bannedfromHandV Posted January 5, 2010 Posted January 5, 2010 There have been a few posts lately slagging off our current striking options, whilst I appreciate that neither Emile nor John have scored enough times this season I wondered how we compared to the rest of the league, the stats below are fairly interesting and in my opinion only slightly up for debate (i.e. some stats can be made to look either positive or negative dependent on interpretation). I appreciate for example that had RvP not gotten injured for Arsenal that their goals per striker will probably have been a lot higher, the stats are inclusive only of Premier League goals and include only strikers, there are one or two debateable inclusions, namely Dirk Kuyt who seems to play right side of midfield now but he is ultimately still (I think) a striker. What is interesting for me is the level of spending required in order to catch up to those above us, people have been complaining about our need for a new striker lately, someone to really take us on to the next level, given the stats below we'd be looking at an outlay of probably close to £20M. Could we afford and attract such a player, IMO no. Arsenal – 7 + 4 + 1 = 12 --- avg 4 per striker Aston Villa – 8 + 4 + 2 = 14 --- avg 4.66666 per striker Birmingham – 4 + 2 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 10 --- avg 2 per striker Blackburn – 3 + 1 + 1 = 5 --- avg 1.66666 per striker Bolton W – 6 + 3 + 2 = 11 --- avg 3.66666 per striker Burnley – 5 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 11 --- avg 2.75 per striker Chelsea – 14 + 5 = 19 --- avg 9.5 per striker Everton – 10 + 1 + 1 = 12 --- avg 4 per striker Fulham – 6 + 2 + 1 = 9 --- avg 3 per striker Hull City – 3 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 7 --- avg 1.75 per striker Liverpool – 12 + 5 + 4 = 21 --- avg 7 per striker Manchester City – 9 + 6 + 6 + 2 = 23 --- avg 5.75 per striker Manchester United – 14 + 6 + 2 = 22 --- avg 7.33333333 per striker Portsmouth – 4 + 3 = 7 --- avg 3.5 per striker Stoke City – 3 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 7 --- avg 1.75 per striker Sunderland – 13 + 6 = 19 --- avg 9.5 per striker Tottenham - 14 + 6 + 4 = 24 --- avg 8 per striker West Ham – 7 + 5 + 3 + 3 + 1 = 19 --- avg 3.8 per striker Wigan Ath – 7 + 1 = 8 --- avg 2 per striker Wolves W – 5 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 9 --- avg 2.25 per striker Arsenal – Robin Van Persie, Eduardo & Nicklas Bendtner Aston Villa – Gabby Agbonlahor, John Carew & Emile Heskey Birmingham – Cameron Jerome, Christian Benitez, James McFadden, Kevin Phillips & Garry O’Connor Blackburn – Jason Roberts, Franco Di Santo & Benni McCarthy Bolton W – Ivan Klasnic, Kevin Davies & Johann Elmander Burnley – Steven Fletcher, David Nugent, Robbie Blake & Kevin McDonald Chelsea – Didier Drogba & Nicolas Anelka Everton – Louis Saha, Yakubu & James Vaughan Fulham – Bobby Zamora, Erik Nevland & Diomansy Kamara Hull City – Geovanni, Jan Vennegor of Hesselink, Craig Fagan & Kamel Ghilas Liverpool – Fernando Torres, Dirk Kuyt & David Ngog Manchester City – Carlos Tevez, Craig Bellamy, Emmanuel Adebayor & Roque Santa Cruz Manchester United – Wayne Rooney, Dimitar Berbatov & Michael Owen Portsmouth – Aruna Dindane & Frederic Piquionne Stoke City – James Beattie, Dave Kitson, Ricardo Fuller & Tuncay Sanli Sunderland – Darren Bent & Kenwynne Jones Tottenham – Jermain Defoe, Robbie Keane & Peter Crouch West Ham – Carlton Cole, Alessandro Diamanti, Guillermo Franco, Junior Stanislas & Luis Jiminez Wigan Ath – Hugo Rodellega & Scott Sinclair Wolves W – Kevin Doyle, Nenad Miljas, Sylvain Ebanks-Blake & Stefan Maierhoffer As you can see, the only clubs to have a better goals per striker ratio than us are Chelsea, Liverpool, Man United and Man City, Tottenham and Sunderland. Chelsea: Drogba - £20M? Anelka - £14M? Liverpool: Torres - £25M? Kuyt - £12M? Ngog - £1.5M? Man Utd: Rooney - £30M? Berbatov - £30M? Owen - Free Man City: Tevez - £25M/£30M? Bellamy - £12M? Adebayor - £20M? Santa Cruz - £15M? Spurs: Defoe - £15M? Keane - bought back from Liverplop, perhaps £12/£13M? Crouch £9M? Sunderland: Bent - £15M? Jones - £6M? Personally for me the jury's still out on Bent, Jones I don't rate but you have to admire them still I guess, end of the season I'd be keen to see if Sunderland still remain there. Thoughts?
