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....or lack of them.
Since our promotion back into the second tier of English football we've scored the following amount of goals (the highest scorers that year are in brackets):
2004/05: 54 (Ipswich 85)
2005/06: 50 (Reading 99)
2006/07: 54 (WBA 81)
2007/08: 60 (WBA 88)
2008/09: 42 (Wolves 80)
In all five seasons we've conceded more than we have scored and as we all know our best finish in that time is 11th in 04/05 and 08/09. Even in our best season (in terms of number of goals scored) we were only the 8th highest scorers in the league. We finished with a goal difference of minus 6 and came 14th. We have had year on year a problem scoring goals. The need for better quality strikers isn't a new thing.
As I said in an earlier thread Manchester City were the Premiership's 5th highest scorers last season scoring more than 5 teams who finished above them. Goal scoring wasn't an issue for Manchester City but instead of saying we'll score goals we don't need to improve the attacking options they went out and bought Tevez, Santa Cruz and Adebayor. Until the day that we have the 3/4 best strikers in the league we should always strive to improve on what we have. The likes of Chopra, Morrison, Lita and McCormack all have better records in this division than any of our players. All have them have been available to sign in the past 12 months but we've ignore the issued. Helguson has been plagued with injuries for the past few years. Agyemang record in this division is better than any of our other strikers but 28 goals in his last 133 appearances works out at less than 10 goals a season. Helguson, Vine, Agyemang, Pellicori, Balanta and Taraabt can't all play at the same time and if our best is just 10 goals a season what hope does that bring for the season.
Our owners wanted investment so they hyped up our aims. If this is year three than the only aim must be promotion so that by year 4 we can break into the top 4. Arguably Man City with the almost £200m of investment will struggle to break into the top 4 within the next year. What hope do we have of ever doing that if our owners and their staff can't see that we need investment on the pitch.
This isn't a we've had one bad result whing but the feelings of someone who can see good money spent over the last two seasons on grounds improvements, C-Club, crazy merchandise and untried foreign loans rather than sensible investment on the pitch. I think the signings of Buzsaky, Routledge, Gorkss etc are fantastic. But why has the same club spent good money on the likes of Alberti, Ledesma, Tomassi, De Carmine, Parejo and even Pellicori, Borrowdale and Faurlin. I'm not knocking the last three as they need to time on the pitch to prove their worth but £3.5m on an untried Argentine player when we weren't prepared to pay £2m for Watson and £1.5m for Ebanks-Blake is mind boggling.
Burnley went up with the smallest squad in the league not because they were fortunate through injury (Anderson reputured his ACL in their first league match) or because they had luck with signings (Berisha sent out on loan without even playing for them, Penny dropped and not played again after their first match of last season, Van Der Schaaf failed to make an appearance). But because what players they did have had quality. If one player lost form they replaced him with another player of quality. If one player got injured/suspended they had quality in reserve.
We have no reserve left back (just a right footed centre back as makeshift), we have no actual right back (Ramage although improving game on game is a centre back). Vine's never been a goal scorer, Balanta just hasn't had the opportunity to score goals but given that opportunity will he? Time will tell but can we risk it? Ask 100 fans if they would rather see Tommy Smith or say Leroy Lita as one of our attacking options rather than Heidar Helguson and guaranteed 99 of them won't prefer the Icelander. Lita, Evans and Cox fail to make the starting XI why? Because Middlesbrough, WBA and Sheffield United have enough quality to start without them. Luke Moore, Ishmael Miller, Darius Henderson, Tuncay, Alves and Jamie Ward would all arguably walk into our first XI and if any get injured Lita, Evans and Cox come into replace them. All these teams (add Forest to that list) can see that you need quality in reserve and not just quantity. Again this isn't a one game judgement based on a few misses but season after season (maybe even as far back as the departure of Sir Les) without quality upfront you don't score goals and if you don't score you can't win. Wolves scored the most last year and subsequently won the most - the two go hand in hand. We may have the most creative midfield in the league but if nobody puts the ball in the back of the net what is the point. Even under De Canio when it seemed we were scoring goals for fun we still lost matches when we didn't score. In the February we drew 0-0 to Barnsley, Coventry and Ipswich a single goal in any of those games wins the match. Under LDC we lost 6 times by a single goal and drew 11 and at the time we scoring freely. How many of those could have gone a different way if we had just had some real quality to finish off the chances?
In summary, we've wasted money either on the ground or on bad footballing decisions. We chosen not to spend and lost out on players because they are not perceived to be worth what they are. £1.5m on Ebanks-Blake or some chandeliers, Alberti and the cost of Tomassi? And history shows us that you have to score goals to get out of this division but the only thing we've done about it is sell off our most prolific striker.
