Goalscorers

[Eastern]

We need a younger, fitter version of Gary Hooper. 
 

Best striker we had in years.

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Tony Pulis said:

All the best teams at this level have a top quality striker:

Leeds - Bamford

West Brom - Austin

Forest - Grabban

Brentford - Watkins

Fulham - Mitrovic

If we seriously want to compete for a Top 6 spot this season, we need to sign a striker in January. It baffles me that although we have 5 strikers at the club, we only have 1 who is competent at this level (Fletcher). We should look to move on the other 4 as soon as possible, as they are just dead wood sat there collecting dust. As has been suggested before, Brewster, Nketiah and Adams will be available on loan this window, however competition will be stiff for them. Therefore, some targets that are a bit more realistic may be Isaac Success (loan), Shane Long (loan) or Conor Chaplin (permanent). Either way, whatever happens this window, we must keep hold of Fletcher, Iorfa and Bannan, if we want any chance.

 

Leeds and We are looking to to loan Adams from Southampton depending on what happens with Gayle. I don't think you need an out and out Striker with the likes of Rhodes and Fletcher you need Diangana/Barnes type player to get them banging

[DJMortimer]

3 hours ago, ohgoditsjames said:

For the entire time that we’ve had Rhodes we have NEVER consistently put proper crosses in and then we wonder why our strikers don’t score. We might put one or 2 decent crosses in per game but that simply isn’t good enough. 
 

We either try to walk it into the back of the net or lump it upfield from defence/goal keeper. 
 

We give the opposition far too much time to get back into their own box and block us.
 

We could have Ronaldo and Shearer and we still wouldn’t score.

 

And still we have snake oil salesmen trying to persuade us that Rhodes' failure to score is the fault of everyone except him.

 

It's only fairly recently that we've struggled for goals like this from our forwards. Before that Fletcher, Hooper, Joao, Nuhiu, Forestieri, Winnall and even Matias have all comfortably outscored him on at least a pro-rata basis, and most of them have had periods of varying lengths where they were registering regularly. By comparison, Rhodes' only prolific spell lasted a whole 45 minutes.

 

 

[Guest LondonOwl313]

1 minute ago, DJMortimer said:

 

And still we have snake oil salesmen trying to persuade us that Rhodes' failure to score is the fault of everyone except him.

 

It's only fairly recently that we've struggled for goals like this from our forwards. Before that Fletcher, Hooper, Joao, Nuhiu, Forestieri, Winnall and even Matias have all comfortably outscored him on at least a pro-rata basis, and most of them have had periods of varying lengths where they were registering regularly. By comparison, Rhodes' only prolific spell lasted a whole 45 minutes.

 

 

You’re so desperate for him to fail it’s embarrassing. The whole team is bang average apart from Fletcher and Bannan... some strikers are poachers and others have more to there game. Rhodes is the former.. just doesn’t suit our style of play at all. He’s only 29 though and had no serious injuries nor lost any pace as he never had any. He’d score in a team that provides for him but offers nothing in one that doesn’t. No idea why you make the same negative point over and over

[DJMortimer]

Just now, LondonOwl313 said:

You’re so desperate for him to fail it’s embarrassing. The whole team is bang average apart from Fletcher and Bannan... some strikers are poachers and others have more to there game. Rhodes is the former.. just doesn’t suit our style of play at all. He’s only 29 though and had no serious injuries nor lost any pace as he never had any. He’d score in a team that provides for him but offers nothing in one that doesn’t. No idea why you make the same negative point over and over

 

I have no problem with Rhodes himself; he's just another player in the squad. If he plays well and contributes to the team effort (and to be fair, his hat-trick at Forest was very good) then you pick the fellas most likely to help you get the result. There is not a single player in our squad I would rule out permanently because things can change quickly.

 

My issue is with those who rotate through that litany of desperate excuses that fly in the face of all the available evidence about how good he is because of the statistics he compiled 4 years ago and more.

