Just a thought

[leeblue]

Everyone seems to want a striker but DO WE ACTUALLY CREATE ENOUGH CHANCES, take the yeovil game for example, did hooper miss any good chances WAS HE SET UP as it were, did harrold miss any easy headers resulting from great crosses, I would say no, as has been the story for parts of this season(gillingham away the exception of course) IMO we dont create enough for our strikers to feed off. Ian rush, Alan Shearer, Michael Owen just a few great strikers who relied/rely on good service, just a thought

 

[Cricko]

Everyone seems to want a striker but DO WE ACTUALLY CREATE ENOUGH CHANCES, take the yeovil game for example, did hooper miss any good chances WAS HE SET UP as it were, did harrold miss any easy headers resulting from great crosses, I would say no, as has been the story for parts of this season(gillingham away the exception of course) IMO we dont create enough for our strikers to feed off. Ian rush, Alan Shearer, Michael Owen just a few great strikers who relied/rely on good service, just a thought

Hooper? Did I miss something here?

 

[shrimpled]

For all their tenacity and bite in the midfield Macca and Bailey are not creative players. The only truly creative player in the side is Gower in my opinion, and if he's not on song, we don't win games. Scannell looked promising on saturday and Kev tries his best but there no Leon Britton type player in our side.

 

[Medway Blue]

We've never really looked like a side who can carve the opposition open. Lots of tenacity and bite, but for the most part, when we get to the edge of the opposition penalty box, it all just stops - like hitting a brick wall. No penetration through the middle and little on the wings.

Gower when he turns up can be creative but how often does he turn up nowadays? Scannel looks very promising. Black can't seem to beat his man. Bailey and Macca are the way forward in CM but they don't provide a creative spark, so we need to look at strengthening the wings as a creative outlet, both in terms of beating a man, and crossing and cutting inside and putting a through ball in. Then we'll see more goals.

 

[shrimpled]

Or that elusive Freddy Eastwood type player everyone wants us to sign...

 

[shrimper n sydney]

I will be going to see Sydney v. melbourne on Sunday. It will be the last game for Michael Bridges (ex Leeds) now with Hull. Very good player. He is expecting to be leaving Hull in the next 2 weeks. Food for thought!!

 

[OldBlueLady]

For all their tenacity and bite in the midfield Macca and Bailey are not creative players. The only truly creative player in the side is Gower in my opinion, and if he's not on song, we don't win games. Scannell looked promising on saturday and Kev tries his best but there no Leon Britton type player in our side.

Agree with you, Francis did also create a few decent opportunities from crosses against Yeovil but with the lack of forwards, none were converted. Gower is the creative force within the team which is why it's so obvious when he's off his game. This is also one area though, where I do think we've missed Maher's influence in the middle as he often can start good forward movements. Hooper needs to run onto a ball, he can't play back to goal, don't really know enough about Walker to anticipate what he's going to be like, but hopefully things'll come together on Saturday.

 

[leeblue]

I would personally swap one of bailey or macca for a Robinson (swansea) type player, good forward thinking player, creates and runs the show for them at times. Macca and Bailey are very good and they do dominate the middle of the park but then what?

 

[Thurrock_Blue]

Everyone seems to want a striker but DO WE ACTUALLY CREATE ENOUGH CHANCES, take the yeovil game for example, did hooper miss any good chances WAS HE SET UP as it were, did harrold miss any easy headers resulting from great crosses, I would say no, as has been the story for parts of this season(gillingham away the exception of course) IMO we dont create enough for our strikers to feed off. Ian rush, Alan Shearer, Michael Owen just a few great strikers who relied/rely on good service, just a thought

Errm Hooper wasnt even on the bench???

 

[Interpol Shrimper]

Errm Hooper wasnt even on the bench???

No he wasn't and was seen leaving Roots Hall at 5 to 3 & then later on dining in Nando's if you believe some rumours posted on here last Saturday!

 

[Jam_Man]

Everyone seems to want a striker but DO WE ACTUALLY CREATE ENOUGH CHANCES, take the yeovil game for example, did hooper miss any good chances WAS HE SET UP as it were, did harrold miss any easy headers resulting from great crosses, I would say no, as has been the story for parts of this season(gillingham away the exception of course) IMO we dont create enough for our strikers to feed off. Ian rush, Alan Shearer, Michael Owen just a few great strikers who relied/rely on good service, just a thought

Totally agree.