wiganvillain Posted January 5, 2010 Posted January 5, 2010 I voted no but I'd rather have voted no, not yet as I think Randy would fund it but I don't think we can attract the really top guys until we make inroads to the "Top 4"
BOF Posted January 5, 2010 Moderator Posted January 5, 2010 If you factor in that a lot of our goals are scored from set pieces where either Ashley Young/James Milner scores or gives an assist to a defender from a corner then it's even more impressive. I don't think our strikers are bad at all. What I do think is they lack competition for places which a) makes us susceptible to injuries and would make our strikers even better if they knew there was someone itching to take their place from the bench. I also think our style of play, which doesn't lend itself to possession football or consequently to many chances, restricts the opportunities they get in a game. This makes profligacy a more serious issue and perhaps exacerbates the miscues and scuffs that strikers playing for other teams would get many opportunities to rectify during a game.
bannedfromHandV Posted January 5, 2010 Author Posted January 5, 2010 I voted no but I'd rather have voted no, not yet as I think Randy would fund it but I don't think we can attract the really top guys until we make inroads to the "Top 4" I know, I could have put all kinds of options in the poll but I wanted something a bit more 'black and white', if you know what I mean. I appreciate that we all hope a little further down the line that we could afford and attract the right player but I'm looking for opinions simply on whether we can do it right now.
spacemanscott Posted January 5, 2010 Posted January 5, 2010 I don't think that really proves anything as it includes all sorts of players who rarely play and it therefore skews the figures.
bannedfromHandV Posted January 5, 2010 Author Posted January 5, 2010 I don't think that really proves anything as it includes all sorts of players who rarely play and it therefore skews the figures. I don't agree......but then I wouldn't! :winkold: I think it's important at a time when our strikeforce as a whole is coming under fire that we contrast and compare with each other strikeforce in the league, in order to do so you need to include each one that has scored, irregardless of whether they've played 20 minutes or 20 matches, IMO.
Woodytom Posted January 5, 2010 Posted January 5, 2010 There have been a few posts lately slagging off our current striking options, whilst I appreciate that neither Emile nor John have scored enough times this season I wondered how we compared to the rest of the league, the stats below are fairly interesting and in my opinion only slightly up for debate (i.e. some stats can be made to look either positive or negative dependent on interpretation). I appreciate for example that had RvP not gotten injured for Arsenal that their goals per striker will probably have been a lot higher, the stats are inclusive only of Premier League goals and include only strikers, there are one or two debateable inclusions, namely Dirk Kuyt who seems to play right side of midfield now but he is ultimately still (I think) a striker. What is interesting for me is the level of spending required in order to catch up to those above us, people have been complaining about our need for a new striker lately, someone to really take us on to the next level, given the stats below we'd be looking at an outlay of probably close to £20M. Could we afford and attract such a player, IMO no. Arsenal – 7 + 4 + 1 = 12 --- avg 4 per striker Aston Villa – 8 + 4 + 2 = 13 --- avg 4.333333 per striker Birmingham – 4 + 2 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 10 --- avg 2 per striker Blackburn – 3 + 1 + 1 = 5 --- avg 1.66666 per striker Bolton W – 6 + 3 + 2 = 11 --- avg 3.66666 per striker Burnley – 5 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 11 --- avg 2.75 per striker Chelsea – 14 + 5 = 19 --- avg 9.5 per striker Everton – 10 + 1 + 1 = 12 --- avg 4 per striker Fulham – 6 + 2 + 1 = 9 --- avg 3 per striker Hull City – 3 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 7 --- avg 1.75 per striker Liverpool – 12 + 5 + 4 = 21 --- avg 7 per striker Manchester City – 9 + 6 + 6 + 2 = 23 --- avg 5.75 per striker Manchester United – 14 + 6 + 2 = 22 --- avg 7.33333333 per striker Portsmouth – 4 + 3 = 7 --- avg 3.5 per striker Stoke City – 3 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 7 --- avg 1.75 per striker Sunderland – 13 + 6 = 19 --- avg 9.5 per striker Tottenham - 14 + 6 + 4 = 24 --- avg 8 per striker West Ham – 7 + 5 + 3 + 3 + 1 = 19 --- avg 3.8 per striker Wigan Ath – 7 + 1 = 8 --- avg 2 per striker Wolves W – 5 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 9 --- avg 2.25 per striker Arsenal – Robin Van Persie, Eduardo & Nicklas Bendtner Aston Villa – Gabby Agbonlahor, John Carew & Emile Heskey Birmingham – Cameron Jerome, Christian Benitez, James McFadden, Kevin Phillips & Garry O’Connor Blackburn – Jason Roberts, Franco Di Santo & Benni McCarthy Bolton W – Ivan Klasnic, Kevin Davies & Johann Elmander Burnley – Steven Fletcher, David Nugent, Robbie Blake & Kevin McDonald Chelsea – Didier Drogba & Nicolas Anelka Everton – Louis Saha, Yakubu & James Vaughan Fulham – Bobby Zamora, Erik Nevland & Diomansy Kamara Hull City – Geovanni, Jan Vennegor of Hesselink, Craig Fagan & Kamel Ghilas Liverpool – Fernando Torres, Dirk Kuyt & David Ngog Manchester City – Carlos Tevez, Craig Bellamy, Emmanuel Adebayor & Roque Santa Cruz Manchester United – Wayne Rooney, Dimitar Berbatov & Michael Owen Portsmouth – Aruna Dindane & Frederic Piquionne Stoke City – James Beattie, Dave Kitson, Ricardo Fuller & Tuncay Sanli Sunderland – Darren Bent & Kenwynne Jones Tottenham – Jermain Defoe, Robbie Keane & Peter Crouch West Ham – Carlton Cole, Alessandro Diamanti, Guillermo Franco, Junior Stanislas & Luis Jiminez Wigan Ath – Hugo Rodellega & Scott Sinclair Wolves W – Kevin Doyle, Nenad Miljas, Sylvain Ebanks-Blake & Stefan Maierhoffer As you can see, the only clubs to have a better goals per striker ratio than us are Chelsea, Liverpool, Man United and Man City, Tottenham and Sunderland. Chelsea: Drogba - £20M? Anelka - £14M? Liverpool: Torres - £25M? Kuyt - £12M? Ngog - £1.5M? Man Utd: Rooney - £30M? Berbatov - £30M? Owen - Free Man City: Tevez - £25M/£30M? Bellamy - £12M? Adebayor - £20M? Santa Cruz - £15M? Spurs: Defoe - £15M? Keane - bought back from Liverplop, perhaps £12/£13M? Crouch £9M? Sunderland: Bent - £15M? Jones - £6M? Personally for me the jury's still out on Bent, Jones I don't rate but you have to admire them still I guess, end of the season I'd be keen to see if Sunderland still remain there. Thoughts? You've got too much time on your hands mate
bannedfromHandV Posted January 5, 2010 Author Posted January 5, 2010 ^^^^^^^ Tell me about it........
spacemanscott Posted January 5, 2010 Posted January 5, 2010 I don't think that really proves anything as it includes all sorts of players who rarely play and it therefore skews the figures. I don't agree......but then I wouldn't! :winkold: I think it's important at a time when our strikeforce as a whole is coming under fire that we contrast and compare with each other strikeforce in the league, in order to do so you need to include each one that has scored, irregardless of whether they've played 20 minutes or 20 matches, IMO. I see what you're getting at but taking the dirty heathen bastards for example, if you discount O'Connor and his one goal, it bumps their figure to 2.25.
Annoyman Posted January 5, 2010 Posted January 5, 2010 I think it's more that our fans are that bad, really
villabromsgrove Posted January 5, 2010 Posted January 5, 2010 We have four very useful strikers at the moment even though we perhaps lack a clinical finisher. If Heskey were to be inexplicably sold this january then Hugo Rodallega would be an interesting target imo as he still has his best years in front of him.
