***Offical*** English Football Season 2004/05

[roseboy64]

Yeah but they're not supposed to be scoring more than your forwards.

 

[steds]

Missed the game, what was the final score?

 

[steds]

Wasn't a bad goal!

Still lost the game though

 

[Neil Pickup]

And why not? I'd just as rather see a winger beat a man, whip the ball into the box for your target man to control and lay off into the path of an advancing midfielder to break the back of the net (Andy Taylor, 4th goal v Leigh RMI) than see a striker score. They all count, it doesn't matter who scores the most.

 

[Craig]

Neil I have been noticing that a Paul Jones has been in goal for Exeter of late, would he be the same Paul Jones that used to play for Southampton (and Liverpool for a month) on loan at Exeter or a different Paul Jones?

 

[Neil Pickup]

An entirely different Paul Jones, this one's an 18-year-old product of the Leyton Orient youth academy and is on loan at our place for free for the rest of the season. He's certainly impressing, his first touch coming off the bench at Dagenham was to save a penalty...

 

[superkingdave]

Well we've signed Steve Bruce's son on loan for a month from Blackburn, hopefully then Bruce will let us keep Neil Killkenny for the rest of the season. We just need to bring in a forward now, then we'll be right

 

[roseboy64]

And why not? I'd just as rather see a winger beat a man, whip the ball into the box for your target man to control and lay off into the path of an advancing midfielder to break the back of the net (Andy Taylor, 4th goal v Leigh RMI) than see a striker score. They all count, it doesn't matter who scores the most.

Yeah they all count but stikers are there foremost to score goals and midfielders to set them up.

 

[Neil Pickup]

Yeah they all count but stikers are there foremost to score goals and midfielders to set them up.

Give me one good reason why that should always be the case.

 

[marc71178]

Because it suits him?

 

[roseboy64]

Give me one good reason why that should always be the case.

That's part of the job description?There's nothing wrong with a midfielder scoring goals but people don't really recognise forwards if they don't score a lot.

 

[Neil Pickup]

That's part of the job description?There's nothing wrong with a midfielder scoring goals but people don't really recognise forwards if they don't score a lot.

What job description?

 

[roseboy64]

Of being an attacker.

 

[Neil Pickup]

That's part of the job description?There's nothing wrong with a midfielder scoring goals but people don't really recognise forwards if they don't score a lot.

People who judge players solely on the top-scorers list will do that. Let's go straight to the Conference top-scorers list this season and then I'll point out the vagaries of that. People who actually watch the game and not just look at it will rate the players - and let's face it, managers do tend to understand the game fairly well.

1 Giuliano Grazioli Barnet 16
Fair enough, Barnet are killing the league this year, still - he started like this last year, I'd be surprised if he ended with 25+
2 Charlie Griffin Forest Green 12
Immediate case of "what the?" - Forest Green are third bottom and absolutely awful. It's the same as last year wheere David McNiven of 21st-place Leigh scored a sackload. A team playing totally around one man
3 Anthony Elding Stevenage 11
4 Karl Hawley Carlisle 11
5 Adam Stansfield Hereford 11
6 Michael Twiss Morecambe 11
7 Lee Mills Hereford 10
8 Chris Moore Dag & Red 10
9 Paul Mullin Accrington Stanley 10
Seven men who are played - and paid - as their team's main out and out goalscorer(s). Only one side (Hereford) has two men in the ten-plus bracket, which is reflected by the team's strategy rotating around these two front men. The next non-striker has four.
10 Santos Gaia Exeter 9
A centre-back
11 Craig Mackail-Smith Dag & Red 9
12 Neil Redfearn Scarborough 9
13 Chris Senior Scarborough 9
14 Dean Sinclair Barnet 9
Two midfielders - Sinclair and Redfearn - and two strikers. D&R, like Hereford, play around their two front men (next scorer 5) whereas Barnet just score from everywhere. However I do feel that Sinclair's goal at Exeter was a definite OG
15 Ian Craney Accrington Stanley 8
Another non-striker to round out the top fifteen

And then we compare the individual scorers lists (remember the teams with two strikers - Hereford and Dagenham) to the team scorers list.


Carlisle 44
Hereford 37
Halifax 39
Stevenage 38
Accrington 39
Aldershot 32
Crawley 29
Scarborough 32
Woking 27
Dagenham 38 (GD -2)
Exeter 36
Morecambe 35
Tamworth 31
Gravesend 36
Canvey 25
York 20
Farnborough 19
Burton 20
Forest Green 22
Northwich 33
Leigh 22

Hereford do not stand out in the least as you may expect from their two high top scorers, while Dagenham may have 38 goals for but they've also leaked 40, suggesting that their high number of scores may not be entirely reflective of the team quality.

As for Barnet - with just one striker in the top list, they have many, many more goals than anyone else. This is because they are not reliant on their strikers, and the goals come from everywhere (six men with five plus, another three with three). Even with Grazioli out, they scored eight in two in October.

 

[Craig]

Heck even for a defender John Terry must be a nightmare for defences in side the box (or those who wouldn't know what defending meant at set pieces, with out naming teams but you get my drift). Even his goals are turning to be important for Chelsea (ie the equaliser for Chelsea against Arsenal).

 

[roseboy64]

I never said that teams should focus solely on one player but good forwards score goals.They don't have to be at the top of the charts to be good.Also, the great strikers can set up goals for themselves but they also score a lot too.

 

[marc71178]

A good forward does whatever the team requires of him - if that is to act as a target man and set up goals for his team-mate, then that is his job.

 

[Craig]

So is RVN a good striker because his job to put the ball into the back of the net which is his job to do then setting up the goals?

 

[marc71178]

Yes, he's good, but he's nowhere near the greats.

 

[Tom Halsey]

So his European scoring record of a goal a game against the cream of the crop is ignored in making that decision?