Jump to content
IGNORED

"But where are the goals gonna come from?"


Ian M

Recommended Posts

  • Admin

As I navigate my way around the football forum & the transfer forum this seems to be the concern of many posters, somewhat understandably, given the loss of Tammy & our record signing up front still unlikely to match the 23 league goals our erstwhile Chelsea loanee bagged for us.

As it seems the obvious place to start, let us start with the forwards. Understandably there is some concern that Diedhiou is not an out-and-out goalscorer and may take some time to acclimatise to the new league and surroundings. The good news is he has pedigree. He arrives from the same club we got Kodjia from, SCO Angers, though wasn't at the club at the same time or indeed play in the same league. Prior to his arrival here, Kodjia scored 15 goals as Angers secured promotion from Ligue 2 to Ligue 1. Diedhiou meanwhile scored 23 goals a season on loan at Clermont in the same division and 9 goals in 29 starts when playing for Angers in Ligue 1. Kodjia went on to score 19 goals in his sole season with us in the Championship. What can we learn from this? Well, all players are different but the early indication is that he should be able to score at a similar rate in England. I'd say an estimate of 13 goals would be a conservative estimate in this example.

Next up, rather surprisingly is Bobby Reid, Johnson's supposed replacement for Tomlin in the support striker role. Bobby scored 3 goals in 18 starts in the Championship last season playing a number of roles, but mainly in midfield. During this pre-season Bobby has been on-fire playing in a more advanced role scoring 8 goals in 6 appearances (many where he was on the field for just half a game). If he just scored at his former rate he'd be on for 8 goals over a full season but starting further forward, he should be afforded more chances to score. For now I'm going to try an err on the side of conservatism again, Bobby Reid will go down as 10 goals.

The next selection may be a little controversial, Gustav Engvall. I believe this is a big season for Gustav, he had his struggles with health and fitness on arrival last season and he didn't ever really get going for us except for a decent performance with no end product against Hull & an assist for Paterson against Fleetwood in the cup. With the Euro's coming up for the U21 sides, Gustav went back to Sweden on loan and performed better than he had ever before in his young career scoring 7 goals in 13 games. Following his return to the Tenerife training camp & perhaps thanks to the injuries our other strikers are suffering from he appears to have been welcomed back into the fold and scored 2 goals in his first game back on English soil. I believe he will feature quite heavily through August as Johnson beds Famara in and will get reasonable minutes from the bench and starting roles in the Cups. He seems to have decent movement and knows where the goal he is. If he takes this chance I can see him going on to act as a rotation option/understudy to Famara. Engvall to score 8 goals :fear:

The rest: Much has been said of the effect of the Snake, Matty Taylor, on our survival fight last season. During his run in the side he "only" scored 2 goals. I suspect if LJ favours FD & BR as the main partnership this season Taylor will have to make do with sub appearances & just the occasional start. However, this may benefit him as his lack of pace wont be so noticeable against tired defenders. Matty Taylor 4 goals. Milan Đuric has suffered from recurring injuries last season & this has carried over into this. In his brief appearances he showed hints of being able to play at this level. He scored 1 goal in 3 starts & 8 sub appearances last season. If he can sort his fitness issues out I can see him scoring 5 goals for us. Aaron Wilbraham is probably in his last season as a player with us and will probably not get a lot of playing time. With that in mind I am not predicting him to score any goals. A wildcard here may be Freddie Hinds who is enjoying pre-season with the first team but we have not seen enough of him to know if this is his breakthrough year for us.

Into midfield and the main threat appears to be Jamie Paterson who finished last season on fire after some time on the sidelines when it was rumoured he didn't get on with our larger playmaker who has since left for pastures more Welsh. Despite this he managed to score 6 goals in 27 appearances for us last term. Over a full season this would have equated to 10 goals & even with him having a more consistent/important role in the side, I will stick with this 10 goals projection. The remainder of the midfield doesn't have a lot in it but Calum O'Dowda was getting closer to getting his first Championship goal last season & I am backing him to break this duck this season (and score 1 more), Josh Brownhill did break his duck to score his first goal for us, I back him to get 2 next season. Marlon Pack & Korey Smith got 2 between them last season (Pack with both) and I'm saying they'll match it again this season.