 

All that childish nonsense about wanting him to fail is nothing but a transparent tantrum because you can't face acknowledging that the Emperor has been naked for quite a while.

[thesouthowl]

So many valid points either way. Bannan is by far our best ball player, but he is too deep and that has a negative effect on getting the ball forward. I don't know if I feel sorry for the likes of Rhodes and Winnall as we don't seem to provide them any real service or they are just cack. 

[Holmowl]

32 minutes ago, DJMortimer said:

 

I have no problem with Rhodes himself; he's just another player in the squad. If he plays well and contributes to the team effort (and to be fair, his hat-trick at Forest was very good) then you pick the fellas most likely to help you get the result. There is not a single player in our squad I would rule out permanently because things can change quickly.

 

My issue is with those who rotate through that litany of desperate excuses that fly in the face of all the available evidence about how good he is because of the statistics he compiled 4 years ago and more.

 

All that childish nonsense about wanting him to fail is nothing but a transparent tantrum because you can't face acknowledging that the Emperor has been naked for quite a while.

I gave you “All the available evidence” a few pages back. Over this season and last season he has scored at a faster rate than his entire Championship career. 

 

Its just that he isn’t getting much games time to rack-up the 20-25 goal seasons he did at Blackburn. 

[DJMortimer]

Just now, Holmowl said:

I gave you “All the available evidence” a few pages back. Over this season and last season he has scored at a faster rate than his entire Championship career. 

 

Its just that he isn’t getting much games time to rack-up the 20-25 goal seasons he did at Blackburn. 

 

All of it? Like all the managers who haven't wanted to play him here, even when we had almost no one else available? The embarrassing barren spells that pre-date your carefully selected periods and favourable circumstances (like a rampant Norwich team who had a couple of midfielders with a better scoring rate)? All the hyperbole before he arrived about "guarantees goals" and he's delivered 13 in 68 appearances, whilst the much maligned Atdhe Nuhiu matched that in a third of that time (that's got to hurt)? The lack of offers even though we're not using him and everyone knows we're desperate to lose the burden of his salary? Looking so lost and ineffective so frequently?

 

If the depth of your analysis of strikers goes no deeper than minutes per goal, with no further context than that, I can only shake my head. It's that sort of primary school superficiality that would tell you Dennis Bergkamp wasn't very good (check out his last 6 seasons at Arsenal). At what cost to the team does all this pandering come, given the increasing anonymity for anything other than sometimes finishing the work of others? Despite his goals, the teams he has been on have not been very successful generally. Even when he joined Middlesbrough and they were promoted to the Premier League, they were 1 point off the top and their points per game actually went down slightly for the rest of the season.

 

But whilst you're scraping the bottom of barrels, this season is 3 goals. I've seen Andy Pearce, Lawrie Madden, Nigel Pearson, Dominic Iorfa and Carlton Palmer score that many in less time than it's taken Rhodes. So what? 

 

 

[gurujuan]

7 hours ago, Emerson Thome said:

 

Apart from Mitrovic, Fletcher is as good or better than all of those. The problem is at full back and on the flanks.

 

Also the midfield and other forwards need to chip in with more goals.

 

Bamford = 10 league goals, rest of Leeds = 33 goals

Austin = 8 league goals, rest of West Brom = 40 goals

 

Grabban = 14 goals, rest of Forest = 20 goals

Watkins = 17 goals, rest of Brentford = 24 goals

Mitrovic = 18 goals, rest of Fulham = 22 goals

Fletcher = 12 goals, rest of Wednesday = 25 goals

 

You can see the clear gulf between the top top and the chasing pack in these numbers.