Against Yeovil I thought we played really well up until the last 3rd then we lacked creativity and imagination.

Part of this is is to do with the strikers and how they move and what they do with the ball but you have to say that giving them the ball with their back to goal 30 yards out isnt putting them in a position they can score.

Having just one wide player wasnt helping and I think Francis is a better option than McCormack to give us that width.

Whether two wingers is better I dont know as we dont really seem to attack crosses and I dont think anyone other than Harrold is much use in the air anyway.

 

[Cliff Pavilion]

This may sound strange but the lack of creativity has actually been a feature of Tilson's entire reign if you want to be overly critical. How many times did Freddy finish off an incisive, team attack with a simple tap in? More often than not, in leagues one and two, the tactic was pass the ball to Freddy as quickly as possible and let him do the rest. And why not, it worked very well. Also, dead ball delivery was pretty successful - but you wouldn't call a corner or free kick, no matter how brilliant, 'creative.'

Last season, in the Championship, it didn't work - Freddy was better known as a player, opposition defences were of a better standard. There could be an interesting study of our goals scored in the Championship - I'd imagine an unusually high proportion were scored from the edge or outside the box - long range efforts. We very, very rarely 'created'.

This season, without Freddy, I actually thought we started encouragingly. Goals seemed to be possible from defence and midfield, and then Leon arrived and all seemed very rosey indeed. As has been noted before, for all Harrold's lack of goals, he undoubtedly allows the TEAM (in particular the midfield) more goal scoring opportunites. Our style of play doesn't necessarily suit a Charlie Mac, fox in the box type striker, but perhaps more a driving, goal scoring midfielder. Nicky Bailey could become that player and has been outstanding - but missing out on signing Robinson from Swansea last season may have cost us more than we realise.

 

[Jam_Man]

This season, without Freddy, I actually thought we started encouragingly. Goals seemed to be possible from defence and midfield, and then Leon arrived and all seemed very rosey indeed. As has been noted before, for all Harrold's lack of goals, he undoubtedly allows the TEAM (in particular the midfield) more goal scoring opportunites. .

Yep the fact we were scoring goals from midfield was promising at the time but in itself was masking the fact we werent creating chances for forwards.

However Leon Clarke scored 5 so its not right to absolve strikers of all blame, the right players would be more dangerous but we do need to give them the ball in the right areas.

For example against Yeovil we got quite a few crosses in but they were generally poor and didnt get off the ground. Id expect a striker to be attacking the near post but no one ever did ( not surprising with a winger up front.). If someone had been those poor crosses could have actually been decentish chances.

If we get a decent striker and use them correctly we will improve, Morgan was really useful when we played the ball in front of him but not a alot of use when we played it to him with his bac to goal.

 

[Cliff Pavilion]

Yep the fact we were scoring goals from midfield was promising at the time but in itself was masking the fact we werent creating chances for forwards.

However Leon Clarke scored 5 so its not right to absolve strikers of all blame, the right players would be more dangerous but we do need to give them the ball in the right areas.

For example against Yeovil we got quite a few crosses in but they were generally poor and didnt get off the ground. Id expect a striker to be attacking the near post but no one ever did ( not surprising with a winger up front.). If someone had been those poor crosses could have actually been decentish chances.

If we get a decent striker and use them correctly we will improve, Morgan was really useful when we played the ball in front of him but not a alot of use when we played it to him with his bac to goal.

Leon was a certain type of player though - like Freddy he has an instinctive footballing brain and can create something out of nothing. All of the "we need a striker now" brigade need to collect their thoughts on what type of player we need. And before the smart-arses say, "one that scores goals", remember there are lots of types of strikers, which one fits best into our style of play. Interesting that an Orient fan described Walker as a scorer of good goals rather than a good goal scorer. That tends to be the type of player that fits in well here.

On Morgan, I know there were lots of political factors at play I know nothing about, but I'd have liked to have kept him. He may have produced once every five games (why he's playing at this level) but he has pace and other attacking attributes that are missing from the squad at the moment. No one should pin immediate hopes on Scannell - he needs time.

 

[leeblue]

my bad black not hooper of course