Are strikers the main need ?

[Duvel 2,446]

21 minutes ago, Essuuaitch said:

were in a horrible state as far as what we need to put right with aditional players is concerned. yeah we are crying out for a prolific goalscorer, we also need a midfield system that vastly increases in assists and shows much more intent to carry or run with the ball into the attacking third. we are in need of a reliable , safe and quality keeper but finally i think we are missing a tough no nonsense central defender to compliment fry who is lets say more of a cultured defender. i guess youd call that a whole spine of a team thats required. 

I honestly don't think its horrible I think we have he basis of a decent team. Stick an average/above average keeper in there, a 20 goal a season striker and I think we're a playoff team.

Add maybe one or two more who are an upgrade on the current team and it would look even better. 

[SouthernSmoggie 4,242]

The xG stats don't surprise me at all. I think we desperately need two strikers who can be trusted to finish easy chances as well as score the odd goal out of nothing. 

Under both managers this season, at least two, three times a game I'm sat there thinking "How the **** has he missed that?" 

Obviously even Salah and Kane miss chances... But this group of players seem to totally lose their heads in goal scoring situations. All of them. There's not one of our forwards or midfielders I'd trust with a one on one or half chance in the six yard box. When Connolly spaffed that chance I barely reacted. Expected it. 

If one of our players had a last minute 1v1 in the play off final, who would everyone choose? I'd probably go McGree. Just seems to have a bit of confidence about him. 

[GrimsbyBoro 1,968]

7 minutes ago, Duvel said:

Those stats don't paint the whole picture but they do indicate that we miss more chances than our rivals. Obviously a Mitrovic in the team would make things look a lot better but our eyes would tell us that as well. 

Maybe we are better defensively than we give ourselves credit for, to be honest I don't think there's much wrong with the back 3 and I'd happily start next season with them.

I don't know whether those xg stats indicate that Lumley had made a lot of saves or teams have missed a lot of chances against us. But again the eye test tells us that he drops too many clangers.  

I think the issue with the defence is not so much the amount of goals we concede but rather the ones we do tend to be really soft goals. Time and again simple balls through the middle of the pitch splits our defence.

there doesn’t appear to be that hunger for cleansheets but perhaps that is to be expected with Wilders system.

the problem with the eye test is that people have confirmation bias and will see what they already believe. Lumley statisticallly is in the top 5 but you would think he was Dibble listening to people on here.

[Duvel 2,446]

15 minutes ago, GrimsbyBoro said:

I think the issue with the defence is not so much the amount of goals we concede but rather the ones we do tend to be really soft goals. Time and again simple balls through the middle of the pitch splits our defence.

there doesn’t appear to be that hunger for cleansheets but perhaps that is to be expected with Wilders system.

the problem with the eye test is that people have confirmation bias and will see what they already believe. Lumley statisticallly is in the top 5 but you would think he was Dibble listening to people on here.

Ok so his stats are good but you can't deny he's cost us points in games and Wilder clearly feels the same which is why he's been dropped. 

How good do his stats have to be to override the howlers? 

I'm a bit old fashioned so I've never been a huge fan of stats because they dont tell you the whole picture. Those xg stats are interesting but they don't tell me the types of chance we've missed, are they sitters? Has the keeper made a great save. You either need a tonne of stats which we don't have on here and/ or you use your eyes. 

The day I stop having an opinion on football because I'm using my eyes rather than the stats is the day I might as well stop watching. 

[TeaCider24 12,641]

23 minutes ago, GrimsbyBoro said:

the problem with the eye test is that people have confirmation bias and will see what they already believe. Lumley statisticallly is in the top 5 but you would think he was Dibble listening to people on here.

That's not a problem with the eye test, that's a problem with using clean sheets as your only statistic to judge a goalkeeper.

Statistically he's one of the worst keepers in the division.

He's been dropped by two different managers in the same season now because he's poor.

[AnglianRed 6,320]

13 hours ago, kentucky said:

Do the top teams rely on strikers as the only success in scoring goals, 

We are in big trouble because of the lack of goals in attack, I don't want to knock players , but how many goals from Howson the last four seasons, can Tavernier get ten goals , Can Fry get five or six, Jones ?, My point is it's all over the team where on average goals are non existent , and it's been the problem for too long, forget spending a fortune on three strikers , another problem is set plays ,the delivery is awfully , even Flint as got six for Cardiff this seeson, we need to look at the real needs , and it's not one area.

No - our main need is to create a functional team.

Look at the season we got promoted under Karanka - none of our strikers got into double figures. Top scorers were Nugent (8), Stuani (7) and Ramirez (7).

We also had a very healthy GD of 32, thanks to having an effective defence. We conceded just 31 goals in 46 games that season.

Currently the entire team is dysfunctional. We can't defend, our midfield can't control games and provides barely any service to the forwards. Chances being so scarce is probably one of the reasons our strikers lack composure in front of goal...the other more obvious reason is that they just aren't very good.

 

Some teams do have success on the back of high-scoring strikers (e.g. Fulham). Some are happy to play open, attacking football and out-score their opponents. Some teams rely on a tight defence and nicking games by the odd goal. Some are flexible enough to mix it up.

Whatever Wilder wants to do, we just have to hope and pray he can get the players he wants in the Summer.

