When to accept your 5m striker is misfiring?

[Kodjias Wrist]

After his first game against Barnsley and then the first half v Birmingham i was excited. 

Now I feel really worried about his ability to cope in this league. Seven league games in and I think its fair to assess him as an underwhelming signing. His shooting is utter crap reminiscent of bas savage and he doesn't half fall on his ass a lot. Just seems completely out of it.

 

 

[FNQ]

On a positive... When the penalty was awarded he gave Leko two words of advice as he tried to grab the ball and then (surely we'd all have to agree) put the penalty away as cool as you'd like... maybe he is taking longer than we would all like to fully adapt to England and the championship, but it looks as though he's got bags of self-belief, he works hard and LJ / JM clearly believe in him... I back him to come good. Also worth noting that trying to settle in and adapt against defenses of the likes of Villa, as well as Brentford, Reading and Wolves away from home is hardly a walk in the park...

[BS3_RED]

Was very poor again last night UNTIL the penalty. After that he looked more confident and he also then dropped deeper looking for the ball. 

[Ian M]

5 minutes ago, BS3_RED said:

Was very poor again last night UNTIL the penalty. After that he looked more confident and he also then dropped deeper looking for the ball. 

I'm glad someone else noticed he improved after scoring the goal, I was beginning to think I imagined it. Suddenly he was able to keep possession whilst having two players on him, play in team-mates and even had a shot (a poor hit granted but I rarely see many efforts on goal from him). Hopefully that goal has made a huge difference to him.

[CyderInACan]

29 minutes ago, FNQ said:

On a positive... When the penalty was awarded he gave Leko two words of advice as he tried to grab the ball and then (surely we'd all have to agree) put the penalty away as cool as you'd like... maybe he is taking longer than we would all like to fully adapt to England and the championship, but it looks as though he's got bags of self-belief, he works hard and LJ / JM clearly believe in him... I back him to come good. Also worth noting that trying to settle in and adapt against defenses of the likes of Villa, as well as Brentford, Reading and Wolves away from home is hardly a walk in the park...

Two words of advice

Brilliant! 

[sglosbcfc]

In recent times both Nicky Maynard and Matt Smith were written off by quite a few fans very early in their City careers. The following season Maynard was the Championship's top scorer and of course Smith scored a flurry of goals. I am confident there is a lot more to come from Famara.

[Phileas Fogg]

17 minutes ago, Thatch35 said:

Maybe....but city need a striker who can score 15-10 this season. City maybe very lucky that Reid might get enough with others chipping in. Something that many City fans would laugh at. Scoring goals will be a struggle it seems.

If Famara keeps up his current (2 in 7) scoring record all season he'd get 13 goals.

[cityboy]

Takes a decent penalty though. Cool as you like. Reminded me a bit of the ones JET used to take, just without the 10 minute run up

[Ian M]

1 hour ago, Thatch35 said:

Maybe....but city need a striker who can score 15-10 this season. City maybe very lucky that Reid might get enough with others chipping in. Something that many City fans would laugh at. Scoring goals will be a struggle it seems.

Early days I know but we've done something right to be 3rd top scorers as it stands. Maybe we'll keep doing that?

[spudski]

2 hours ago, JonDolman said:

I try and be as fair as I can about our players. But I have to admit, he has been very poor so far. I may be clutching at straws, but maybe there are some signs that we have a better player than what we have seen so far. He had a good debut against Barnsley. He played the full 90, scored a very good header, held it up, had a couple of other half chances, won balls in the air and linked up well with Bobby. He has 7 Senegal caps. If he was that bad, would he have been played that many times for a decent national side? He is still young. Different players reach their peak at different ages. Would kodjia have struggled if we had him a couple of years earlier? Diedhiou has a very good goalscoring record. 23 goals the season before last in ligue 2. And 8 is not too bad a return in ligue 1 for a poor side. Many clubs were apparently after him. I heard somewhere Fulham bidded for him, but not sure if that's true. If other clubs were after him, then they must see something special in him. Even angers had to spend 1.4 million to get him. And obviously valued him highly to get 5.3 from us. So my point is, he is probably much better than what he seems so far. I'm hoping he just needs more time to adapt to the championship.

