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Are strikers the main need ?


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16 minutes ago, Dan_Boro_Till_I_Die said:

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

Coburn needs to go on loan next season and get regular minutes under his belt. Despite his good goals per minute ratio, his overall game is below Championship promotion standard (or any team in Championship imo) therefore I think we need to let him play while we strengthen up top.

Watmore does enough to be a squad player for us next year. Money will be saved by just extending his contract rather than signing a new player, plus he seems like a decent character who's pressing ability suits the Wilderball system (albeit not for 90 mins).

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I'll put it into more context.  You can always do with more goals from other positions, I don't think anyone would disagree with that.  But by and large it's strikers who score the majority of goals,

Maybe he gets it from from a Ouija Board.  "Spirits please guide me in my team selection, who should I play up front to end our goal scoring woes?". "Whoaa the glass is moving Chris, let's s

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 per

1 hour ago, Duvel said:

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. 

I've seen a few "bottler" comments myself.

I think in general those refer to how wasteful we've been in front of goal, on those occasions when we have actually created decent scoring chances. As I said in another post I think its partly anxiety / lack of composure due to the rarity of good scoring chances, causing players to fluff their shots. Plus they may just not be very good.

The other thing for me is a general mental weakness - the team's reaction (or lack of it) when we concede. We seem to just give up and become even more shambolic defensively. Where a strong, united and cohesive team would try to get back into a game, Boro just go into their shells.

I also absolutely stand by my comment about the team being dysfunctional. It clearly isn't working properly in any way, shape or form, other than being able to pass the ball around in midfield, in a completely unthreatening manner.

I dunno about you, but for me it is pretty horrible to watch - seeing us going form having the ball on the byline, to then watch us pass it 40 yards backwards. It is pretty painful at times.

 

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5 hours ago, Duvel said:

I know you like a stat, how does our number of chances created compare to other teams? 

Other people have put the xG stat up so you've seen that.  We're top 10 for shots per game (7th), shots on target per game (4th), and key passes per game (8th) so overall we're not that bad really.  When I looked at Sheff Utd during their promotion season they were actually not that high in those areas overall.  They weren't at the bottom of the league either but they were like 14th, 10th, 9th or something like that, although the actual numbers were very close to ours this season interestingly, almost identical I think in fact.  So they scored 25 more goals with similar stats to us, and they had two strikers who scored 38 goals between them (we've only scored 53 goals this season by comparison).  We've had six strikers who have scored 24 goals between them (26 if you include Connolly's own goals).  All of our strikers combined are just ahead of Billy Sharp during their promotion season. 

It's not difficult to see where our problem lies.  If you're playing two strikers, wingbacks, and 3 midfielders then your strikers need to score goals.  Even if someone like Tav scored another half dozen we'd still be short of goals.  I mean you could have 6 strikers who score 7 goals each if you like as that would do the same job but it still comes down to how many goals you're strikers are scoring.

Edited by Changing Times
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One thing I do disagree with regarding Wilder is his use of our forwards. The constant swapping and subs I don't think allow any of our strikers to get going although they certainly haven't helped themselves. I can't remember him doing that with Sharp/Mcgoldrick. I'd put money on, that if he'd stuck with say Sporar/Watmore (or any of them apart from Connolly who is obviously just miles off) we'd be getting much better returns than our current situation of 5 out of form strikers.

Found it a bit weird that out of all our strikers he seems to throw most his eggs in the Connolly basket.

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His choice of starter may come down to who is fitter, we know Watmore requires management so as not to break him, others may require the same from time to time, but in the main they seem to lack the composure to be that clinical finisher.

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12 minutes ago, estonpidge said:

His choice of starter may come down to who is fitter, we know Watmore requires management so as not to break him, others may require the same from time to time, but in the main they seem to lack the composure to be that clinical finisher.

Maybe he gets it from from a Ouija Board. 

"Spirits please guide me in my team selection, who should I play up front to end our goal scoring woes?".

"Whoaa the glass is moving Chris, let's see who it spells out."

"C - "

"O - "

"Ah, must be Connolly then, ok we can stop now lads"

[Glass hurls itself at the wall and smashes into smithereens]

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6 hours ago, AnglianRed said:

I also absolutely stand by my comment about the team being dysfunctional. It clearly isn't working properly in any way, shape or form, other than being able to pass the ball around in midfield, in a completely unthreatening manner.

I dunno about you, but for me it is pretty horrible to watch - seeing us going form having the ball on the byline, to then watch us pass it 40 yards backwards. It is pretty painful at times.

For the last 4 games I'd agree with you but the Fulham game was only a couple of weeks ago and I enjoyed the way we played in that game. Maybe that's the exception but its a glimmer of hope that things aren't that bad. 

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Agree with all the above views.   It seems like we have been short of goals for a hell of a long time now.  You look at whatever is on the team sheet and my first thought always is where are the goals coming from.   In a game of fine margins and marginal gains the issue of set pieces staggers me.   Huddersfield have shown that with a bit of invention 20 plus goals can be created.

We managed to turn Flint from being the highest scoring defender in the league's one season to scoring one with us the next.

 

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Wilder in his presser was asked about the rotation of his strikers. He said he would love just one striker to lay down a marker to him and say “I am your main man”. But none of them. He wants continuity up there but no one has been constant enough and he says they all had a chance. However, he is hoping one of the 5 does come forward to lay down that marker in next 5 games.

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12 hours 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.

The issue is we were heavily reliant on crooks and Jones for goals and assists who were in great form at the time and since they have dropped off nobody else has been good enough to pick up the slack. Also we were very lucky in alot of those wins even though we played mostly well I remember teams like forest and Bournemouth missing absolute sitters and hitting the post etc. I know there was more games than that because I remember thinking at the time maybe wilder is a good luck charm for once were getting the rub of the green. 

When your winning because one or two players are dragging you through and your needing a bit of luck too its never going to last and sadly it hasn't and we're slipping back to how we were under Warnock.

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We haven't had a striker score 20 league goals since Slaven in the late 80s. That's a bizarre stat.

That has to come to an end next season if we are going to be in the mix. Tav, Mcgree, Payero aren't getting 10-15 goals each. We need a top championship striker. 

We also need a keeper.

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8 hours ago, TLF10 said:

Wilder in his presser was asked about the rotation of his strikers. He said he would love just one striker to lay down a marker to him and say “I am your main man”. But none of them. He wants continuity up there but no one has been constant enough and he says they all had a chance. However, he is hoping one of the 5 does come forward to lay down that marker in next 5 games.

5 games? So he’s expecting to make the playoffs but lose the semi final? Very negative outlook from him 😱

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