Assombalonga the main man

[Changing Times 12,339]

1 minute ago, BoroMart said:

Yeah and why did Arsenal remain unbeaten? Because Man Utd weren't good enough to beat them with a goal hanger up front. Of course, that Arsenal team should have lost in September when they drew with Man Utd 0-0. RVN missed the target with a penalty....sounds like one of our players 😁

Of course it's never all down to one player, it's a team game, which means you pick the players that work best together, not the people that score the most goals individually. 

Lol, nobody was good enough to beat Arsenal in that season, that's why they went unbeaten.  Even if Man Utd had won that game they still would have finished behind Arsenal.  It's a team game unless you want to blame an individual for lots of things it seems.

[BoroMart 139]

2 minutes ago, Changing Times said:

You're trying to make everything fit with what you already believe. 

Saville looks like a player again?  He didn't against Stoke or Huddersfield or Forest or Swansea.  What you mean is that he's had a couple of good games, as have lots of players, and you're putting that down to the absence of Assombalonga.  Tavernier is playing in the position that suits him best rather than being stuck out on the wing.  Fletcher's movement isn't intelligent or at least no more than Assombalonga, you're simply picking and choosing what you see. 

Fletcher without the ball I'd agree is better than Assombalonga although not by much.  Assombalonga has quite clearly improved that side of his game over the last couple of months. 

Regarding the positive transition, wasn't Assombalonga involved in the build up to various goals before his injury?  The Charlton goal, Fletcher's goal against Hull, Fletchers goal against Barnsley where he is inside our own half playing the ball to Tavernier breaking forwards?  According to you that doesn't happen when he plays and yet it clearly did.  As for defending, again I wouldn't argue much with you other than to say he has improved that side of things as well.

I didn't say it doesn't happen, I'm saying it happens less. He drops and gets involved less, he makes runs to create space for others less. I'm not acolyte to this cult of 20+ goal CFs, CFs need to be footballers first and that's where Britt fails. OF course he has the odd moment, but generally his play outside of 8 yards is substandard. He'll be gone before long, it's for the best too

[BoroMart 139]

3 minutes ago, Changing Times said:

Lol, nobody was good enough to beat Arsenal in that season, that's why they went unbeaten.  Even if Man Utd had won that game they still would have finished behind Arsenal.  It's a team game unless you want to blame an individual for lots of things it seems.

Well we beat them twice but hey. The fact is Man Utd dipped for a few years, they still had the most expensive squad, they had Ronaldo, RVN, Rio, Scholes, Beckham, Keane, Giggs. They had the best squad and should have won, but they relied on a goal hanger which took away from the rest of the side. He never improved or adapted his game, unlike Andrew Cole who become a far far better player than the tap in merchant they originally signed. 

[RiseAgainst 3,792]

2 minutes ago, BoroMart said:

Well we beat them twice but hey. The fact is Man Utd dipped for a few years, they still had the most expensive squad, they had Ronaldo, RVN, Rio, Scholes, Beckham, Keane, Giggs. They had the best squad and should have won, but they relied on a goal hanger which took away from the rest of the side. He never improved or adapted his game, unlike Andrew Cole who become a far far better player than the tap in merchant they originally signed. 

It always gets forgotten that we beat the "invincible" Arsenal team twice that season in the league cup.

[TeaCider24 12,635]

5 minutes ago, RiseAgainst said:

It always gets forgotten that we beat the "invincible" Arsenal team twice that season in the league cup.

Man Utd beat them in the FA Cup too.

Though, funnily enough, Van Nistelrooy was injured.

[BoroMart 139]

5 minutes ago, TeaCider24 said:

Man Utd beat them in the FA Cup too.

correct......you are right RVN wasn't even in the squad that day 😂I'd forgotten that

[Changing Times 12,339]

12 minutes ago, RiseAgainst said:

16 minutes ago, BoroMart said:

Well we beat them twice but hey. The fact is Man Utd dipped for a few years, they still had the most expensive squad, they had Ronaldo, RVN, Rio, Scholes, Beckham, Keane, Giggs. They had the best squad and should have won, but they relied on a goal hanger which took away from the rest of the side. He never improved or adapted his game, unlike Andrew Cole who become a far far better player than the tap in merchant they originally signed. 

