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Yes we're all agreed we  need to create chances, but the strikers we have are no more than average so I still wouldn't be confident they'd score a lot regardless of what we create, and  none of our strikers are skillful or clever enough to create their own space when they do have the ball. You could put any of our strikers in any team in this championship and I still don't think they'd be anywhere near the top of the leagues goal scorers.

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It's funny isn't it?  Fry is playing well, McNair is brilliant apparently and Dijksteel is a 'beast'.  And yet we can't possibly risk playing attacking players in attacking positions ahead of them?  I

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But Warnock says we are amazing to watch and the most attacking team he’s ever had so what are we all worrying about?

Seriously, it even feels like I’m listening to Pulis. 

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19 minutes ago, Rioch's Braves said:

Yes we're all agreed we  need to create chances, but the strikers we have are no more than average so I still wouldn't be confident they'd score a lot regardless of what we create, and  none of our strikers are skillful or clever enough to create their own space when they do have the ball. You could put any of our strikers in any team in this championship and I still don't think they'd be anywhere near the top of the leagues goal scorers.

I disagree because we simply can’t have the worst strikers in the league. It makes no sense to state we do other wise you might as well state they shouldn’t be playing football in any league, well this league anyway. It would also indicate they were not strikers before joining the club.

listen, I certainly won’t defend our embarrassing record but the statement does not hold true.. 

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4 hours ago, Robin Johnson said:

If any of our strikers reach double figures it will surprise me. Simply, not good enough

Didn't they both (Fletcher and Assombalonga) reach double figures last season, while we were terrible?  And Assombalonga hasn't failed to reach double figures since he joined us.  It'd be really odd if they suddenly couldn't do it this season.

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30 minutes ago, Rioch's Braves said:

Yes we're all agreed we  need to create chances, but the strikers we have are no more than average so I still wouldn't be confident they'd score a lot regardless of what we create, and  none of our strikers are skillful or clever enough to create their own space when they do have the ball. You could put any of our strikers in any team in this championship and I still don't think they'd be anywhere near the top of the leagues goal scorers.

Assombalonga was the Championship's 6th top scorer in his first season here, despite playing fewer minutes than most of the players ahead of him.  Only Vydra played fewer, the rest all played at least 500 mins more.  He was 15th top scorer in the second season, nobody ahead of him played fewer minutes, and some of them played over 1,000 more minutes than him.  That's also a season and a half under Pulis as well.  Last season was his worst season so far, when he and Fletcher finished joint 24th on the list.  Assombalonga got his in 700 mins less playing time than Fletcher for what it's worth but Fletcher got more assists. 

By way of a comparison, Woodrow, who quite a few on here wanted us to sign, scored 14 goals last season in just under 3,300 mins.  Assombalonga got 15 in just under 3,000 mins, 14 in just under 2,700 mins and 11 in just over 2,500 mins.

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14 minutes ago, sanddancer said:

I disagree because we simply can’t have the worst strikers in the league. It makes no sense to state we do other wise you might as well state they shouldn’t be playing football in any league, well this league anyway. It would also indicate they were not strikers before joining the club.

listen, I certainly won’t defend our embarrassing record but the statement does not hold true.. 

I believe I stated our strikers were no more than average, not the worst strikers in the League, been average doesn't mean they shouldn't be in this league, its just I don't see them bagging a lot of goals regardless of what we're creating  and that is my opinion.

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27 minutes ago, Changing Times said:

Assombalonga was the Championship's 6th top scorer in his first season here, despite playing fewer minutes than most of the players ahead of him.  Only Vydra played fewer, the rest all played at least 500 mins more.  He was 15th top scorer in the second season, nobody ahead of him played fewer minutes, and some of them played over 1,000 more minutes than him.  That's also a season and a half under Pulis as well.  Last season was his worst season so far, when he and Fletcher finished joint 24th on the list.  Assombalonga got his in 700 mins less playing time than Fletcher for what it's worth but Fletcher got more assists. 

By way of a comparison, Woodrow, who quite a few on here wanted us to sign, scored 14 goals last season in just under 3,300 mins.  Assombalonga got 15 in just under 3,000 mins, 14 in just under 2,700 mins and 11 in just over 2,500 mins.

When we signed Assambolonga from Forest I thought it was a good signing, but over the past 2 seasons he's looked distinctly average and very hit and miss, and at this moment despite being club captain Warnock doesn't feel he's playing well enough to hold the No1 strikers role. 

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13 minutes ago, Rioch's Braves said:

When we signed Assambolonga from Forest I thought it was a good signing, but over the past 2 seasons he's looked distinctly average and very hit and miss, and at this moment despite being club captain Warnock doesn't feel he's playing well enough to hold the No1 strikers role. 