In defence I have pretty much gone with last season's tallies, however the introduction of Eros Pisano should add more goals as he has some form here and has bagged a couple in pre-season. I'm marking him down for 3 goals.

In total this all adds up to 69 goals, 9 more than we got in 16/17. You may disagree with my numbers, maybe you think Gustav will get zero (but then I'd expect some more from one of the others as it'd mean they feature more), but in my mind there is goals throughout this team. You never know, we might still sign someone who will add to our tally too? This coupled with our improved defensive performance in the final 10 games last term gives me the optimism that we can get a comfortable mid-table finish this season.

 

Tl;dr we will score goals, breakdown below:

Diedhiou 13 goals

Reid 10 goals

Engvall 8 goals

Taylor 4 goals

Đuric 5 goals

Paterson 10 goals

Pack 1 goal

Smith 1 goal

Brownhill 2 goals

O'Dowda 2 goals

Flint 6 goals

Wright 2 goals

Magnusson 1 goal

Pisano 3 goals

Bryan 1 goal

Total 69 goals

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Admin
2 minutes ago, CheddarReds said:

Optimistic IMO, but better than a moan!

Engvall I could believe was optimistic but the only others I projected to score significant numbers I put forward reasoned arguments for. Diedhiou scored 8 in 28 in the top division in France, if this exact ratio was repeated here it would be 13 goals in 46 games, worse than Kodjia who scored his goals for Angers at a weaker level. I projected Bobby to score 2 more than his rate last season due to playing further forward. Paterson I put at his same rate as this season, virtually everyone else were similar to their 2016/17 scoring levels and I even failed to mention writing off O'Neil ;) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Ian M said:

As I navigate my way around the football forum & the transfer forum this seems to be the concern of many posters, somewhat understandably, given the loss of Tammy & our record signing up front still unlikely to match the 23 league goals our erstwhile Chelsea loanee bagged for us.

As it seems the obvious place to start, let us start with the forwards. Understandably there is some concern that Diedhiou is not an out-and-out goalscorer and may take some time to acclimatise to the new league and surroundings. The good news is he has pedigree. He arrives from the same club we got Kodjia from, SCO Angers, though wasn't at the club at the same time or indeed play in the same league. Prior to his arrival here, Kodjia scored 15 goals as Angers secured promotion from Ligue 2 to Ligue 1. Diedhiou meanwhile scored 23 goals a season on loan at Clermont in the same division and 9 goals in 29 starts when playing for Angers in Ligue 1. Kodjia went on to score 19 goals in his sole season with us in the Championship. What can we learn from this? Well, all players are different but the early indication is that he should be able to score at a similar rate in England. I'd say an estimate of 13 goals would be a conservative estimate in this example.

Next up, rather surprisingly is Bobby Reid, Johnson's supposed replacement for Tomlin in the support striker role. Bobby scored 3 goals in 18 starts in the Championship last season playing a number of roles, but mainly in midfield. During this pre-season Bobby has been on-fire playing in a more advanced role scoring 8 goals in 6 appearances (many where he was on the field for just half a game). If he just scored at his former rate he'd be on for 8 goals over a full season but starting further forward, he should be afforded more chances to score. For now I'm going to try an err on the side of conservatism again, Bobby Reid will go down as 10 goals.

The next selection may be a little controversial, Gustav Engvall. I believe this is a big season for Gustav, he had his struggles with health and fitness on arrival last season and he didn't ever really get going for us except for a decent performance with no end product against Hull & an assist for Paterson against Fleetwood in the cup. With the Euro's coming up for the U21 sides, Gustav went back to Sweden on loan and performed better than he had ever before in his young career scoring 7 goals in 13 games. Following his return to the Tenerife training camp & perhaps thanks to the injuries our other strikers are suffering from he appears to have been welcomed back into the fold and scored 2 goals in his first game back on English soil. I believe he will feature quite heavily through August as Johnson beds Famara in and will get reasonable minutes from the bench and starting roles in the Cups. He seems to have decent movement and knows where the goal he is. If he takes this chance I can see him going on to act as a rotation option/understudy to Famara. Engvall to score 8 goals :fear:

