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Salopian

I could have written the script...

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I was confident that Reading would not score many against us. I also feared that we would struggle to score, even against a team like Reading. Our team is set up to defend, although misplaced passes yesterday could have led to conceding a goal or goals.

 

The problem is that we do not create very much as a result, and when we have chances we must take them. I predicted to myself that Holt would miss any headers, likewise Snodgrass, and Johnson would blast over the top. This happened. My prediction was not based on any great skill but simply on what has happened already this season. The three gentlemen have failed more than once in the ways I indicated.

 

The consequence is that we must be close to the bottom in terms of goal scoring - just 8 in 11 games.

 

Where do we go from here? I presume that all our strikers practice attempts at goal in training. If so they are not really making any improvement. Holt has demonstrated in the past that he can score goals at this level, and I hope and believe that he will come good, although not scoring as many as last year. He is hampered by being a lone striker who is regualrly surrounded by large defenders.Throughout his career Johnson has regularly blazed over, and perhaps a marginal weight transfer over the ball would help him, but he is essentially a defensive midfielder. Snodgrass scored for Leeds on occasions, but he was a supplier, rather than a scorer.

 

Who else is there, given that Pilkington, seems to have lost his shooting boots for the moment? Morison, Jackson? They are usually whole-hearted players but not with very good scoring records. Then there''s Martin. He may not be the quickest striker, but in lower divisions he usually took his chances well. Surman scored 6 or 8 last season, and Wes not many fewer. The problem with these lesser "strikers" is that to play them up front is to weaken midfield or defence. One forgotten man is Howson, perhaps not a prolific scorer but quick and with a powerful shot. I hope that he comes into CH''s serious consideration, if our situation does not improve.

 

CH''s teams are the opposite of Lamberts, - much better in defence and not so good in attack. Perhaps neither of them had a sufficiently strong squad to strike more of a balance.

 

In January signing at least one prolific scorer is a vital necessity. In the meantime, I certainly wish CH well with his attempts to improve our goal conversion rate. But what does he do against Manchester United?

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"But what does he do against Manchester United?" Excatly what he did against the Arsenal..........beat the shower of prima donnas.

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I''d love to know where we are going to get this prolific, Premiership-standard, goal-scorer, on a tight budget such as ours. Any realistic names thrown forwards?

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Is there a news blackout in Norfolk? Why on earth do we keep getting these calls to spend money on a  new striker when the club has aready announced that we are 2m over spent for this season and reliant on obtaining a bank overdraft to survive.

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There is a certain amount of predictability about our short-comings up front. Hopefully something will be changed for the better in January. Perhaps CH has another Tettey lined up, this time a forward.

 

In the meantime, Bradley Johnson should be discouraged from shooting  altogether as he never fails to reach the back row of the stands. Heading, yes, based upon last week,  but his pot shots just waste good possession. His only method seems to be to hit the ball as hard as his can and his lack of subtlety is telling. Haaving said all that, he''ll probably blast a 40 yarder next week.

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[quote user="T"]Is there a news blackout in Norfolk? Why on earth do we keep getting these calls to spend money on a  new striker when the club has aready announced that we are 2m over spent for this season and reliant on obtaining a bank overdraft to survive.[/quote]

 

There is here, that''s for sure. I have never heard about this and would like further details. I had assumed that, although not flush, we were ''comfortable.''

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[quote user="BroadstairsR"]

[quote user="T"]Is there a news blackout in Norfolk? Why on earth do we keep getting these calls to spend money on a  new striker when the club has aready announced that we are 2m over spent for this season and reliant on obtaining a bank overdraft to survive.[/quote]

 

There is here, that''s for sure. I have never heard about this and would like further details. I had assumed that, although not flush, we were ''comfortable.''

[/quote]

 

I wouldn''t worry about it ..I think "T" stands for To**er...............binner ,,obvious

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If we''re gonna stay up, imo we need an addition to the strikeforce. This does not mean an 8 million pound striker...I know we do not have the money for that. But it''s clear we''re not scoring enough goals. What other options do we have?

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Its in the audited accounts. details in the purple canary thread. Basically we have a 2m cash shortfall at the end of season as a result of the 11m external debt we have to repay this season. The banks have indicated they are willing to lend 2m against next seasons TV money.

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[quote user="barclay seats 48 49 "][quote user="BroadstairsR"]

[quote user="T"]Is there a news blackout in Norfolk? Why on earth do we keep getting these calls to spend money on a  new striker when the club has aready announced that we are 2m over spent for this season and reliant on obtaining a bank overdraft to survive.[/quote]

 

There is here, that''s for sure. I have never heard about this and would like further details. I had assumed that, although not flush, we were ''comfortable.''

[/quote]

 

I wouldn''t worry about it ..I think "T" stands for To**er...............binner ,,obvious

[/quote]

 

Was just wondering......