I think Assombalonga is very much a one trick pony and unfortunately during his time here a succession of Managers haven't played to his strengths. The same to a lesser extent could be said about Gestede much as I loathed the signing but his most successful era in fairness to him was as part of a front two the other of whom whose career we also managed to destroy, never to recover.

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1 minute ago, Rioch's Braves said:

When we signed Assambolonga from Forest I thought it was a good signing, but over the past 2 seasons he's looked distinctly average and very hit and miss, and at this moment despite being club captain Warnock doesn't feel he's playing well enough to hold the No1 strikers role. 

And yet the actual record suggests that he is above average.  Certainly not the best but better than many. 

The number 1 strikers role here is all about work rate to be fair.  Akpom hasn't scored since his second game, he hasn't had a shot on target since he scored that tap in either, so think about that for a moment.  Our 'number 1 striker' hasn't had a shot on target since the 3rd October, 8 games ago.  Even allowing for the fact that he's missed a few games, that's not exactly great, is it?  Yesterday he may as well have not played for all that he was involved.  Unless we come to the conclusion that he is also not good enough, then perhaps we need to look at other areas where our problems might lie?

We've played 12 games and we've failed to score in 5 of them!  We've only scored more than one goal in two games - Barnsley and Coventry at home.  We've actually gotten more defensive in our mindset if anything.  Roberts can barely get on the pitch - why is he even here?  Folarin got on 15 mins earlier than him yesterday.  Our attacking width yesterday was Johnson and Spence - nobody can seriously think they are what is needed there, except of course for Warnock.

We've got a massive game coming up this week for different reasons.  We're up against the lowest scorers in the league and one of the worst defences in the league.  The expectation should be for a win and a good solid one at that.

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12 minutes ago, Robin Johnson said:

I would argue being amongst the lowest scorers in the division is testimony to where our striking options feature. Pretty much near the bottom. I wouldn’t class them as remotely average even. Excuses are wearing thin, very thin

Then you'd be wrong as I've already demonstrated but I'll demonstrate it a little bit more to see if this begins to sink in with some people.

Assombalonga scored 15 goals in a team that scored 67 goals in 2017/18

Assombalonga scored 14 goals in a team that scored 49 goals in 2018/19

Assombalonga scored 11 goals in a team that scored 48 goals in 2019/20

We didn't lose 20 goals between that first season and the other two because Assombalonga is rubbish.  Even if he'd hit 20 goals in those two seasons, we'd have still been one of the lowest scorers in the league.

Assombalonga scored 12 goals by Boxing day his first season here.  Pulis took over at this point and he scored 3 more goals in the rest of the season.  I'm amazed that he got 14 in the following season given how we played.

Assombalonga and Fletcher scored 11 goals each last season.  After them we had Wing with 7, McNair with 6 and Tavernier with 3.  Nobody else got more than 2 goals.  Saville got 1, Howson 0, Ayala got 2 before he disappeared, Johnson and Coulson got 1 each, Gestede actually managed 2.

The season before that it's arguably even worse given the players we had.  Assombalonga got 14, nobody else managed double figures, Hugill 6, Fletcher 5, Saville 4, Tavernier, Braithwaite and Wing 3. 

Saville scored 10 goals for Millwall in the season before we bought him.  He's scored 4, 1 and 2 (this season) since then.  That's 3 fewer than he managed in just that one season at Millwall. 

McNair scored 6 goals last season but is currently playing at the back so hasn't scored a goal so far. 

Wing got 7 last season but can't get into the team this season.  He's been replaced by Morsy, who hasn't scored so far, and scored 8 goals in 150 starts for Wigan, so isn't what you'd call a goal scoring midfielder.

Howson has scored 3, 1, 0 and 1 (this season) in the 4 years he's been here.  He scored 22 goals in 158 starts for Norwich, 25 goals in 159 starts for Leeds.  He's scored 5 goals in 134 starts for us.  Look at the difference!

Johnson, a winger (there you go Kev!) has 3 goals since we signed him.  But let's face it, he's been in an out of the team, and played all over the place.

In the past few years we've had two of the most defensive minded managers in English football, and in between those two we had Woodgate, who had no business being given the job in the first place.  We've systematically removed most of the attacking and creative players, replacing them with hard workers and very little else.  This season we are also playing the hard workers over creative players, so we are exacerbating that problem.

 

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History means sod all. It is today that counts. Britt is a pale shadow of what he was, in terms of ability to hit the net and, dare I say it application. Akpom has yet to be prolific. The pair to me demonstrate quite clearly what misfits they are today. As said, facts and figures from yesteryear mean nothing. It is today - and both are proving to be not up to it.

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