It always gets forgotten that we beat the "invincible" Arsenal team twice that season in the league cup.

It doesn't get forgotten.  People are just sensible enough to recognise the fact that the teams that Arsenal fielded in the League Cup semi finals were something short of their best sides.  We played them in the Premier League and FA cup that season, they fielded stronger sides in all three games and they battered us every time - 4-0, 4-1 and 4-1.  We actually played them in the FA Cup right after the first leg and they brought important players back in for that one who had been left out of the League Cup side.

Man Utd didn't have the most expensive squad unless you mean the one with the highest wage bill?  I assume they also had that in 97/98 when Arsenal won the double and presumably they still had it when Chelsea won the title twice in a row?  You're ignoring everything else that happened, even with other sides, and putting down their title losses to one player and that is mental.  When Chelsea won the title in 04/05 they won it with what I believe was a record points total at the time, Man Utd finished 18 points behind them and Van Nistelrooy played fewer than half the games that season. 

[BoroMart 139]

1 minute ago, Changing Times said:

It doesn't get forgotten.  People are just sensible enough to recognise the fact that the teams that Arsenal fielded in the League Cup semi finals were something short of their best sides.  We played them in the Premier League and FA cup that season, they fielded stronger sides in all three games and they battered us every time - 4-0, 4-1 and 4-1.  We actually played them in the FA Cup right after the first leg and they brought important players back in for that one who had been left out of the League Cup side.

Man Utd didn't have the most expensive squad unless you mean the one with the highest wage bill?  I assume they also had that in 97/98 when Arsenal won the double and presumably they still had it when Chelsea won the title twice in a row?  You're ignoring everything else that happened, even with other sides, and putting down their title losses to one player and that is mental.  When Chelsea won the title in 04/05 they won it with what I believe was a record points total at the time, Man Utd finished 18 points behind them and Van Nistelrooy played fewer than half the games that season. 

as said above, I'm not putting it all down to one player, but I am calling out that playing a goal poacher who doesn't get involved much outside the box can be a negative. Having the top scoring CF isn't the aim of professional football. Number of goals scored by an individual player is just one Key Performance Indicator, if you focus just on that KPI you will fail to meet your Critical Success Factors and have a below par season.

[Changing Times 12,339]

32 minutes ago, BoroMart said:

I didn't say it doesn't happen, I'm saying it happens less. He drops and gets involved less, he makes runs to create space for others less. I'm not acolyte to this cult of 20+ goal CFs, CFs need to be footballers first and that's where Britt fails. OF course he has the odd moment, but generally his play outside of 8 yards is substandard. He'll be gone before long, it's for the best too

Of course CF's need to be footballers.  I'm one of those people that believe that everyone should be a footballer to some degree including central defenders.  That's one of the reasons I couldn't stand Flint.  They also need to be regular or at least reasonably regular goalscorers however.

Of course him going is for the best, he costs us too much and we can't afford him.  If we'd only signed Braithwaite a couple of seasons ago and not signed Assombalonga and Fletcher, I don't believe we'd have been any worse off on the field and we'd have saved ourselves £21m plus wages, bonuses etc so we'd be in better shape off the field as well.  And that's factoring in Braithwaite's less than stellar spell here.  I know we can do better than Assombalonga, we had better than him while we still had Bamford on the books in my opinion.  I'm not saying we need to keep him, I'm simply saying that he isn't responsible for the problems we've had this season.

[BoroMart 139]

So who is responsible? 

Personally, as stated I do see Britt as a major underlying factor, not the sole factor, but a big one. The biggest issue being that he only scores two types of goals and rarely does anything else. The ball in behind for him to run onto, and headers within 8 yards. If you know his strengths then a decent defender can nullify them, and they have as he has had something like 17 blanks in 18 games vs the top 6 teams. Probably worse as the he hasn't scored against any team this season that is likely to finish top 6.

