Failure to sign striker cost us


Well done to our players and Tony Mowbray for working miracles with the players at his disposal.
Lot of nonsense posted about tactics or players bottling it.
The cold facts are we were unable to counter their high press because we had no option to play long.
The reason for this is the abject failure to sign a decent physical striker in January.
Those responsible have let down the players who have performed amazing the manager and the supporters.
You need the tools to do the job.

It depends what you mean by 'a striker' if you mean a very good replacement for Stewart who was strong enough to come short and hold it up and quick enough to counter the high press then I agree. So I don't agree that your description of a 'physical striker' would have been much good at all unless they wwere quick and had god quality. The reason we went on a great run getting us into the play offs was the quality of our forward players. there are games we won to get there that we definitely wouldn't with any old 6ft 2 striker in. Would we have won at West Brom and Norwich with a Chris Martin in the side for example? So yes - if your argument is if we had a striker as good as or close to good as Ross Stewart then it would have made a difference - if you are taking any old six foot journeyman striker you are completely wrong.
 
It probably did to an extent but what cost us promotion ultimately was the culmination of injuries, particulary the centre backs. Just unlucky really. I think we all thought the league was going to be harder than it actually was but we gave it a crack with what we had.

We didnt even necessarily need a striker who could score goals if that makes sense. Just someone with a bit of size to link things up and hold the ball so it didnt end up coming straight back at us
 
I agree. Luton exploited our lack of centre backs, scored early both games. We lost it by not scoring more at 2-1 at SoL where we were cooking.
 
So do you think the professionals running our club will have learned anything from last nights tame defeat?
Hopefully those professionals will have a good list of striker possibilities lined up for early June when the transfer window opens, and make a striker or two the first one(s) in.
 
It's amazing the amount of posters that think all a striker does is score goals.

And no I didn't want to buy any old shit like Johnson Clarke f***ing Harris.

This. The ability to run in behind and stretch opposition teams has been totally lost and it allows sides to set up in a certain way with confidence. Also whilst Gelhardt improved he wasn't great holding the ball in the final third which allows us to build play and keep hold of the ball and he was appalling facing goal, not to mention the lack of a threat from set pieces or crosses.

All of those things effect the way we can play and set up, it's not just the goals its the way we can play and vary what we do, which was evidently so limited against Luton.
 
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I agree. Luton exploited our lack of centre backs, scored early both games. We lost it by not scoring more at 2-1 at SoL where we were cooking.

Why was the ball keep coming back in and back in though?

Are people seriously saying not having a bit more experience and cools heads or more physique and a focal point to the attack also didn't play a part in our play in the 2nd leg?

Did we even have a shot in side the box?
 
Well done to our players and Tony Mowbray for working miracles with the players at his disposal.
Lot of nonsense posted about tactics or players bottling it.
The cold facts are we were unable to counter their high press because we had no option to play long.
The reason for this is the abject failure to sign a decent physical striker in January.
Those responsible have let down the players who have performed amazing the manager and the supporters.
You need the tools to do the job.

And instead of booting the ball up to their keeper, boot it out of touch up near their corner flag they've then got to take a throw and we can reset further up the field
 
Why was the ball keep coming back in and back in though?

Are people seriously saying not having a bit more experience and cools heads or more physique and a focal point to the attack also didn't play a part in our play in the 2nd leg?

Did we even have a shot in side the box?
While a good striker may have been beneficial, I think the lack of a center-half and a natural left-back was more telling. Not just because of the height they would offer.

Having Hume on the right and Alese on the left would have made us defensively more robust and allowed Roberts to play a consistently more advanced role. The opportunity for the overlap would also have forced them to cover, opening up space for Clarke.

An isolated big striker without adequate support would have been eaten alive by the monsters they have at the back, particularly in the first half.
 
While a good striker may have been beneficial, I think the lack of a center-half and a natural left-back was more telling. Not just because of the height they would offer.

Having Hume on the right and Alese on the left would have made us defensively more robust and allowed Roberts to play a consistently more advanced role. The opportunity for the overlap would also have forced them to cover, opening up space for Clarke.

An isolated big striker without adequate support would have been eaten alive by the monsters they have at the back, particularly in the first half.

I agree defensively it all would have helped, I'm more arguing the notion that is was simply about not having two centre halves or even say Batth, Ballard and Cirkin in there just as that's 3 6 footers, as Luton would still have been able to dominate us aerially due to outnumbering us in terms of height and its a defenciency in the squadbwhich has been obvious anytime Ross Stewart has been out this or last season.