I’d say Watkins is the best of that lot, followed by Mitrovic. The rest, meh, no better than Fletcher

[OwlinOldham]

13 hours ago, DJMortimer said:

 

All of it? Like all the managers who haven't wanted to play him here, even when we had almost no one else available? The embarrassing barren spells that pre-date your carefully selected periods and favourable circumstances (like a rampant Norwich team who had a couple of midfielders with a better scoring rate)? All the hyperbole before he arrived about "guarantees goals" and he's delivered 13 in 68 appearances, whilst the much maligned Atdhe Nuhiu matched that in a third of that time (that's got to hurt)? The lack of offers even though we're not using him and everyone knows we're desperate to lose the burden of his salary? Looking so lost and ineffective so frequently?

 

If the depth of your analysis of strikers goes no deeper than minutes per goal, with no further context than that, I can only shake my head. It's that sort of primary school superficiality that would tell you Dennis Bergkamp wasn't very good (check out his last 6 seasons at Arsenal). At what cost to the team does all this pandering come, given the increasing anonymity for anything other than sometimes finishing the work of others? Despite his goals, the teams he has been on have not been very successful generally. Even when he joined Middlesbrough and they were promoted to the Premier League, they were 1 point off the top and their points per game actually went down slightly for the rest of the season.

 

But whilst you're scraping the bottom of barrels, this season is 3 goals. I've seen Andy Pearce, Lawrie Madden, Nigel Pearson, Dominic Iorfa and Carlton Palmer score that many in less time than it's taken Rhodes. So what? 

 

 

 

has it ever been considered by you that managers didnt play Rhodes because he didnt suit the way they wanted to play or we didnt have the set up to get something out of him? 

Pretty sure Norwich had the best striker in the division last season. Rhodes was limited to a bit part for most of the season because Pukki was on fire. No team is going to take their top scorer our of the team unless they have to.

He did however manage 6 goals in 1010 minutes of championship football. He also only played half a game or more on 10 occasions. The rest were mostly 1 to 5 minute appearances and a few games where he got into the teens. He actually did well for Norwich when the actual stats are taken into consideration. 6 goals in 36 sounds poor, but when you look at how them 36 games are calculated, its not half bad. I am going to assume, rightly or wrongly,  that you haven't bothered to actually check the full breakdown of his appearances for us to have got the 13 goals in 68 appearances.

 

the fact is, almost all strikers live of the hard work carried out by others in the team. The ones that can create something out of nothing and do it repeatedly are the ones playing at the very best clubs in the world. if Rhodes or any of our forwards could do that and score 20 a season, they wouldn't be our players for very long. Its not worked here for him and thats clear, but the seasons after Carlos have hardly been good football or easy for anyone. even this season we have basically been crap and had to grind out and cling on to wins. 

 

 

 

[Rogers]

19 hours ago, ohgoditsjames said:

For the entire time that we’ve had Rhodes we have NEVER consistently put proper crosses in and then we wonder why our strikers don’t score. We might put one or 2 decent crosses in per game but that simply isn’t good enough. 
 

We either try to walk it into the back of the net or lump it upfield from defence/goal keeper. 
 

We give the opposition far too much time to get back into their own box and block us.
 

We could have Ronaldo and Shearer and we still wouldn’t score.

Did Rhodes score all his goals at Huddersfield from crosses? Cos every time I see him, he looks like he hasn’t got the strength to battle with defenders to Get to the ball first. 
 

Apart from the anomalies in that 45 mins at Forest - “the miracle before Christmas”. 

[Mister Soul]

21 hours ago, OwlinOldham said:

no point having a goal scorer if the service they are provided with is below par.

Im firmly starting the believe that our goals problem is more than just not having the right forwards and more to do with the midfield supply to them. 

There are numerous threads on here about how the middle 2 play too deep and if you think about it, this is likely a big reason why our forwards dont score so many.

Imagine how many more goals Fletchers clever play and movement would have got him if the balls played in to him were 5 yard through balls and clever cut backs. Instead its all 30 yard wonder balls in to him because the midfield is playing alongside the defence. 

