Lack of goals was the downfall !

[mrsblue]

So 48 games played and it's all over with the club remaining in the basement division,Phil was dealt most of the cards and he was ok for the bulk of games yet to me the tactics were designed not to concede many!

Phil told the SKY commentator he was a 1 0 man and the goals conceded backed up his claim yet it was at the business end of the pitch where it all came crashing down.

Those 48 games produced a staggering feat which was in over 70% of those games this team either scored 0 or 1,This alone IMO was the main failure which was further enhanced with the 2 games against Burton with Southend striker/s not scoring once.

Corr went on a goal flurry towards the latter stages yet IMO was disguising the fact he ain't prolific in any way shape or form.When Barry was used his teammates just whacked it in his general direction in the hope he will control it whilst holding off defenders giving his mates time to get up the pitch,Now if he could do this he surely would be playing higher.

Fred is now so vastly overrated its almost la

 

[mrsblue]

Mods if possible please delete this as most of my rant has vanished somewhere .

Thanks

 

[Another Surrey Shrimper]

Mods if possible please delete this as most of my rant has vanished somewhere .

Thanks

Don't worry too much, it's nothing you haven't ranted a thousand times before.

 

[mrsblue]

Don't worry too much, it's nothing you haven't ranted a thousand times before.

Sadly very true apart from the thousand times as the last count was 996!

 

[Jam_Man]

Yeah we finished 6th top scorers in the league, thats terrible.

We scored more than Burton (who are at Wembley) and more than York.

Only one team below us scored more.

Still, nice easy peg to hang the blame on.

There were far too many 1-0 games at home thats certainly true, but we scored 2 yesterday and conceded 3 over two legs so I really dont know why you are dragging this up yet again. We couldnt expect to go through a tie by having to score 4 goals.

 

[thenobster]

makes no odds.... we finished 5th. not enough points. end of

 

[mrsblue]

Yeah we finished 6th top scorers in the league, thats terrible.

We scored more than Burton (who are at Wembley) and more than York.

Only one team below us scored more.

Still, nice easy peg to hang the blame on.

There were far too many 1-0 games at home thats certainly true, but we scored 2 yesterday and conceded 3 over two legs so I really dont know why you are dragging this up yet again. We couldnt expect to go through a tie by having to score 4 goals.

Since yesterday I have only read about the biased ref or Burton cheating which I disagree with both .

This team could have easily if they had scored more during the winless run gone up as champions! Or at the very least autos,That was the difference between success or failure.Whether you or anyone else agrees with me is irrelevant .

 

[Tinks]

Well then let's hope that next season we come back better and stronger and finish in the top 3 so we don't have to go through all this again

 

[Jam_Man]

Since yesterday I have only read about the biased ref or Burton cheating which I disagree with both .

This team could have easily if they had scored more during the winless run gone up as champions! Or at the very least autos,That was the difference between success or failure.Whether you or anyone else agrees with me is irrelevant .

Yes if had scored 200 goals let in 4 goals and won every game we would have gone up.

All season you have had tunnel vision as to why we havent done better, its always been the strikers, we have had to listen to it for months.

Who won the league?

Chesterfield.

Their top scorers scored less than ours.

 

[silentshrimper]

Burton are a 1-0 club and it has got them to the playoff final...

A bit of analysis now...(Please note, I have no idea how up to date and accurate the OS is!)

Looking at the strikers, it kind of depends on what we deem a striker to be... playing 4 3 3 for a lot of the season meant we had 3 forward players. Most of the time being Straker Corr and Hurst. The two wide men have a very tough job having to defend as well as attack as they drop back to make it more a 4 5 1 when we don't have the ball.
Hurst's contribution has to be really commended and Straker has also added a few goals to his game....

This leaves the striker in the middle (which was changed a lot from what I remember). It is probably a lot easier for an opposition manager to target this guy and try and take him out of the game.

The midfield three, Leonard (8), Timlin (3) and Atkinson (3)....I would have thought the later 2 could have contributed more as they are both decent strikers of the ball.

Looking at defence now....we have normally had a pretty good record of having goal scoring defenders (Barrett, Phillips, Cresswell). This season we only have 7 goals from defenders...3 from Prosser which I will assume were from set piece, 2 from Coker which from what I remember were free kicks, 1 worldy from Egan and 1 Cross/shot from White.
So that is only 3 goals contributed by defenders. I think Phillips got a couple but his stats have been removed from the always unhelpful official site!

So I am starting to think that the whole team could have contributed a bit more! But the tactics used make it difficult to have a 20 goal a season striker maybe?

