. The only game I havent seen is Chelsea so I wont comment too much on that but I have heard that we were very good..

I think we have played well in all games, even against West Brom but the only difference being we didnt look very threatening. However there is always going to be the odd game when this happens. It isnt something worth worrying about yet imo. I certainly hope we are more threatening today and more so hope we score a few and most importantly clinch 3 points.. if not settle for 1.

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For me today if we can avoid stupid defensive errors, not give away a penalty, end the game with 11, and keep a clean sheet, I''ll be quite happy!

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