 

Do you have two seats ''cause you''re a bit of a porker....

 

 

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[quote user="T"]Its in the audited accounts. details in the purple canary thread. Basically we have a 2m cash shortfall at the end of season as a result of the 11m external debt we have to repay this season. The banks have indicated they are willing to lend 2m against next seasons TV money.[/quote]

 

 

Confusing and I find it difficult to fathom that we will have got through near on £120m in TV and other income by the ending of this season. I realise debt repayments will have been about £20m, but Holty''s increase couln''t have been that much surely.

 

The monies at the ending of this season cannot possibly include imponderables like merit money, final TV income, Cup income, player sales and soon-to-be advance ticket sales.

 

I must study this more in future

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" Basically we have a 2m cash shortfall at the end of season as a result of the 11m external debt we have to repay this season."

Best get out the blanket then ...

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[quote user="Salopian"]

I was confident that Reading would not score many against us. I also feared that we would struggle to score, even against a team like Reading. Our team is set up to defend, although misplaced passes yesterday could have led to conceding a goal or goals.

 

The problem is that we do not create very much as a result, and when we have chances we must take them. I predicted to myself that Holt would miss any headers, likewise Snodgrass, and Johnson would blast over the top. This happened. My prediction was not based on any great skill but simply on what has happened already this season. The three gentlemen have failed more than once in the ways I indicated.

 

The consequence is that we must be close to the bottom in terms of goal scoring - just 8 in 11 games.

 

Where do we go from here? I presume that all our strikers practice attempts at goal in training. If so they are not really making any improvement. Holt has demonstrated in the past that he can score goals at this level, and I hope and believe that he will come good, although not scoring as many as last year. He is hampered by being a lone striker who is regualrly surrounded by large defenders.Throughout his career Johnson has regularly blazed over, and perhaps a marginal weight transfer over the ball would help him, but he is essentially a defensive midfielder. Snodgrass scored for Leeds on occasions, but he was a supplier, rather than a scorer.

 

Who else is there, given that Pilkington, seems to have lost his shooting boots for the moment? Morison, Jackson? They are usually whole-hearted players but not with very good scoring records. Then there''s Martin. He may not be the quickest striker, but in lower divisions he usually took his chances well. Surman scored 6 or 8 last season, and Wes not many fewer. The problem with these lesser "strikers" is that to play them up front is to weaken midfield or defence. One forgotten man is Howson, perhaps not a prolific scorer but quick and with a powerful shot. I hope that he comes into CH''s serious consideration, if our situation does not improve.

 

CH''s teams are the opposite of Lamberts, - much better in defence and not so good in attack. Perhaps neither of them had a sufficiently strong squad to strike more of a balance.

 

In January signing at least one prolific scorer is a vital necessity. In the meantime, I certainly wish CH well with his attempts to improve our goal conversion rate. But what does he do against Manchester United?

[/quote]But what does he do against Manchester United?You tell us, you''re the scriptwriter.

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It''s not necessarily the strikers that are the problem.  I lost count of the amount of mis-placed passes in midfield and aimless long balls yesterday.  Reading''s keeper had absolutely nothing of note to do.  Holt isn''t a £20m striker, he''s a player who''s spent most of his career in the lower leagues.  As good as he is, he is likely to need more than 1 chance a match to score, which is all he really had yesterday.  Going forward, we were appalling.  The wingers were anonymous, the midfield couldn''t pass, Hoolahan was being constantly outmuscled (not helped by Foy''s poor refereeing) and the defence kept hitting it long! Based on this, I would suggest most established Prem strikers would have struggled to do anything yesterday so by default, unfortunately any striker we can afford is unlikely to have done any better than Holt. 

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Clint - I agree that our build up play was poor yesterday

But I do think that an in form striker would have scored yesterday. Snodgrass had a weak headed effort but holt had a head which hit the back of his head (and he ended up laughing about), and head that the times describes a weak into the arms of the keeper and two further efforts where he has a chance but failed to connect.

now they were good goalscoring 3 point winning chances none of which tested the keeper. Yes it was funny that his header was so poor - but will it be by the season end?

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[quote user="T"]Is there a news blackout in Norfolk? Why on earth do we keep getting these calls to spend money on a  new striker when the club has aready announced that we are 2m over spent for this season and reliant on obtaining a bank overdraft to survive.[/quote]

 

T, I suspect that spending £xm in the January transfer window had been factored into the season''s accounts, so there will be money available to Hughton.

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[quote user="T"]Its in the audited accounts. details in the purple canary thread. Basically we have a 2m cash shortfall at the end of season as a result of the 11m external debt we have to repay this season. The banks have indicated they are willing to lend 2m against next seasons TV money.[/quote]

There will be a budgeted cash outflow for players in January in arriving at the short term funding requirement in the Summer. Let''s hope with the savings from player outs in January and the small unbudgeted COC run, we have enough for one quality striker. Without it the Championship beckons - but with Austin rated at 10m, perhaps we should keep the money in the bank and look forward to a local derby again.