The rest: Much has been said of the effect of the Snake, Matty Taylor, on our survival fight last season. During his run in the side he "only" scored 2 goals. I suspect if LJ favours FD & BR as the main partnership this season Taylor will have to make do with sub appearances & just the occasional start. However, this may benefit him as his lack of pace wont be so noticeable against tired defenders. Matty Taylor 4 goals. Milan Đuric has suffered from recurring injuries last season & this has carried over into this. In his brief appearances he showed hints of being able to play at this level. He scored 1 goal in 3 starts & 8 sub appearances last season. If he can sort his fitness issues out I can see him scoring 5 goals for us. Aaron Wilbraham is probably in his last season as a player with us and will probably not get a lot of playing time. With that in mind I am not predicting him to score any goals. A wildcard here may be Freddie Hinds who is enjoying pre-season with the first team but we have not seen enough of him to know if this is his breakthrough year for us.

Into midfield and the main threat appears to be Jamie Paterson who finished last season on fire after some time on the sidelines when it was rumoured he didn't get on with our larger playmaker who has since left for pastures more Welsh. Despite this he managed to score 6 goals in 27 appearances for us last term. Over a full season this would have equated to 10 goals & even with him having a more consistent/important role in the side, I will stick with this 10 goals projection. The remainder of the midfield doesn't have a lot in it but Calum O'Dowda was getting closer to getting his first Championship goal last season & I am backing him to break this duck this season (and score 1 more), Josh Brownhill did break his duck to score his first goal for us, I back him to get 2 next season. Marlon Pack & Korey Smith got 2 between them last season (Pack with both) and I'm saying they'll match it again this season.

In defence I have pretty much gone with last season's tallies, however the introduction of Eros Pisano should add more goals as he has some form here and has bagged a couple in pre-season. I'm marking him down for 3 goals.

In total this all adds up to 69 goals, 9 more than we got in 16/17. You may disagree with my numbers, maybe you think Gustav will get zero (but then I'd expect some more from one of the others as it'd mean they feature more), but in my mind there is goals throughout this team. You never know, we might still sign someone who will add to our tally too? This coupled with our improved defensive performance in the final 10 games last term gives me the optimism that we can get a comfortable mid-table finish this season.

 

Tl;dr we will score goals, breakdown below:

Diedhiou 13 goals

Reid 10 goals

Engvall 8 goals

Taylor 4 goals

Đuric 5 goals

Paterson 10 goals

Pack 1 goal

Smith 1 goal

Brownhill 2 goals

O'Dowda 2 goals

Flint 6 goals

Wright 2 goals

Magnússon 1 goal

Pisano 3 goals

Bryan 1 goal

Total 69 goals

 

Top post.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Admin
7 minutes ago, Sarumred said:

What health issues did Engvall have? Only injured to my knowledge.

He was on more than one occasion mentioned as "ill" by LJ, I believe he suffered significant weight loss too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Ian M said:

As I navigate my way around the football forum & the transfer forum this seems to be the concern of many posters, somewhat understandably, given the loss of Tammy & our record signing up front still unlikely to match the 23 league goals our erstwhile Chelsea loanee bagged for us.

As it seems the obvious place to start, let us start with the forwards. Understandably there is some concern that Diedhiou is not an out-and-out goalscorer and may take some time to acclimatise to the new league and surroundings. The good news is he has pedigree. He arrives from the same club we got Kodjia from, SCO Angers, though wasn't at the club at the same time or indeed play in the same league. Prior to his arrival here, Kodjia scored 15 goals as Angers secured promotion from Ligue 2 to Ligue 1. Diedhiou meanwhile scored 23 goals a season on loan at Clermont in the same division and 9 goals in 29 starts when playing for Angers in Ligue 1. Kodjia went on to score 19 goals in his sole season with us in the Championship. What can we learn from this? Well, all players are different but the early indication is that he should be able to score at a similar rate in England. I'd say an estimate of 13 goals would be a conservative estimate in this example.