I think the word 'Striker' in the OP, conjures up images of a goal machine. He's nothing Kodijia or Tammy imo.

I really don't think he's been brought in to play as our main goal scoring threat.

More of a high sitting forward lynch pin for others to play off of.

To Bully, hold up, win headers, draw players, make space, create havoc etc,etc.

He may score a few of his own...but I look at our players around him, and they all have goals in them.

I think that's how we've set out to play. To get goals throughout the team.

I'm not going to judge him by his goals to game ratio, but by how he brings others into the game.

[Kid in the Riot]

2 hours ago, Ian M said:

I'm glad someone else noticed he improved after scoring the goal, I was beginning to think I imagined it. Suddenly he was able to keep possession whilst having two players on him, play in team-mates and even had a shot (a poor hit granted but I rarely see many efforts on goal from him). Hopefully that goal has made a huge difference to him.

I think that coincided with us having our best spell of the match in fairness. But yes, I'd agree, scoring the penalty did seem to aid his confidence. 

He was a passenger before the penalty though and watching him and Leko was like chalk and cheese.

I watched him closely and am officially concerned now. He offers next to nothing (at least we know he can take a pen now I suppose) and in the first half it was like we were playing with 10 men. 

He will be given more games though. 

[Lorenzos Only Goal]

3 hours ago, Ian M said:

I'm glad someone else noticed he improved after scoring the goal, I was beginning to think I imagined it. Suddenly he was able to keep possession whilst having two players on him, play in team-mates and even had a shot (a poor hit granted but I rarely see many efforts on goal from him). Hopefully that goal has made a huge difference to him.

He does seem to have bags of potential.

[cheshire_red]

Inly seen one match but he didn't read the game very well. Doesn't appear to have a football brain and yes he is a bit slow of mind and body.

[pillred]

12 hours ago, Fordy62 said:

I'm afraid he offered us absolutely nothing again tonight and he's playing because of his price tag. 

I wonder what might have happened today if we'd played someone else. 

I can only compare it to continue to bowl a spinner who's going for 20 an over without taking wickets. 

Again, not writing him off, but needs to take a break. We can't keep playing with 10 men. 

expect a snake from corsham red, you cant criticise our record signing, does not offer any reasonable argument as to why not though.

[chipdawg]

It was only the highlights that I saw but I thought he did really well for our first goal. Brought a bobbling ball under control in a crowded box then retained it until he found an outlet which he utilised really well. He won't get an assist in the counting stats, but I thought he did well in that passage of play

From the bits and bobs I've seen of him, he seems to do some good things. He just doesn't seem yet to be able to do them all at them same time, in the same match. I think that with some adjustment, he will turn into a good player. I think perhaps because £5.3 million is a lot of money for us, we've forgotten that in football in 2017 that just doesn't buy you the finished article. We need to knock some rough edges off him and polish some bits, but I still think there could be a diamond in there somewhere

[The Journalist]

On 9/10/2017 at 09:36, Alessandro said:

I think constantly falling back onto the failed signings, or value for money on signings argument, that some people are doing is getting pretty repetitive and boring now.

As already said above, football has changed - i'm honestly scratching my head every time I see someone write about us "wasting over a million on...(ADD NAME)...." constantly, like it's a large sum of money to 'waste'. I often wonder if those people are the same kind of people who I see on OTIB and twitter on transfer deadline day like spoilt children at Christmas writing stuff like "Come of City, just sign someone FFS" . Spending in the championship is going mad :

• Villa have spent £72m in two transfer windows (not even taking into account wages, John Terry anyone?!).
• Boro spent THE 10th MOST OF ANY CLUB IN ENGLAND this summer, £47m. Almost as much as Arsenal and more than WBA, West Ham and Burnley. 
• Wolves spent £15.8m on Neves.
• Leeds totalled £16m and so on.
• 8 teams in our division have parachute payments, worth almost an extra £20m of revenue a year, which is more than we earn in gate receipts in a season. 