The flip side about the big striker is that he'd have been someone to play off and hold the ball when we did get up there and they'd be more reluctant to drop in compact as you could then cross the ball or dink it onto his head.
 
This. The ability to run in behind and stretch opposition teams has been totally lost and it allows sides to set up in a certain way with confidence. Also whilst Gelhardt improved he wasn't great holding the ball in the final third which allows us to build play and keep hold of the ball and he was appalling facing goal, not to mention the lack of a threat from set pieces or crosses.

All of those things effect the way we can play and set up, it's not just the goals its the way we can play and vary what we do, which was evidently so limited against Luton.

But not against West Brom, PNE or Norwich or many of the teams we played in that run towards the end of the season. Getting the player you refer to that would hold the ball up and stretch defences with pace would either have costs a lot of money or been a high quality loan and I agree the club failed to get that done. The type of player you were suggesting (Martin/ Wickham etc) would imo have made us poorer rather than better. I am 100% in agreement that a good centre forward that is both strong and has the pace to run in behind should have been bought but we would have been worse of buying a bang average journeyman which would have detracted from what we did well in the later games of the season and wouldn't have been good enough to make a difference in key games.
 
It depends what you mean by 'a striker' if you mean a very good replacement for Stewart who was strong enough to come short and hold it up and quick enough to counter the high press then I agree. So I don't agree that your description of a 'physical striker' would have been much good at all unless they wwere quick and had god quality. The reason we went on a great run getting us into the play offs was the quality of our forward players. there are games we won to get there that we definitely wouldn't with any old 6ft 2 striker in. Would we have won at West Brom and Norwich with a Chris Martin in the side for example? So yes - if your argument is if we had a striker as good as or close to good as Ross Stewart then it would have made a difference - if you are taking any old six foot journeyman striker you are completely wrong.

Statistically Martin actually scored more goals than Gelhardt, in less games and probably less minutes (Gelhard averaging 68mins per appearance to Martins 47).

in a dog shite team fighting relegation. Probably because although over the hill he is an actual centre forward and his key attributes remain.

Maybe a 6ft+ striker capable in the air would have been useful against Luton? 😀

Whilst certainly not ideal, in February beggers couldnt be choosers and depriving ourselves of the option of a physical and experienced player of that ilk certainly hasn't helped and even from a defensive perspective would have been a damn site more useful against Luton than Gelhardt.

Looking at footystats.com (I don't take much of these things that seriously given how context can't be taken into stats) on Martin it's interesting how good Martin was for QPR in defensive situations with 99% of aerial duals won (total of 87 and 5.69 per game to Gelhardts 9 😀) and 112 ground duals won 7.33 per game to Gelhardt's 75.

In general play both a pretty average in terms of mant passing stats, but successful passes 80.87 Gelhardt/Martin 62.75 , though Gelhardt comes out on top in terms of assists with 3 to Martins 0. Key passes is Gelhardt 15, Martin 8.

Goal involvement Gelhardt 6, Martin 5.

Shots taken Gelhardt 22, shots on target 10. Martin shots taken 20, shots on target 10.
Shot conversion rate. Gelhardt 13.64, Martin 25%.
Dispossed in attacking situations Gelhardt 22, Martin 16.
Offsides both 5

Take what you will from that, would never suggest Chris Martin was the answer, but not signing a striker in January was dreadfully poor as its cost us as much as anything has.


It's not as daft as you think looking back.
But not against West Brom, PNE or Norwich or many of the teams we played in that run towards the end of the season. Getting the player you refer to that would hold the ball up and stretch defences with pace would either have costs a lot of money or been a high quality loan and I agree the club failed to get that done. The type of player you were suggesting (Martin/ Wickham etc) would imo have made us poorer rather than better. I am 100% in agreement that a good centre forward that is both strong and has the pace to run in behind should have been bought but we would have been worse of buying a bang average journeyman which would have detracted from what we did well in the later games of the season and wouldn't have been good enough to make a difference in key games.

It's not necessarily about getting one that can do all of it though, we lumped ourselves with one who could do neither and didn't give ourselves even a short term alternative or option to compliment or change things.

Stats above go to show (whilst lacking some context) of just how much we limited ourselves.
 