Not saying its likely but a more positive midfield might also bring on one or two of the other strikers we have too. Winnall for example was a machine at this level whilst Hourihane was high up in the middle of the park supplying him. 

Totally agree with your points.. the match against Hull confirms this. I’ve been sad enough to watch it back again.

Every time the ball got hoofed up field it was back with in our own half in seconds.. over and over again.

However as soon as Bannan (30 yds further forward) received the ball in their half we looked a far better side. 

Ultimately he needs better players around him in midfield that can carry it to him (or deliver a telling pass themselves).

Rhodes has in one match proved that given the service he can deliver. Fletcher must have to use so much unnecessary energy having to jump for hoof balls down the middle.

Improvement in midfield  has to be the priority 

[DJMortimer]

2 hours ago, OwlinOldham said:

 

has it ever been considered by you that managers didnt play Rhodes because he didnt suit the way they wanted to play or we didnt have the set up to get something out of him? 

Pretty sure Norwich had the best striker in the division last season. Rhodes was limited to a bit part for most of the season because Pukki was on fire. No team is going to take their top scorer our of the team unless they have to.

He did however manage 6 goals in 1010 minutes of championship football. He also only played half a game or more on 10 occasions. The rest were mostly 1 to 5 minute appearances and a few games where he got into the teens. He actually did well for Norwich when the actual stats are taken into consideration. 6 goals in 36 sounds poor, but when you look at how them 36 games are calculated, its not half bad. I am going to assume, rightly or wrongly,  that you haven't bothered to actually check the full breakdown of his appearances for us to have got the 13 goals in 68 appearances.

 

the fact is, almost all strikers live of the hard work carried out by others in the team. The ones that can create something out of nothing and do it repeatedly are the ones playing at the very best clubs in the world. if Rhodes or any of our forwards could do that and score 20 a season, they wouldn't be our players for very long. Its not worked here for him and thats clear, but the seasons after Carlos have hardly been good football or easy for anyone. even this season we have basically been crap and had to grind out and cling on to wins. 

 

 

 

 

Such overwhelming faith in nothing but numbers is a fool's errand that is riven by inconsistencies, outliers and white noise. 

 

As I mentioned previously, based purely on this kind of analysis, Dennis Bergkamp was hopeless for Arsenal in his last 7 seasons although he did have a happy knack of helping them win trophies (including a full league season without a single defeat). The last time we had a striker score 20 goals in a season, we finished 15th in League one. In the midst of his 32 goal promotion campaign of 1990/1, David Hirst went on a run of 1 goal in 17 league outings. Nigel Pearson scored 24 goals in his 18 year career, but 12 of them came in a single remarkable season for us. Were Paolo Di Canio and Benito Carbone defined as players by their minutes per goal? A couple of years ago Bobby Reid and Leon Clarke were something like the third and fourth best strikers in the Championship based solely upon this metric. But it's a method that doesn't require an observer to even know what a player looks like, never mind judge his performances or the surrounding context in any kind of objective way. 

 

During his time at Wednesday, he has been one of 8 forwards. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM, despite a variety of skills, physiques and styles amongst them, has a better scoring rate than him during that time under the same conditions. The excuses being made for that brutal fact have been as astonishing as they are risible. And remember, this is the guy that "no ifs, no buts", "guarantees goals". If this were some other club and a bunch of unknown players, or if Rhodes had not scored at a prolific rate in his (increasingly distant) past, I'm guessing you wouldn't hesitate to conclude that he was the weakest amongst them.

 

Given our need for reinforcements, the reluctance to play him even though we are struggling for goals (apart from Fletcher obviously) and the scale of our financial mismanagement, one has to wonder why we have not been deluged by offers for such an unquestioned talent who is presumably available for a modest fee under the circumstances. The answer is obvious to all but the faithful and has been seen in the vast majority of his 68 appearances for us so far; and sod the statistics.

 

 

[OwlinOldham]

59 minutes ago, DJMortimer said:

 

Such overwhelming faith in nothing but numbers is a fool's errand that is riven by inconsistencies, outliers and white noise. 