So my point is teams are increasingly having to spend just to survive. Yes, there will always be the odd club to buck that trend, but generally, as early season results show, the current bottom three spent around £5m in total this summer. The top three spent a total of around £40m. 

We are going to be spending these multimillion pound fees to compete and some will work and some one not. That's football, nothing new there. It's just new to BCFC. But that is the world we are in now.

Anyway back to topic and Famara. Just think about this for a second. The guy has only been in Bristol for 2 months. Yes he's played a few games now, but, not only is this a move to a new, much tougher division, but it's a move to a new country. His life will have changed hugely, not just on the football side. And we all know that off pitch effects on the pitch. Give him chance to settle for goodness sake. 

This is a superb post - and eloquently makes the point many of us have probably tried to but failed.

For me, people really have to let go of the horrible losing run last season and move on - it happened more than 20 games ago, for goodness sake.

If anything like that losing run is repeated then there'll be nowhere for Lee Johnson to hide, I don't think anyone would argue with that point, but the evidence over a fairly decent chunk of time actually suggests a repetition isn't necessarily going to be the case.

Let's just wait and see.

[Big C]

4 hours ago, Thatch35 said:

Maybe....but city need a striker who can score 15-10 this season. City maybe very lucky that Reid might get enough with others chipping in. Something that many City fans would laugh at. Scoring goals will be a struggle it seems.

Yeah you are correct, only managed to score three away to Wolves last night!

[Chivs]

5 hours ago, sglosbcfc said:

In recent times both Nicky Maynard and Matt Smith were written off by quite a few fans very early in their City careers. The following season Maynard was the Championship's top scorer and of course Smith scored a flurry of goals. I am confident there is a lot more to come from Famara.

I have a feeling that once he gets one goal in open play that he will start to relax and become a threat.

I thought the same about Maynard but not Smith.  So this is the decider to see if I know a striker or not.  Tense times! 

[NOTBLUE]

2 hours ago, spudski said:

I think the word 'Striker' in the OP, conjures up images of a goal machine. He's nothing Kodijia or Tammy imo.

I really don't think he's been brought in to play as our main goal scoring threat.

More of a high sitting forward lynch pin for others to play off of.

To Bully, hold up, win headers, draw players, make space, create havoc etc,etc.

He may score a few of his own...but I look at our players around him, and they all have goals in them.

I think that's how we've set out to play. To get goals throughout the team.

I'm not going to judge him by his goals to game ratio, but by how he brings others into the game.

Exactly 

[EnderMB]

I've said for a long time that when the fans argue about transfer fees, it indicates that the club lacks the ambition to push forward from its current position.

£5m is not a lot of money. Sure, not everyone is spending, but not everyone is successful. If you lack the X Factor, money is how you get ahead, so for a club with management issues, a head coach that still doesn't convince the majority of the fans, and a squad that often lacks quality, money is what we need.

Instead of complaining about Wolves and Villa spending a ton of money, realise why they're spending so much. Wolves suffered a double relegation, and need the boost to get back to where they once were. Villa's demise has been a long time coming, so money is needed to patch a squad with the quality they've been missing for a very long time. The problem with the latter is that marquee players don't fix the fundamental issues of the squad.

[Crackers Corner]

For me he needs to adapt to the pace of the championship as he keeps trying to slow the game down. he never seems to be fully in control  of the ball which on the plus side can mean he can do some great stuff, there was great moment in one of the earlier matches where he played it over the heads of the defence a couple of times before having a shot from distance . If he can play to the teams tempo I think he could become a very good player but he needs to settle quickly and work on his shocking first touch.

[Midlands Robin]

Having an individual who can score all of your goals is not always the key to success.

In the 2006 / 07 season Phil Jevons was our top scorer with 11 league goals and the following season when we almost reached the prem, Darren Byfield finished our top scorer with 8 goals.

What matters most is how many goals are scored by the team as a whole. (and none of that really matters if you let more in at the back than you score at the other end).