Next up, rather surprisingly is Bobby Reid, Johnson's supposed replacement for Tomlin in the support striker role. Bobby scored 3 goals in 18 starts in the Championship last season playing a number of roles, but mainly in midfield. During this pre-season Bobby has been on-fire playing in a more advanced role scoring 8 goals in 6 appearances (many where he was on the field for just half a game). If he just scored at his former rate he'd be on for 8 goals over a full season but starting further forward, he should be afforded more chances to score. For now I'm going to try an err on the side of conservatism again, Bobby Reid will go down as 10 goals.

The next selection may be a little controversial, Gustav Engvall. I believe this is a big season for Gustav, he had his struggles with health and fitness on arrival last season and he didn't ever really get going for us except for a decent performance with no end product against Hull & an assist for Paterson against Fleetwood in the cup. With the Euro's coming up for the U21 sides, Gustav went back to Sweden on loan and performed better than he had ever before in his young career scoring 7 goals in 13 games. Following his return to the Tenerife training camp & perhaps thanks to the injuries our other strikers are suffering from he appears to have been welcomed back into the fold and scored 2 goals in his first game back on English soil. I believe he will feature quite heavily through August as Johnson beds Famara in and will get reasonable minutes from the bench and starting roles in the Cups. He seems to have decent movement and knows where the goal he is. If he takes this chance I can see him going on to act as a rotation option/understudy to Famara. Engvall to score 8 goals :fear:

The rest: Much has been said of the effect of the Snake, Matty Taylor, on our survival fight last season. During his run in the side he "only" scored 2 goals. I suspect if LJ favours FD & BR as the main partnership this season Taylor will have to make do with sub appearances & just the occasional start. However, this may benefit him as his lack of pace wont be so noticeable against tired defenders. Matty Taylor 4 goals. Milan Đuric has suffered from recurring injuries last season & this has carried over into this. In his brief appearances he showed hints of being able to play at this level. He scored 1 goal in 3 starts & 8 sub appearances last season. If he can sort his fitness issues out I can see him scoring 5 goals for us. Aaron Wilbraham is probably in his last season as a player with us and will probably not get a lot of playing time. With that in mind I am not predicting him to score any goals. A wildcard here may be Freddie Hinds who is enjoying pre-season with the first team but we have not seen enough of him to know if this is his breakthrough year for us.

Into midfield and the main threat appears to be Jamie Paterson who finished last season on fire after some time on the sidelines when it was rumoured he didn't get on with our larger playmaker who has since left for pastures more Welsh. Despite this he managed to score 6 goals in 27 appearances for us last term. Over a full season this would have equated to 10 goals & even with him having a more consistent/important role in the side, I will stick with this 10 goals projection. The remainder of the midfield doesn't have a lot in it but Calum O'Dowda was getting closer to getting his first Championship goal last season & I am backing him to break this duck this season (and score 1 more), Josh Brownhill did break his duck to score his first goal for us, I back him to get 2 next season. Marlon Pack & Korey Smith got 2 between them last season (Pack with both) and I'm saying they'll match it again this season.

In defence I have pretty much gone with last season's tallies, however the introduction of Eros Pisano should add more goals as he has some form here and has bagged a couple in pre-season. I'm marking him down for 3 goals.

In total this all adds up to 69 goals, 9 more than we got in 16/17. You may disagree with my numbers, maybe you think Gustav will get zero (but then I'd expect some more from one of the others as it'd mean they feature more), but in my mind there is goals throughout this team. You never know, we might still sign someone who will add to our tally too? This coupled with our improved defensive performance in the final 10 games last term gives me the optimism that we can get a comfortable mid-table finish this season.

