albionalex
Well-known member
I might be wrong but I think our top scorer for the U23's this season is Jenks, a midfielder.
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[Albion] Midfield goal production and the striker myth
- Thread starter Swansman
- Start date
I might be wrong but I think our top scorer for the U23's this season is Jenks, a midfielder.
Correct 5 in 16. Jenks is one I’ve long wanted in the squad, and am on record saying I’d rather he get a chance over Lallana.
But he is a midfielder, I was only looking over the out and out strikers available to us.
albionalex
Well-known member
That's a very impressive conversion rate - hopefully he break through in the next season or two.
GT49er
Well-known member
Easy. They're doing the basic midfielding pretty well - breaking up play, keeping/winning the ball, progressing it forward and setting up chances, etc. What they're not doing, unfortunately, is chipping in with a few goals - which would make all the difference to our results. Simples ..........
Agree - called Jenks some time ago. Very promising player.
I’d like to see Cochrane in the squad as well next year.
kemptown kid
Well-known member
- Apr 17, 2011
- 362
Given our possession and shots stats of the past few games, everything is going 'pretty well' or even very well apart from scoring goals. More clinical finishing, more threat from corners and free kicks, plus, of course, scoring penalties - none of these require abandoning 'Potterball' or demonizing any individual players.
OK then. A midfield has three jobs. To create chances, to break up attacks and to score. Of the three the latter is the lowest priority because that is the main task of the strikers. To not be functioning I would expect significant failure in all 3 categories. We are far from that.
Glad you wrote this: saved me the trouble.
PS; not that I would not replace our current forward line, or that I agree with Potter e.g. I believe in four at the back with one proper winger.
London Irish
Well-known member
So the midfield is still functioning well if it's still doing "unfortunate" things. Sorry but I don't think most people would find that a logical argument
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Pavilionaire
Well-known member
- Jul 7, 2003
- 30,678
Liverpool won the title last season with their midfield contributing relatively few goals and assists - the damage was done by Salah, Mane and Firmino with TAA and Robertson providing assists.
Henderson, Fabinho and Wijnaldum are quality but are not scorers or assisters.
There was a time when Gerrard made a big goal contribution from midfield but it never won them the title.
It's rare that a team gets relegated with a striker that gets into double figures. Chris Wood has managed it 3 times I believe, which is a big reason why Burnley usually finish comfortably safe, but he's been injured this year and they have struggled for goals.
In the Prem it is all about having that striker, and our problem is Maupay has had a poor season. If he doesn't start scoring soon we are in trouble, because there's no evidence Welbeck and Connolly are going to get us out of this mess, while Zeqiri is an unknown at this level.
Henderson, Fabinho and Wijnaldum are quality but are not scorers or assisters.
There was a time when Gerrard made a big goal contribution from midfield but it never won them the title.
It's rare that a team gets relegated with a striker that gets into double figures. Chris Wood has managed it 3 times I believe, which is a big reason why Burnley usually finish comfortably safe, but he's been injured this year and they have struggled for goals.
In the Prem it is all about having that striker, and our problem is Maupay has had a poor season. If he doesn't start scoring soon we are in trouble, because there's no evidence Welbeck and Connolly are going to get us out of this mess, while Zeqiri is an unknown at this level.
GT49er
Well-known member
It's doing most of what it should do, and doing it rather well. That's not just a logical argument, it's fact. Unfortunately it hasn't added regularly chipping in with goals to its many excellent attributes. I can't see what you are finding so difficult to understand; most people appear to do so OK..
London Irish
Well-known member
Because scoring goals is either fundamental to their job, or it isn’t. I still don’t know which of those statements you think is true.
The case being made here surely is that it is fundamental to their role, hence the comparison to teams much higher on the table to us who have goalscoring midfielders - the point being (surely) that it’s critical to winning games and climbing the table. This isn’t something of lesser importance that we can treat as an afterthought after discussing the really important stuff.
If I went to my manager tomorrow and said, that thing that’s fundamental to doing my job, I’m going to be mostly failing to do it today, is that ok? Well the bonus is I’d probably have a lot more time to start 12-page threads on here about stuff that might be important, but on the other hand, you know, it’s probably not if you look at this or that etc etc.
My own view is I think it is fundamental and probably the OP has done us a favour by highlighting it. I welcome it particularly because I think Maupay has been hard done by the weight of criticism he’s got. His goals kept us up last season and 7 this season is not a bad return, albeit at times his confidence looks lower than last season. Saturday being unfortunately one of those days. Which almost certainly would have been overlooked if Trossard or Mac had stuck goals away
For once I wholeheartedly agree with you Swanny.
I would also add that we don't create many clear cut goalscoring opportunities. With our style of play we rarely have chances where our players of any position are one on one with the keeper. Perhaps it's not just a single problem of us not scoring enough, which in the case of our midfield is absolutely true, but a combination of us also not creating enough high-quality situations for our strikers/midfielders to score from. If you take Palace as an example (WBA had two pens so that skews the xG dramatically) each shot, on average, had only a 0.12xG rating. A one-on-one shot inside the area is normally around 0.6xG.
The below shows that the majority of our chances in Feb were more difficult to score than not. In 5 games we created 8 chances that logically should have been taken. That includes the 2 penalties against WBA.
blue-shifted
Banned
Well yes they were, but there were more than 60 of them.
In the PL, you can't just rely on tap ins. Other team's score decent goals. Shots from range, direct free kicks, half chances in the box.
Our failure has been around missing nearly all of the dozens of half chances as much as it has been missing the small number of tap ins
But if we are consistently not scoring half chances, why is our tactical style seemingly based around creating a lot of them? Surely, if this is a deficiency in the squad's ability, then we should have come up with a solution rather than simply hoping our luck will change.
- Thread starter
- #119
Its not "all about having that striker". Two of the players you mentioned (Salah and Mane) are wingers, who these days (often along with the AMC) are frequently scoring more goals than the striker/strikers (in their case Firmino, replaced by Origi when necessary). Maupay may very well reach Firminos goal tally from last season, but the the Brighton wingers wont beat the Liverpool wingers.
ManOfSussex
We wunt be druv
Tony Cascarino in The Times today on a similar vain:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...e-to-give-chelsea-a-fighting-chance-khh7stm3j
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...e-to-give-chelsea-a-fighting-chance-khh7stm3j