 

[OldBlueLady]

Absolutely disagree with this, the winless run was our downfall, nothing else. And that could just as equally be goals conceded as goals scored. Brown's tactics have seemed to be not to lose rather than to win, and it was that post Hull run that did for us.

 

[getintoem]

As Jam Man has pointed out, our goals for/goals against ratio is not bad. At 1.436 it is just 0.001 worse than Rochdale’s giving us the fourth best ratio in league two. I am sure none of us would complain if we could score a few more however and that may have helped us in the campaign if some of the drawn matches had been converted to wins by an extra goal.

In my opinion though a major contributing factor to our failure to gain promotion this season was the poor form shown against teams in the lower half of the table. It is reasonable to expect that when analysed the greater proportion of the final points total will have been picked up against sides in the lower reaches of the table. Looking at the results of the four playoff clubs against those that finished in 13[SUP]th[/SUP] position and lower, Fleetwood achieved 43points out of their total of 76 (approx 56%), Burton 43points out of 72 (Almost 60%), York 41points out of 71(approx 58%) but we achieved just 34points out of 72 (Approx 47%). Even Oxford, who finished with ten points less than us, managed to get 38points, 61% of their total, against the bottom twelve cubs. I don’t know why we frequently fail to turn up against the poorer sides…..attitude? tactics? Whatever it is needs to be put right though because if promotion is the target dropping points to those you should be beating only makes the job that much more difficult.

Throughout the season I felt we would not achieve promotion this year because, over all, we were too inconsistent but I have to say we came closer than I expected. League two may well be a tougher place next season and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Luton go straight through to promotion. We are not yet the finished article but I think we all agree that we have the makings of a good squad if Phil can keep the key players and strengthen where needed. Time to chill out now until August comes around and we start again from square one.

 

[Beefy]

We dropped too many points against teams towards the bottom of the table. We did that because there's a lack of creativity in the team.

It really makes little difference who is up front if they're not getting service in areas where they can put the ball into the net. Corr had a couple of chances yesterday that he should have done better with but that was it. Eastwood got 45 minutes over the two games, Barnard got a run out in the first game. That's three decent strikers getting game time in two massive matches and they've been given two (?) chances over 180 minutes between them.

 

[getintoem]

We dropped too many points against teams towards the bottom of the table. We did that because there's a lack of creativity in the team.

It really makes little difference who is up front if they're not getting service in areas where they can put the ball into the net. Corr had a couple of chances yesterday that he should have done better with but that was it. Eastwood got 45 minutes over the two games, Barnard got a run out in the first game. That's three decent strikers getting game time in two massive matches and they've been given two (?) chances over 180 minutes between them.

I totally agree with this. I would like to see the addition of a midfield player who has the guile to provide a defense splitting pass.

 

[OldBlueLady]

We dropped too many points against teams towards the bottom of the table. We did that because there's a lack of creativity in the team.

Not sure I agree with that, we weren't able to play our normal football type of style against many of those, Burton's style epitomised many of those we have failed against.

 

[mrsblue]

Not sure I agree with that, we weren't able to play our normal football type of style against many of those, Burton's style epitomised many of those we have failed against.

Agree with this,

The so called lesser teams defended in numbers and hit us on the break,I think we lack guille pace and being clinical in the final third plus Phil sets up the team not to lose by playing 451,Our midfield have only Barry as the target where he is normally marked by a couple of defenders.

 

[andykn]

Yes if had scored 200 goals let in 4 goals and won every game we would have gone up.

All season you have had tunnel vision as to why we havent done better, its always been the strikers, we have had to listen to it for months.

Who won the league?

Chesterfield.

Their top scorers scored less than ours.

But Chesterfield did score 15 more than we did.

 

[davewebbsbrain]

But Chesterfield did score 15 more than we did.

Just shows it's a team game. We haven't scored enough from other areas than the strikers

 

[RHB]

mrsblue, next season how about being a bit more up-beat in some of your posts, trying to ignore the specific area(s) that brass you off. You probably have a good point in your criticisms of our current forwards, but I think everyone on here is fully aware of them without you telling us over and over. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but same arguments and views constantly reworked only serve to devalue your messages. I know that I could just ignore what you post, but I try not to do that to anyone posting on here. You are approaching 'marmite' status in my view.

 

[mrsblue]

mrsblue, next season how about being a bit more up-beat in some of your posts, trying to ignore the specific area(s) that brass you off. You probably have a good point in your criticisms of our current forwards, but I think everyone on here is fully aware of them without you telling us over and over. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but same arguments and views constantly reworked only serve to devalue your messages. I know that I could just ignore what you post, but I try not to do that to anyone posting on here. You are approaching 'marmite' status in my view.

Fair point,

Just peed off with it all.


And I did ask for this thread to be deleted.