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Ultimately what cost us was our inability to defend corners. Last 5 goals we conceded in the season were all from corners, Batth and Ballard were certainly a major issue, a big no.9 would certainly have help defensively, but would that have altered our offence, Tuesday was only the second time in 30+ games we had failed to score.
Think we could have handled Boro, and the Cheats over two legs, and Luton on the wide open spaces of Wembley would not have been the threat they were on their subuteo pitch
 
And ffs - again I'll repeat, I don't even rate Chris Martin, he was bang average at his best.

The point is we haven't had a centre forward for 5 months of a footballing season and anyone who doesn't think it hasn't effected us badly is living in cloud cuckoo land.
 
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And ffs - again I'll repeat, I don't even rate Chris Martin, he was bang average at his best.

The point is we haven't had a centre forward for 5 months of a footballing season and anyone who doesn't think it hasn't effected us badly is living in cloud cuckoo land.
‘Badly’ is subjective for me, Perry. Certainly I’d argue that it wasn’t the difference between promotion and not. Ultimately that fell on the injuries in defence - where we had 9 first team options in the squad (which I’d argue is a fairly sensible number). A striker would have meant a more comfortable route into the playoffs but there’s very little chance it would have bridged the gap to the automatics.
 
Ultimately what cost us was our inability to defend corners. Last 5 goals we conceded in the season were all from corners, Batth and Ballard were certainly a major issue, a big no.9 would certainly have help defensively, but would that have altered our offence, Tuesday was only the second time in 30+ games we had failed to score.
Think we could have handled Boro, and the Cheats over two legs, and Luton on the wide open spaces of Wembley would not have been the threat they were on their subuteo pitch
Maybe if we had a centre forward that could hold on to the ball and buy us fouls we wouldn't have been under pressure and conceded has many corners.
 
I suppose if we want to look on the bright side, now is the time when the financial saving from not overspending on a risky target should come to light - we should see the plan for next season appearing soon.

I think a striker as good as LND would have left us in the top 2, but conversely I don't think we'd have beat Luton with 1 tall striker - we'd still have been ripped to bits in defence. That was the result of about 27 defenders getting injured, which is nobody's fault.
 
Statistically Martin actually scored more goals than Gelhardt, in less games and probably less minutes (Gelhard averaging 68mins per appearance to Martins 47).

in a dog shite team fighting relegation. Probably because although over the hill he is an actual centre forward and his key attributes remain.

Maybe a 6ft+ striker capable in the air would have been useful against Luton?
😀

Whilst certainly not ideal, in February beggers couldnt be choosers and depriving ourselves of the option of a physical and experienced player of that ilk certainly hasn't helped and even from a defensive perspective would have been a damn site more useful against Luton than Gelhardt.

Looking at footystats.com (I don't take much of these things that seriously given how context can't be taken into stats) on Martin it's interesting how good Martin was for QPR in defensive situations with 99% of aerial duals won (total of 87 and 5.69 per game to Gelhardts 9 😀) and 112 ground duals won 7.33 per game to Gelhardt's 75.

In general play both a pretty average in terms of mant passing stats, but successful passes 80.87 Gelhardt/Martin 62.75 , though Gelhardt comes out on top in terms of assists with 3 to Martins 0. Key passes is Gelhardt 15, Martin 8.

Goal involvement Gelhardt 6, Martin 5.

Shots taken Gelhardt 22, shots on target 10. Martin shots taken 20, shots on target 10.
Shot conversion rate. Gelhardt 13.64, Martin 25%.
Dispossed in attacking situations Gelhardt 22, Martin 16.
Offsides both 5

Take what you will from that, would never suggest Chris Martin was the answer, but not signing a striker in January was dreadfully poor as its cost us as much as anything has.


It's not as daft as you think looking back.


It's not necessarily about getting one that can do all of it though, we lumped ourselves with one who could do neither and didn't give ourselves even a short term alternative or option to compliment or change things.

Stats above go to show (whilst lacking some context) of just how much we limited ourselves.
Someone has definitely logged into your account on this :( It's not you never has been.
Maybe if we had a centre forward that could hold on to the ball and buy us fouls we wouldn't have been under pressure and conceded has many corners.
Or perhaps woe wouldnt have played with the fluidity we did that was such a strength in our attacking play that git us into the playoffs. Those outstanding goals at WBA, PNE, Norwich, Watford that won games or got vital points were all down to the slick clever play and movement of the likes of Pritchard, Diallo, Geldhart, Ba, Roberts etc. Now a big plank might have helped against Luton but I doubt very much we would have got there with one in the team. If you are talking about a top class replacement for Stewart then we all agree.
 
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