STRAKER Posted January 5, 2010 Posted January 5, 2010 Many thanks for the statistics BFHV, but i feel it is apparent that our present strikeforce lack intelligent movement to create space for a pass. If we were to sign RVN for instance, then a season, or two, in our team would make Gabby a much more intelligent and better player! At the moment i also feel we are getting there as far as being able to attract the 20m forward you speak of. At least we should be trying. Who that forward might be is up to the manager, but he will have to shop abroad for him which might be a problem for MON?
Zatman Posted January 5, 2010 Posted January 5, 2010 Compares to the teams around us atm like United, City, Spuds etc. our strikers are the weakest and they dont put fear into opponents players like Torres, RVP, Rooney, Drogba, Anelka and Tevez do.
bannedfromHandV Posted January 5, 2010 Author Posted January 5, 2010 I don't think that really proves anything as it includes all sorts of players who rarely play and it therefore skews the figures. I don't agree......but then I wouldn't! :winkold: I think it's important at a time when our strikeforce as a whole is coming under fire that we contrast and compare with each other strikeforce in the league, in order to do so you need to include each one that has scored, irregardless of whether they've played 20 minutes or 20 matches, IMO. I see what you're getting at but taking the dirty heathen bastards for example, if you discount O'Connor and his one goal, it bumps their figure to 2.25. True, but then why exclude him? He's scored a goal and is a part of their strikeforce?
bannedfromHandV Posted January 5, 2010 Author Posted January 5, 2010 We have four very useful strikers at the moment even though we perhaps lack a clinical finisher. If Heskey were to be inexplicably sold this january then Hugo Rodallega would be an interesting target imo as he still has his best years in front of him. Agreed, he is potentially an exciting prospect however he seems to be very inconsistent.....
BOF Posted January 5, 2010 Moderator Posted January 5, 2010 I think the strikeforce should be seen as a single entity. The component parts can change, but the overall total is more relevant than the average per striker. The team on any given day can change for a variety of reasons, but the strike forces job is still to score, no matter who gets it. That would put us 8th overall. I still maintain we don't have a bad strikeforce though.
bannedfromHandV Posted January 5, 2010 Author Posted January 5, 2010 Many thanks for the statistics BFHV, but i feel it is apparent that our present strikeforce lack intelligent movement to create space for a pass. If we were to sign RVN for instance, then a season, or two, in our team would make Gabby a much more intelligent and better player! At the moment i also feel we are getting there as far as being able to attract the 20m forward you speak of. At least we should be trying. Who that forward might be is up to the manager, but he will have to shop abroad for him which might be a problem for MON? Can't agree enough in terms of the movement issue, the amount of times I get angry watching JC and Gabby is amazing, they really do need some tuition on how to move in and around a defence. Agree also that we will need to shop abroad for a potential target though despite fully understanding where the criticism has arisen I still don't fully agree that it necessarily spells out a problem for the gaffer.
spacemanscott Posted January 5, 2010 Posted January 5, 2010 I see what you're getting at but taking the dirty heathen bastards for example, if you discount O'Connor and his one goal, it bumps their figure to 2.25. True, but then why exclude him? He's scored a goal and is a part of their strikeforce? Because he rarely plays...at least I don't think he does. Or, just as another quicjk example, how about Owen, he never plays in the league and he brings Man U's figure down a fair bit.
bannedfromHandV Posted January 5, 2010 Author Posted January 5, 2010 Compares to the teams around us atm like United, City, Spuds etc. our strikers are the weakest and they dont put fear into opponents players like Torres, RVP, Rooney, Drogba, Anelka and Tevez do. I appreciate what you're saying but then that's the point of the post really, the 6 or so players you mention above all have a very high transfer value and are unattainable for us currently....which is kind of the point of the post. On the flip side though I would suggest that there are still probably one or two defenders who don't fancy coming up against Gabby's pace.......not quite as scary as Torres admittedly but y'know, you have to take the positives where they're available.....
bannedfromHandV Posted January 5, 2010 Author Posted January 5, 2010 I see what you're getting at but taking the dirty heathen bastards for example, if you discount O'Connor and his one goal, it bumps their figure to 2.25. True, but then why exclude him? He's scored a goal and is a part of their strikeforce? Because he rarely plays...at least I don't think he does. Or, just as another quicjk example, how about Owen, he never plays in the league and he brings Man U's figure down a fair bit. I do appreciate what you're saying, I do. Perhaps this part of it is open to interpretation then afterall! Though I believe Owen is relevant, he has featured a fair bit in the league and has scored two goals so I think it would have been more of an injustice to have omitted him, personally.
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