In a nutshell, if he can build a properly functioning team, then maybe our strikers suddenly will start scoring regularly. The floodgates will open and the goals will come. In the past Boro have had teams that shared the goals around, with the midfield & defence chipping in a healthy amount...and thats no bad thing either. However they come, I'm not fussed...

 

Edited April 26, 2022 by AnglianRed

[Duvel 2,446]

25 minutes ago, AnglianRed said:

Currently the entire team is dysfunctional. We can't defend, our midfield can't control games and provides barely any service to the forwards.

I do wonder whether this bad run of form is getting people a bit carried away when I read stuff like this and comments calling our situation as horrible.

It feels like we need to get a bit of perspective, up until a few weeks ago everyone was sure we'd make the playoffs and we were flying. We've had a really good run in the league and more than held our own against some good Premier league teams. 

Maybe we're not as good as we thought we were a few months ago but I don't think we're as bad as people are making out either. 

[AnglianRed 6,320]

18 minutes ago, Duvel said:

I do wonder whether this bad run of form is getting people a bit carried away when I read stuff like this and comments calling our situation as horrible.

It feels like we need to get a bit of perspective, up until a few weeks ago everyone was sure we'd make the playoffs and we were flying. We've had a really good run in the league and more than held our own against some good Premier league teams. 

Maybe we're not as good as we thought we were a few months ago but I don't think we're as bad as people are making out either. 

Of course its the recent bad run. You did notice I used the word "currently"?

My memory isn't that bad that I've forgotten we had a few good months when Wilder arrived. As recently as December we won 4 on the bounce.

However since then Boro have rather gone off the rails. We've only won 6 games since then. Half the games we've lost occurred between then and now.

But its been evident for some time now that all is not well, for reasons we can only guess at. Burn-out and injuries from players being over-used? Opponents effectively countering Wilder's tactics? Problems in the dressing room? All of the above?

All I know is that whatever Wilder and the players were doing 3-4 months ago isn't working now (and hasn't for some time). My description in my earlier post is simply what I've witnessed with my own eyes.

[Duvel 2,446]

18 minutes ago, AnglianRed said:

Of course its the recent bad run. You did notice I used the word "currently"?

My memory isn't that bad that I've forgotten we had a few good months when Wilder arrived. As recently as December we won 4 on the bounce.

However since then Boro have rather gone off the rails. We've only won 6 games since then. Half the games we've lost occurred between then and now.

But its been evident for some time now that all is not well, for reasons we can only guess at. Burn-out and injuries from players being over-used? Opponents effectively countering Wilder's tactics? Problems in the dressing room? All of the above?

All I know is that whatever Wilder and the players were doing 3-4 months ago isn't working now (and hasn't for some time). My description in my earlier post is simply what I've witnessed with my own eyes.

I wasn't having a go at you it was a general comment about the atmosphere on the message board. I know we haven't been quite as good since January, I think the cup run distracted the league form but the cup run showed that we can compete against some pretty good teams. Even recently I thought we played well against Fulham and should have taken something from the game. There's been mistakes on the pitch, injuries and loss of form. But I'm hearing things like the team being bottlers, it being dysfunctional and horrible and I'm not sure its that bad. 

Next season will tell us more, I think we need a few tweaks to the first team, others on here seem to think things are a bit more serious. Time will tell I suppose. 

[SouthernSmoggie 4,242]

Would it be fair to say our bad patch has gone on for equally as long as the good run now? Feels a while ago since were racking up the home wins.

Last 6 - 21st in form table.

Last 10 - 15th in form table. Only two wins in that period against Brum and Peterborough. 

After a run of overperformance and a run of underperformance, we've probably averaged out to being about where we should be - just shy of a top six side. 

[RiseAgainst 3,793]

Yes, we clearly need new strikers. But what we've missed since Gaston slid back down into his snake's lair is a player who joins the midfield and attack together. Towards the end of our PL season, Negredo was the loneliest man I've ever seen on a football pitch, and Britt was often in a different postcode to everyone else under Pulis. Jones had promise earlier in the season, and guess what? We scored goals! Now he's regressed to checking back and endlessly playing sideways passes (why?), the goal threat has evaporated.

Effective build-up play should flow from defence to midfield, then from midfield to attack. Our play flows from defence to midfield and then breaks down. It's awful to watch.

[Duvel 2,446]

6 minutes ago, RiseAgainst said:

Jones had promise earlier in the season, and guess what? We scored goals! Now he's regressed to checking back and endlessly playing sideways passes (why?), the goal threat has evaporated

I think that's because teams have closed that space down for him. 

[Borodane 6,301]

We need two 15 goal strikers and then we can keep Coburn and Watmore and add some lottery ticket wild card who may/may not contribute. But we definitely need two goal scorers. Add to that a tricky, pacey lwb to spread our attacks to not only coming from the right. 

[Dan_Boro_Till_I_Die 1,181]

Watmore should be fifth choice and a sub nothing more from next season. Coburn goes ahead of him for me.

[SouthernSmoggie 4,242]

Presser was interesting. Essentially admits picking the strikers isn't much more than a lucky dip. Nobody seizes the chance so it just keeps going round between the five of them. For that reason, I expect we'll see Balogun get a go tomorrow.