[Changing Times 12,339]

4 minutes ago, BoroMart said:

as said above, I'm not putting it all down to one player, but I am calling out that playing a goal poacher who doesn't get involved much outside the box can be a negative. Having the top scoring CF isn't the aim of professional football. Number of goals scored by an individual player is just one Key Performance Indicator, if you focus just on that KPI you will fail to meet your Critical Success Factors and have a below par season.

You are putting it all down to one player, that is precisely what you're doing!  You're actually doing it with two different players at two different clubs as well to double down on it.  Would I be right in thinking that you've recently done some coaching badges or something?

You're completely correct that having the top scoring CF isn't the aim of professional football and that's certainly not something we need to concern ourselves with any of our current strikers 🙂 

I mean look at the last 10 years or so.  The season we got promoted I don't think we had a player hit double figures did we? However we also had a good season before that when Bamford hit 17 and Leadbitter got double figures.  I don't think there was much difference between the two sides myself but the way we accomplished what we did in those seasons was obviously different.  Assombalonga hit 15 when we made the play offs two years ago and before that I can remember players like McDonald, Emnes, Adomah being our top scorers.  None of them hit 20 goals though and our league positions have fluctuated over that period because of other factors.

[tmcc 583]

i personally have always thought britt ruins the flow of the side, he's a poor passer of the ball, often over runs it and is very greedy, this is obviously during the rare occasions when hes not offside.  hes good goal scorer on his day, but he when he dosent get a goal its hard to tell hes even playing and in this day and age, thats not enough from a 15 mil striker. 

i was never happy with the signing really and there no pulis anymore to blame, hopefully we can get an offer of 8 mil or more and take it and reinvest. 

as i said at the start of the season, there was about 15 players who scored more than him last season and none of them cost as much with the majority cost under 5 mil and a number off them free. hopefully we can pull a deal or two and get a bargain. 

[Changing Times 12,339]

4 minutes ago, BoroMart said:

So who is responsible? 

Personally, as stated I do see Britt as a major underlying factor, not the sole factor, but a big one. The biggest issue being that he only scores two types of goals and rarely does anything else. The ball in behind for him to run onto, and headers within 8 yards. If you know his strengths then a decent defender can nullify them, and they have as he has had something like 17 blanks in 18 games vs the top 6 teams. Probably worse as the he hasn't scored against any team this season that is likely to finish top 6.

No one player is responsible, that's my belief, not for what we've seen this season anyway.  Woodgate bears more responsibility than any of them and Gibson more than him in my opinion.  We've spent a decent chunk of this season playing fairly conservatively and you simply can't pin that on Assombalonga.  Look at the Stoke game a couple of weeks back, we were bloody dreadful in the first half with a complete lack of ambition or intent.  It was all about being scared witless of losing. Assombalonga wasn't playing in that game but we were still poor.  He was though playing in the first half against Hull where we played well.

I pointed out a while back that we had one of the lowest total number of shots from inside the area but one of the highest from outside the area.  At that point in time, McNair and Wing were shooting a lot, from distance, and not scoring.  You can't blame Assombalonga for that, it's down to decision making from the players involved.  McNair has 38 shots in total and 19 of them have been from outside the area - he has scored none of them.  Wing has 42 shots this season, 40 of them from outside the area and he's scored 2 of them.  That's a lot of attacking situations that result in nothing for us.  

Fletcher's goals have been against Luton, Hull, Barnsley, Stoke and West Brom, three home and two away.  Assombalonga's have been against Luton, Wigan, Bristol City, Preston and QPR, four away and two home. Are we really saying that there's a significant difference between the two because I'm just not seeing it?  We haven't had much success against the better sides this season as a group.  Just look at our results.  I can't put the responsibility for that on one player because that's not what I've seen in those games.  There are obvious exceptions to that - the Sheff Wed game where Assombalonga missed a couple of chances he should have scored from is a decent example although it's also worth remembering that we were 4-1 down at half time as well.

