It's far too early to start making any statistical comparisons or analysing results so for those first few weeks of this season I thought I'd look at a few of the talking points a little closer.
Firstly the striker debate. It goes on and on and will do as you can always do better. Manchester City were the 5th highest scorers in the Premiership last season out scoring five team who finished above them but still the strengthened upfront. The likes of Caicedo and Bellamy are good strikers who scored goals last season but Hughes believes that Man City can do better so has signed Santa Cruz, Tevez and Adebayor. We should be no different.
We've been linked to every Tom, Richard and Harry and in the first weekend of matches none of them scored. Lita, Evans and Cox failed to make any impression at their new clubs while our old striker Blackstock sat on the bench for the full 90 minutes watching his team mates draw a blank. Some will say that their failure to score in a single match justifies the reasons for us not buying any of them which is frankly ridiculous. What is worrying is that all four of the strikers mentioned would walk into our first XI but at the moment are deemed not good enough for their respective teams. An injury/suspension/lack of form to a first teamer means the likes of Lita, Evans, Cox or Blackstock come into the side. For us we have depth but of no real quality.
In time I will compare the four strikers mentioned with our own and see if deciding not to buy them (sell them) was the right or wrong move.
Secondly what does the result of the first game actually mean? Nothing. Exactly a year ago Charlton beat Swansea 2-0 and sat second in the league. Wolves managed only a point at Plymouth while Burnley lost 4-1 at Sheffield Wednesday. We have one point and there is still another 135 on offer. If come next May we missed out on the play offs by a couple of points it won't be just because of the failure to have won yesterday's match but because of many other matches along the way.
We have 6 matches (including the League Cup match) before the transfer window closes which will give Magilton and his staff plenty of time to assess his squad further. Briatore's decision to leave before Ramage's goal shouldn't be seen as a sign of the knives being drawn for Magilton but should be taken that a good solid performance with many nice touches and inter play need an end product. The more Briatore sees "his" side failing to score the more he'll realise they need more quality. Briatore has now watched QPR fail to score in a match under Harford, De Canio, Dowie, Ainsworth and Sousa and although we did score Magilton could be added to that list. You can only blame the manager so many times and if the manager changes but the result stays the same it either time to invest more on players or stay away altogether, which will take the pressure off everybody.