 

 

[REDOXO]

Fammy suffers a little bit because he is not Kodjia and every one wanted him to be the new Jimmy

Fammy runs his cotton socks off and is key to high press high energy football. Do people honestly think Reid would have done so well without him taking the hits and playing off him. The bloke is a handful has two goals in his pocket while Reid has a handful of goals and is among the divisions/country's leading scorer. People honestly think these things happen in isolation? Get real and watch how we hunt down defenders. Wolves and Reading constantly forced back. A tactic SC (blessings be upon him) used with Agard to great effect. LJ is doing the same. 

As for other random wastes of money. LJ does not fancy Engval as he is not physical enough. LJ has said as much (please read previous paragraph) 

Taylor is an excellent buy and hit the post for Reid's goal yesterday. His touch is decent and his positional play is good, why do I keep reading utter shit about this guy on multiple threads

if the jury is out about wastes of money then look at Đurić and keep your fingers crossed he gets over his latest injury crisis, but replace Fammy you must be joking with our current style. Hegeler seems like a jack of all but a great guy to have if your struggling in multiple positions

GoN we didn't pay a fee but hasn't set anything alight. Again however very decent option under pressure with personnel

ultimately we may not get value for money from some players, but we have never in our history spent money like this so we the supporters worry we are spending poorly. Think on this, this club has always spent money in a way other divvy two/three yo yo clubs couldn't and with exception of a couple (Cole and a couple of others) lost money hand over fist. 

As long as SL is paying and picking up the failures then there is nothing to do but live with the ones that don't work out!

[Kid in the Riot]

5 hours ago, spudski said:

I think the word 'Striker' in the OP, conjures up images of a goal machine. He's nothing Kodijia or Tammy imo.

I really don't think he's been brought in to play as our main goal scoring threat.

More of a high sitting forward lynch pin for others to play off of.

To Bully, hold up, win headers, draw players, make space, create havoc etc,etc.

He may score a few of his own...but I look at our players around him, and they all have goals in them.

I think that's how we've set out to play. To get goals throughout the team.

I'm not going to judge him by his goals to game ratio, but by how he brings others into the game.

I think most people understand this, spud.

The point that I and others are sensibly and correctly making, is that so far we have seen very little evidence of him being capable of bullying defenders, holding the ball up, winning headers, drawing players, making space or creating havoc. His brief cameo for the first goal aside he did literally none of these for the first 55 minutes last night, and even after that I think the best he did was manage to control the ball a couple of times with his back to goal and lay the ball off 5 yards to a red shirt.

Early days, but his goals to games ratio is actually ok. It's everything else that is causing most of us concern.

[handsofclay]

56 minutes ago, Thatch35 said:

Sounds like an excuse because you have clearly figured out he cant score goals. City need a goal scorer, this was proved the only reason why relegation was avoided  for two seasons. Now City don't have one (yet...Taylor im hoping) and everything will be ok?? :laugh: People seem to be ok with relying on everyone else to score...so far not so bad, but going on recent seasons hardly any other player contributes. Oh....except for Flint.....the centre back!!

Bob Taylor, and many great goal scorers did nothing but stick it in the net.

Actually it can be looked upon another way. Both seasons we relied on a goalscorer and both seasons we fought battles against relegation. It can be said that Famara is more of a team player than JK and TA were and that equates to more goals being scored throughout the team. It can also be said, as pointed out by others too, that the last time we didn't have a recognised goal machine in this division we finished in the play-offs!!!

[southvillekiddy]

 

49 minutes ago, REDOXO said:

Fammy suffers a little bit because he is not Kodjia and every one wanted him to be the new Jimmy

Fammy runs his cotton socks off and is key to high press high energy football. Do people honestly think Reid would have done so well without him taking the hits and playing off him. The bloke is a handful has two goals in his pocket while Reid has a handful of goals and is among the divisions/country's leading scorer. People honestly think these things happen in isolation? Get real and watch how we hunt down defenders. Wolves and Reading constantly forced back. A tactic SC (blessings be upon him) used with Agard to great effect. LJ is doing the same. 