 

Tl;dr we will score goals, breakdown below:

Diedhiou 13 goals

Reid 10 goals

Engvall 8 goals

Taylor 4 goals

Đuric 5 goals

Paterson 10 goals

Pack 1 goal

Smith 1 goal

Brownhill 2 goals

O'Dowda 2 goals

Flint 6 goals

Wright 2 goals

Magnússon 1 goal

Pisano 3 goals

Bryan 1 goal

Total 69 goals

 

Good post, For what is is worth i think Brownhill will get half a dozen or more this season, I think that he will be a regular starter this season, and towards the end of last season he was getting himself into some cracking scoring positions, without finding the composure to finish. If that little bit of composure can be found i don't think that 6 goals plus is beyond him. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not all too worried about the goal threat we provide, it's whether or not we can maintain/ progress defensively from the back end of last season. Personally I'm hopeful of some more clean sheets this year, allowing us to be more comfortable with 1/2 goal leads. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well thought out post Ian.

Many are saying that we need a new striker, but if Engval get s a chance he could be like a new signing. 

Also, being so dependant on Tammy's goals last season we were very lucky he didn't suffer major injury problems and extended absence from the team. This being the case, it is perhaps better that we are not so dependant on one main goalscorer and that more players chip in with a decent amount of goals.

Finally,  I think goalscoring is not our main problem, but shoring up the defence is.

We have to be better at closing out games. We only had one game last season where we were thrashed, and given the dire run we had either side of Christmas that is pretty remarkable, but what was our problem was holding on to winning positions - Wednesday, Cardiff, Reading , Derby and Newcastle alone cost us 10-13 points , which makes a huge difference to a season.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Admin
11 minutes ago, redapple said:

I think your roughly right about the amount of goals scored. I think Taylor might get to double figures which would mean 75+ goals which would be decent and top half to play off position. 

That's the beauty of pre-season & football in general. We all have different opinions even though we've watched the same players. Maybe some will think I'm broadly right but that Engvall will score zero. A tally of 61 goals would have seen us 10th top scorers last season. The 10th best defence shipped 58 goals. We would need to stop 8 goals to get to that level & we could realistically look at finishing top 10. The margins are that slim.

For reference, once Johnson started picking a consistent team towards the end of the season, we conceded 14 goals in the final 12 games (which includes the 5-0 drubbing at Preston), that would be 54 goals a season if continued over 46 games. Even if Pisano doesn't improve this, that level would have been the 7th best defence in the division.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I beginning to beleive I've fallen through a tear in the space time continuum and have entered a parallel universe.  Bobby Reid predicted to be City's second highest goal scorer only 3 goals behind the highest goal scorer, and  City to finish in a comfortable mid table position! 

Wait - I've just heard a news flash on the radio that Elvis has been found alive, living on the moon 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Admin
4 minutes ago, pongo88 said:

I beginning to beleive I've fallen through a tear in the space time continuum and have entered a parallel universe.  Bobby Reid predicted to be City's second highest goal scorer only 3 goals behind the highest goal scorer, and  City to finish in a comfortable mid table position! 

Wait - I've just heard a news flash on the radio that Elvis has been found alive, living on the moon 

...and if it happens that will make you sad?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is a good post and in most cases very sensibly argued.

However Bobby Reid has made 89 league appearances for us and scored 7 goals, (one of them in League One), so to think he'll reach double figures next season is lottery winning optimistic to me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Playing devils advocate on this, LJ looks set to play with 1 up top again which means only one out of Fam, Đurić and Engvall will be on the pitch at any one time (unless Engvall plays in the hole and Taylor/Reid are benched). Combined you're looking at 26 goals from a frontman which would be about a 1 in 2 strike rate. Haven't seen that from Đurić or Engvall so far but who knows what the season holds.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Admin
34 minutes ago, pongo88 said:

I beginning to beleive I've fallen through a tear in the space time continuum and have entered a parallel universe.  Bobby Reid predicted to be City's second highest goal scorer only 3 goals behind the highest goal scorer, and  City to finish in a comfortable mid table position! 

Wait - I've just heard a news flash on the radio that Elvis has been found alive, living on the moon 

 

15 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

It is a good post and in most cases very sensibly argued.

However Bobby Reid has made 89 league appearances for us and scored 7 goals, (one of them in League One), so to think he'll reach double figures next season is lottery winning optimistic to me.

Let's suppose despite a season playing further forward he simply scores 4 goals and no-one else steps up, that's still 63 goals which is more than enough for midtable :) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...