[BoroMart 139]

5 hours ago, Changing Times said:

You are putting it all down to one player, that is precisely what you're doing!  You're actually doing it with two different players at two different clubs as well to double down on it.  Would I be right in thinking that you've recently done some coaching badges or something?

You're completely correct that having the top scoring CF isn't the aim of professional football and that's certainly not something we need to concern ourselves with any of our current strikers 🙂 

I mean look at the last 10 years or so.  The season we got promoted I don't think we had a player hit double figures did we? However we also had a good season before that when Bamford hit 17 and Leadbitter got double figures.  I don't think there was much difference between the two sides myself but the way we accomplished what we did in those seasons was obviously different.  Assombalonga hit 15 when we made the play offs two years ago and before that I can remember players like McDonald, Emnes, Adomah being our top scorers.  None of them hit 20 goals though and our league positions have fluctuated over that period because of other factors.

I'm not putting it down to one player. There are certain players that this season have performed fairly regularly Randolph/Pears, Ayala, Coulson, Howson, Fletcher and Tav. You take those out and there are about 5 positions that haven't been quite up to scratch. The issue with having a solo CF who isn't playing well, and for much of this season, he hasn't. Is that it doesn't give the midfielders much to work with and every defensive slip is doubly costly. 

I've been coaching for 12 years and am looking at doing my UEFA B if that is relevant to you

A solo CF is a focal point for all attacking play. If they are no good at hold up, if they can't vary their play and drop and build up, then it significantly impacts the team. We are a decent enough defensive side, we are poor attacking, 2nd worst in the league, that's in spite of having a 15mill striker. I'm sorry that is indefensible and he as the solo striker who has missed many howlers this season, as well as not getting involved in build up play, has to take much of the blame for that. He can't say he hasn't had the chances, he's had plenty of one on ones, pennas and tap ins that he has spurned.

[BoroMart 139]

5 hours ago, Changing Times said:

No one player is responsible, that's my belief, not for what we've seen this season anyway.  Woodgate bears more responsibility than any of them and Gibson more than him in my opinion.  We've spent a decent chunk of this season playing fairly conservatively and you simply can't pin that on Assombalonga.  Look at the Stoke game a couple of weeks back, we were bloody dreadful in the first half with a complete lack of ambition or intent.  It was all about being scared witless of losing. Assombalonga wasn't playing in that game but we were still poor.  He was though playing in the first half against Hull where we played well.

I pointed out a while back that we had one of the lowest total number of shots from inside the area but one of the highest from outside the area.  At that point in time, McNair and Wing were shooting a lot, from distance, and not scoring.  You can't blame Assombalonga for that, it's down to decision making from the players involved.  McNair has 38 shots in total and 19 of them have been from outside the area - he has scored none of them.  Wing has 42 shots this season, 40 of them from outside the area and he's scored 2 of them.  That's a lot of attacking situations that result in nothing for us.  

Fletcher's goals have been against Luton, Hull, Barnsley, Stoke and West Brom, three home and two away.  Assombalonga's have been against Luton, Wigan, Bristol City, Preston and QPR, four away and two home. Are we really saying that there's a significant difference between the two because I'm just not seeing it?  We haven't had much success against the better sides this season as a group.  Just look at our results.  I can't put the responsibility for that on one player because that's not what I've seen in those games.  There are obvious exceptions to that - the Sheff Wed game where Assombalonga missed a couple of chances he should have scored from is a decent example although it's also worth remembering that we were 4-1 down at half time as well.

So you think it's the manager that has been at fault, not the players other than Wing and McNair for shooting from outside the box?  Are they shooting from their because there is no intelligent movement in front of them?!

Britt has had 10 shots in the 6 yard box and scored 2....that's from a supposed top class poacher and oviously doesn't even include the pennas where he hasn't hit the target. You can't keep passing the buck and blaming other people. He is certainly culpable for our position and form, if not the main issue, one of them. You are easily pleased if that is the kind of CF that floats your boat.

Edited January 3, 2020 by BoroMart