 

As I mentioned previously, based purely on this kind of analysis, Dennis Bergkamp was hopeless for Arsenal in his last 7 seasons although he did have a happy knack of helping them win trophies (including a full league season without a single defeat). The last time we had a striker score 20 goals in a season, we finished 15th in League one. In the midst of his 32 goal promotion campaign of 1990/1, David Hirst went on a run of 1 goal in 17 league outings. Nigel Pearson scored 24 goals in his 18 year career, but 12 of them came in a single remarkable season for us. Were Paolo Di Canio and Benito Carbone defined as players by their minutes per goal? A couple of years ago Bobby Reid and Leon Clarke were something like the third and fourth best strikers in the Championship based solely upon this metric. But it's a method that doesn't require an observer to even know what a player looks like, never mind judge his performances or the surrounding context in any kind of objective way. 

 

During his time at Wednesday, he has been one of 8 forwards. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM, despite a variety of skills, physiques and styles amongst them, has a better scoring rate than him during that time under the same conditions. The excuses being made for that brutal fact have been as astonishing as they are risible. And remember, this is the guy that "no ifs, no buts", "guarantees goals". If this were some other club and a bunch of unknown players, or if Rhodes had not scored at a prolific rate in his (increasingly distant) past, I'm guessing you wouldn't hesitate to conclude that he was the weakest amongst them.

 

Given our need for reinforcements, the reluctance to play him even though we are struggling for goals (apart from Fletcher obviously) and the scale of our financial mismanagement, one has to wonder why we have not been deluged by offers for such an unquestioned talent who is presumably available for a modest fee under the circumstances. The answer is obvious to all but the faithful and has been seen in the vast majority of his 68 appearances for us so far; and sod the statistics.

 

 

 

my point was that the statistics your so eager to ignore also tell a story of a player who hasn't really played much football at Norwich or even here to be fair.  Yet somehow he also managed to get 6 goals for them and they wanted to take him off our hands.

It was only Norwich knowing we wanted rid and trying to pull our pants down that stopped the deal. They thought our need to get rid meant they were gonna get a steal and DC wast having none of that.

 

 

With stats or without stats, Rhodes is not going to prosper in a team with no positive central midfield, who play long ball football and where hes expected to lead the line in the absence of Fletcher. Hes also played nowhere near the same amount of minutes he had done at say Blackburn and Hudds since we signed him. Stats ignored or not, you cant score goals if your not getting a run or time on the pitch. Theres more to the fact that every striker we sign turns to s-hit than just the fact they need it on a plate.

 

 

 

[DJMortimer]

2 hours ago, OwlinOldham said:

...you cant score goals if your not getting a run or time on the pitch. Theres more to the fact that every striker we sign turns to s-hit than just the fact they need it on a plate.

 

When he first arrived, he played in all of the next 20 games, starting 16 of them. That's almost half a season. He scored 3 goals in that time. And that was back in the days when we weren't hopeless going forward. But don't tell me - that was everybody else's fault. It only counts as the 'right service' (tm) if he scores. Never mind all the goals that everyone else was getting.

 

It's like trying to reason with a religious fundamentalist. If he scores, it proves he"s great. If he doesn't then there's no shortage of excuses. Those are no lose terms you've drawn up. But in the last 4 years, he's been at 4 clubs in 2 divisions under at least 7 managers with god knows how many team mates, formations and tactics yet the majority of the time he's been on the bench if he's lucky. Maybe there's a bit more to the game than just taking shots at goal and all the other deficiencies are too much for the rest of the team to compensate for?

 

Keep the faith. There's not much else left. 

[davey_wells]

On 02/01/2020 at 13:31, Emerson Thome said:

 

Apart from Mitrovic, Fletcher is as good or better than all of those.

 

This 100%

 

Age isn't on his side, but at this moment, with the right players with him to supply, I'd say Fletcher is one of the best in the division.