Since our promotion back into the second tier of English football we've scored the following amount of goals (the highest scorers that year are in brackets):
2004/05: 54 (Ipswich 85)
2005/06: 50 (Reading 99)
2006/07: 54 (WBA 81)
2007/08: 60 (WBA 88)
2008/09: 42 (Wolves 80)
In all five seasons we've conceded more than we have scored and as we all know our best finish in that time is 11th in 04/05 and 08/09. Even in our best season (in terms of number of goals scored) we were only the 8th highest scorers in the league. We finished with a goal difference of minus 6 and came 14th. We have had year on year a problem scoring goals. The need for better quality strikers isn't a new thing.
As I said in an earlier thread Manchester City were the Premiership's 5th highest scorers last season scoring more than 5 teams who finished above them. Goal scoring wasn't an issue for Manchester City but instead of saying we'll score goals we don't need to improve the attacking options they went out and bought Tevez, Santa Cruz and Adebayor. Until the day that we have the 3/4 best strikers in the league we should always strive to improve on what we have. The likes of Chopra, Morrison, Lita and McCormack all have better records in this division than any of our players. All have them have been available to sign in the past 12 months but we've ignore the issued. Helguson has been plagued with injuries for the past few years. Agyemang record in this division is better than any of our other strikers but 28 goals in his last 133 appearances works out at less than 10 goals a season. Helguson, Vine, Agyemang, Pellicori, Balanta and Taraabt can't all play at the same time and if our best is just 10 goals a season what hope does that bring for the season.
Our owners wanted investment so they hyped up our aims. If this is year three than the only aim must be promotion so that by year 4 we can break into the top 4. Arguably Man City with the almost £200m of investment will struggle to break into the top 4 within the next year. What hope do we have of ever doing that if our owners and their staff can't see that we need investment on the pitch.
This isn't a we've had one bad result whing but the feelings of someone who can see good money spent over the last two seasons on grounds improvements, C-Club, crazy merchandise and untried foreign loans rather than sensible investment on the pitch. I think the signings of Buzsaky, Routledge, Gorkss etc are fantastic. But why has the same club spent good money on the likes of Alberti, Ledesma, Tomassi, De Carmine, Parejo and even Pellicori, Borrowdale and Faurlin. I'm not knocking the last three as they need to time on the pitch to prove their worth but £3.5m on an untried Argentine player when we weren't prepared to pay £2m for Watson and £1.5m for Ebanks-Blake is mind boggling.
Burnley went up with the smallest squad in the league not because they were fortunate through injury (Anderson reputured his ACL in their first league match) or because they had luck with signings (Berisha sent out on loan without even playing for them, Penny dropped and not played again after their first match of last season, Van Der Schaaf failed to make an appearance). But because what players they did have had quality. If one player lost form they replaced him with another player of quality. If one player got injured/suspended they had quality in reserve.
We have no reserve left back (just a right footed centre back as makeshift), we have no actual right back (Ramage although improving game on game is a centre back). Vine's never been a goal scorer, Balanta just hasn't had the opportunity to score goals but given that opportunity will he? Time will tell but can we risk it? Ask 100 fans if they would rather see Tommy Smith or say Leroy Lita as one of our attacking options rather than Heidar Helguson and guaranteed 99 of them won't prefer the Icelander. Lita, Evans and Cox fail to make the starting XI why? Because Middlesbrough, WBA and Sheffield United have enough quality to start without them. Luke Moore, Ishmael Miller, Darius Henderson, Tuncay, Alves and Jamie Ward would all arguably walk into our first XI and if any get injured Lita, Evans and Cox come into replace them. All these teams (add Forest to that list) can see that you need quality in reserve and not just quantity. Again this isn't a one game judgement based on a few misses but season after season (maybe even as far back as the departure of Sir Les) without quality upfront you don't score goals and if you don't score you can't win. Wolves scored the most last year and subsequently won the most - the two go hand in hand. We may have the most creative midfield in the league but if nobody puts the ball in the back of the net what is the point. Even under De Canio when it seemed we were scoring goals for fun we still lost matches when we didn't score. In the February we drew 0-0 to Barnsley, Coventry and Ipswich a single goal in any of those games wins the match. Under LDC we lost 6 times by a single goal and drew 11 and at the time we scoring freely. How many of those could have gone a different way if we had just had some real quality to finish off the chances?
In summary, we've wasted money either on the ground or on bad footballing decisions. We chosen not to spend and lost out on players because they are not perceived to be worth what they are. £1.5m on Ebanks-Blake or some chandeliers, Alberti and the cost of Tomassi? And history shows us that you have to score goals to get out of this division but the only thing we've done about it is sell off our most prolific striker.
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