 

Totally agree with you mate. Noticed that in the build-up to Flint's goal Fammy was the one absolutely determined to keep the pressure on immediately after the corner. It was him who steamed out to get the ball when it was ping-ponging around on the edge of the box and squared it to Wright for his shot which Flint directed in.

 lots of what Fammy does goes unnoticed (unless of course you are a defender on the other side). Definitely worrks really well with Reid

[REDOXO]

3 minutes ago, southvillekiddy said:

 

Totally agree with you mate. Noticed that in the build-up to Flint's goal Fammy was the one absolutely determined to keep the pressure on immediately after the corner. It was him who steamed out to get the ball when it was ping-ponging around on the edge of the box and squared it to Wright for his shot which Flint directed in.

 lots of what Fammy does goes unnoticed (unless of course you are a defender on the other side). Definitely worrks really well with Reid

What bothers me SVK is what is going on and some people's refusal or inability to see it/notice it!

What Fammy is doing is clear and it creates scoring opportunities, if not directly, indirectly. 

 

 

[spudski]

56 minutes ago, Kid in the Riot said:

I think most people understand this, spud.

The point that I and others are sensibly and correctly making, is that so far we have seen very little evidence of him being capable of bullying defenders, holding the ball up, winning headers, drawing players, making space or creating havoc. His brief cameo for the first goal aside he did literally none of these for the first 55 minutes last night, and even after that I think the best he did was manage to control the ball a couple of times with his back to goal and lay the ball off 5 yards to a red shirt.

Early days, but his goals to games ratio is actually ok. It's everything else that is causing most of us concern.

I agree Kid...he looks very raw. But I can see why we have bought him here. He has all the attributes to adapt to what we want imo, I just think he may take time to adjust.

If he is that useless...then we have done exceptionally well to have got so many points on the board with 10 men, as so many seem to think we are playing with him in the team.

As he says himself in interview...it's faster and more physically challenging than what he's used to. His English is poor...at 24 he's still a young lad in a foreign country with a lot of pressure on him.

I've not given up hope on him yet.

It's taken Bobby Reid all this time to get going, same age, yet has been brought up here and knows what the score is.

How much time have the Club given him?

I get what you and others are saying...but next time you watch him play, watch what the defenders around him are doing, and how they are reacting, instead of watching just him.

That way you'll see how much influence he is having in games.

Maybe you already do though, so I won't presume. But by doing that, you do see an 'effect'.

 

[Davefevs]

9 hours ago, Kid in the Riot said:

I think most people understand this, spud.

The point that I and others are sensibly and correctly making, is that so far we have seen very little evidence of him being capable of bullying defenders, holding the ball up, winning headers, drawing players, making space or creating havoc. His brief cameo for the first goal aside he did literally none of these for the first 55 minutes last night, and even after that I think the best he did was manage to control the ball a couple of times with his back to goal and lay the ball off 5 yards to a red shirt.

Early days, but his goals to games ratio is actually ok. It's everything else that is causing most of us concern.

I've been a big advocate of him since he signed, as well as thought he'd be a good signing for us before he did.  Seen a quite a bit of him pre his move here and thought he'd be perfect.

Thought it was well justified after a good start versus Barnsley, but he has disappointed overall and I've only seen the home games.  I'm not saying he's been poor, just I expected more.

It sounds from several others that away from home he's not done very well, although the part he played in the goal v Brum shows there is a player in there.  The 7 minute highlights from last night looked reasonable too, but perhaps that was it!

Perfectly happy that people say he's been poor, but that doesn't mean he's gonna be poor for the rest of his time here.  Drogba was immense in France, but took best part of a season to get going at Chelsea and imho it was only when they played 2 up top and partnered him with Crespo that he began to look the biz.

[Sparkz 76]

Tough one but honestly is he any different to Matt Taylor as they have similar attributes in my opinion I think Matt contributes more to the team in terms of assists and better defensively when needed. Central midfield is my main worry as in terms of quality in this division not sure we're championship standard in that dept.