 

He's been a signing of real quality.

 

 

[DJMortimer]

Just now, davey_wells said:

 

This 100%

 

Age isn't on his side, but at this moment, with the right players with him to supply, I'd say Fletcher is one of the best in the division.

 

He's been a signing of real quality.

 

 

 

I must admit, he's surprised me these last few months. It looked like his career was slowly winding down. But he's been a warrior this season, showing up how mediocre our other forwards are. And who knows where we'd be without his goals this season?

[Anlaby Owl]

Rhodes needs someone close to him in order to function properly.  With the way we are playing now nuihu tends to drop deep to recieve long balls so whoever is in front of nuihu is waiting for a lucky flick on and then has to beat 2-3 defenders on his own because nuihu is stranded 15 yards behind.  I believe this is why monk tried putting reach up there thinking he might fulfil the nuihu role but have the pace to support quicker.  I also think having nuihu drop into that hole, encourages bannan to sit deep.  He is effectively occupying the space that we all want bannan to occupy.   Im not inclined to hammer nuihu but i think he is a 'specialist' type of player and his use should be limited to the later stages of games. 

[OwlinOldham]

1 hour ago, DJMortimer said:

 

When he first arrived, he played in all of the next 20 games, starting 16 of them. That's almost half a season. He scored 3 goals in that time. And that was back in the days when we weren't hopeless going forward. But don't tell me - that was everybody else's fault. It only counts as the 'right service' (tm) if he scores. Never mind all the goals that everyone else was getting.

 

It's like trying to reason with a religious fundamentalist. If he scores, it proves he"s great. If he doesn't then there's no shortage of excuses. Those are no lose terms you've drawn up. But in the last 4 years, he's been at 4 clubs in 2 divisions under at least 7 managers with god knows how many team mates, formations and tactics yet the majority of the time he's been on the bench if he's lucky. Maybe there's a bit more to the game than just taking shots at goal and all the other deficiencies are too much for the rest of the team to compensate for?

 

Keep the faith. There's not much else left. 

 

You mean the 18 games from the end of January (including playoffs), of which he only started 14 and played full games in only 8? And we were playing every single game safe under carlos that season because we stopped playing the open football that got us to the final the year before. But..... dont let the actual facts get in the way. 

 

My comments on this thread were that no striker for us would have great service when the central midfield plays so deep. That includes Rhodes and i think that given a run of games with Fletch and some changes with how midfield play, we might at least get some more out of him than we have so far. That goes for any of our strikers not just Rhodes. It cant just be coincidence that all strikers we have signed have gone to S/hit cos they just arent good enough now. Theres issues elsewhere in this team. 

[DJMortimer]

6 minutes ago, OwlinOldham said:

 

You mean the 18 games from the end of January (including playoffs), of which he only started 14 and played full games in only 8? And we were playing every single game safe under carlos that season because we stopped playing the open football that got us to the final the year before. But..... dont let the actual facts get in the way. 

 

Awww... only playing for 75-80 minutes a game?. Life is SO unfair. No wonder he couldn't score. If only they'd given him the extra 10-15 minutes, I'm sure it would have been raining goals. Of course, other strikers are never substituted are they?

 

Just for the record, in the first 25 league games Wednesday played after he signed, he missed only 1 of them, starting 16 and coming on as substitute 9 times. He scored THREE goals in that half a season (although to be fair, he did also get a couple at Bolton in the League Cup). Only the most misty eyed fanboy could claim that was not a decent run of opportunities or a horrendous return for the record signing that "guarantees goals" TM.

 

By contrast, Dominic Iorfa matched that output in his first 7 appearances for us. Tom Lees scored twice in Christmas week. Morgan Fox got 2 in 9 games a few weeks back. Did they "need the service" TM? Live by the stats; die by the stats.

 

Keep wringing that stone. I'm sure some blood will come out of it one day.