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I think it was Worthy who said you can never have too many strikers, a theory I firmly believe in!

 

Vaughen was one of our stand out players in the friendlies yet was let go - Why?

 

Yes he would have likely got injured for us but would of been useful when fit!

 

I''d of kept Wilbraham. He done enough last season as a sub to deserve another year and he certainly ruffled feathers when he came on in games!

 

Chris Martin as far as I''m concerned is wasting a squad place in the squad that could be goign to a forward who''d actually offer something to our Premiership campaign. I suspect the problem with CMartin is that for what we''d want for him he isn''t good enough for a club to take a punt on him?

 

That said it isn''t all the strikers that are the problem. Yesterday out build up play was virtually non existant until half way through the 2nd half. Pilkington in particular has been virtually anonymous for 2 games so shouldn''t start the next game.

 

Hoolahan as good as he is, has off days particularly against teams like Reading who close you down very quickly. Simion Jackson has done nothing wrong this season so he should of had soem time on the pitch yesterday.

 

Hughtons very cautous at times. At Reading yesterday when we started playing a bit of football you could see the momentum was going over to Norwich and with a little bit more quality and Hughton "going" for it a bit more which if we''d of replaced Pilkington and Hoolahan wouldn''t of made us more open, we could of grabbed a late winner!

 

Another theory is that the team is still a project in progress and over time when they''ve played together more will get better together (we ope!)

 

I think one things for sure unless we start scoring more goals we won''t be too far away from the drop zone!

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I do think we have the players to pass and create, we are a little of form but it will return and on sat we did have genuine match winning chances spurned.

For me the two key signings are

1. a lead striker

2. a partner for tettey in the central midfield - a better forward passer is essential.

We may need to wait for the summer to get these two though.

Wide midfield - I do think we have options - its unusual to have four all misfiring - once they hit their stride as we saw last year they are good enough

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PC I''m sure you are right that the 2m cash shortfall allows for some expenditure in January as that is the stated policy but it goes to show that cash is tight to say the least and that we are going to be looking in the bargain basement. If we defy our financial position and stay up then debt free we will be able to start competing financially with the bottom half clubs rather than the relegation clubs

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Personally I wasn''t surprised we set up to be very tight on Saturday, it''s clearly Hughton''s style, even more away from home.

 

Reading looked like a team reacting against conceding a hatful.  Going forward I thought they looked very poor and I felt the only way they would score would be from a set piece and/or a piece of luck/defensive mistake.  They did seem to fancy their chances at set pieces with their big defenders, and were falling over at every opportunity when they got into our half.  Fortunately Bassong and Turner looked very comfortable all day.

 

From my position (behind the goal but well up in the stand) I thought the headed chances for Holt and Snoddy both were under massive pressure from a defender and I wasn''t at all surprised that they couldn''t do better.

 

The only frustration for me was that the last 20 minutes the Reading defence on the flanks looked hugely vulnerable, especially on their right flank - their right back was tucking right in and leaving a huge gap outside.  I wish Hughton could have brought on a sub or two with 15 minutes to go and have a go - even with like for like substitutions I''d have liked to see Elliott Bennet with a decent amount of time to have a go at them.  I hope we don''t come to regret failing to get the 3 points here.  I guess I just have to accept Hughton is not going to make early substitutions unless he has to.

 

So overall I left the game feeling a bit flat, but I was surprised at the amount of whingeing among some of the City fans as we were leaving.  I mean to be on 11 points after 11 games and 5 points above the drop zone, and 1 goal conceded in our last 4 league games - I''d have settled for that after Fulham !

 

 

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[quote user="T"]Its in the audited accounts. details in the purple canary thread. Basically we have a 2m cash shortfall at the end of season as a result of the 11m external debt we have to repay this season. The banks have indicated they are willing to lend 2m against next seasons TV money.[/quote]

I simply can''t believe that a bank is willing to risk 2m on the basis of next seasons potential windfall. [:D]

 

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It is at the banks discretion, credit is difficult to get hold of these days but agree they are not taking a big risk risk for a couple of months until will get next seasons tv money! It does show that we are spending all we can afford this season and more.

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I''m getting my ''this'' and ''next'' mixed up when reading season.

 

You talk about ''Next season''s TV money,'' Mr. T.  but surely we will get this season''s money come the ending of it?

 

As I stated above, there are also the imponderables of income from a cup run, player sales and whatever merit money or extra TV money we accrue before this season is out.

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I don''t when the installments are paid but basically the accounts say we run out of cash at the end of the season but we will arrange an overdraft against next seasons TV money. I agree that i suspect that they will not have budgeted for the items that youu mention.

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