Gary Monk's Hit & Misses

[BoroMart]

It wasn't like we were creating loads against the bottom teams either, and you still need to put the ball in the net. I don't recall him missing any glaring chances.

It's a fallacy we didn't create chances. You can trawl through the xG data on the link attached and we scored worse than the chances we created in those Pulis years. The chances were there other than the woodgate season, our strikers just didn't put enough away.

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What the guy who took at least 3 pens like this and then had a one-on-one competition with Fletcher for worst miss of the season where they both missed 2 open goals from a yard out didn't miss?

All goals are worth the same, but a goalscorer in League Two can't necessarily reproduce that higher up the chain, because they have too many weaknesses, Britt would smash it in League Two, still do very well in League One, but he has too many flaws to hi game beyond that. Christ he's playing in Turkey right now and hasn't scored in 14 matches. In TURKEY!

 

[morrissey]

Britt missed shedloads of 1 on 1's - he was useless at them. Give him time to think and he'd make the wrong decision, he was a more instinctive striker but even then, not great at that either.

 

[Andy_W]

It's a fallacy we didn't create chances. You can trawl through the xG data on the link attached and we scored worse than the chances we created in those Pulis years. The chances were there other than the woodgate season, our strikers just didn't put enough away.

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Championship (England) tables, results, and stats of the latest season. Detailed info include Goals Scored, Top Scorers, Over 2.5, FTS, BTTS, Corners, Clean Sheets...

footystats.org

What the guy who took at least 3 pens like this and then had a one-on-one competition with Fletcher for worst miss of the season where they both missed 2 open goals from a yard out didn't miss?

All goals are worth the same, but a goalscorer in League Two can't necessarily reproduce that higher up the chain, because they have too many weaknesses, Britt would smash it in League Two, still do very well in League One, but he has too many flaws to hi game beyond that. Christ he's playing in Turkey right now and hasn't scored in 14 matches. In TURKEY!

You know I like xG, but that was in its early days I suppose etc, and I'm not sure how reliable that is, with the age etc? Is there a way to see the individual player stats, compared to others etc?

Year 1 - 17/18 we finished 5th, scored 67, but we seemed to score more than our xG, and conceded 50% less than we were expected to, we had Bamford and Braithwaite then too. Gestede couldn't hit a barn door, but thankfully only played 900 mins.
Year 2 - 18/19 we finished 7th, scored only 49 goals, and Britt got 14 of them (which is good going), Fletcher, Hugill

Never said he was great at penalties, but seeing as he was taking them, my guess was he was the best option we had on the pitch at the time, it kind of said a lot about our team back then. He scored 5/7 for us, which is about 70%, and the average is around 75%, not that bad.

Obviously, I wouldn't expect a league 2 striker to do well in the champo, but he was the second top scorer in league 1 (by one goal), in his first season, then Forest paid 5-8m for him. He scored at a great rate for Forest for two seasons, either side of injury and didn't immediately become a poor goalscorer, it was largely down to us, and we've done the same with quite a few strikers. We whinged for ages about how bad our creativity was.

Like I say though, I'd have possibly sold him after the second year, he looked disillusioned, but can't blame him for that, playing under Woody, if we had sold him we could have went down. He got 5 goals in the last 7 games (2 as sub), and we won 3 of them (stayed up by 5 points), he wasn't playing much before that and results were poor.

I'd have deffo sold him after then though, but his wages probably screwed that up, that was our fault, he looked on a downward trend after the first couple of years, but loads of players peak early.

 

[Andy_W]

Britt missed shedloads of 1 on 1's - he was useless at them. Give him time to think and he'd make the wrong decision, he was a more instinctive striker but even then, not great at that either.

He's going to, most forwards do. I'm not sure on the odds but I imagine it's ~30%-50% expected conversion rate, heavily influenced by angle, distance, keeper position etc. A 1 v 1 is not a guaranteed goal, far from it, especially not at championship level.

 

[BoroMart]

You know I like xG, but that was in its early days I suppose etc, and I'm not sure how reliable that is, with the age etc? Is there a way to see the individual player stats, compared to others etc?

Don't know, but I did a study a couple of years ago looking at Britt vs other championmship level strikers such as Grabban, Vydra, Bamford etc. a far higher % of his goals were within 8 yards, and a far higher % were against the poorer sides. His finishing % within 8% was really high, so high I compared it to Ronaldo and his finishing % was better (but obviously at a far lower opposition level). But he did virtually nothing outside of that, he also created almost nothing for others, and as I said other strikers in the championshihp were weighted maybe 30-40% against the top teams. With Britt it was about 7% of his goals against top 6. Not sure if I still have the spreadsheets on an old laptop, not sure if I ever got them on my dropbox, but I'll check at the weekend

 

[Frozen Horse]

I remember the Ramirez fee as being quoted at £9m at the time.

We really didn't dip into the parachute payment that much; net outlay was no more than £5 million.

However PP meant we didn't have to have a fire sale and lose de Room, Ramirez etc for free just to offload the wages.

 

[Andy_W]

Don't know, but I did a study a couple of years ago looking at Britt vs other championmship level strikers such as Grabban, Vydra, Bamford etc. a far higher % of his goals were within 8 yards, and a far higher % were against the poorer sides. His finishing % within 8% was really high, so high I compared it to Ronaldo and his finishing % was better (but obviously at a far lower opposition level). But he did virtually nothing outside of that, he also created almost nothing for others, and as I said other strikers in the championshihp were weighted maybe 30-40% against the top teams. With Britt it was about 7% of his goals against top 6. Not sure if I still have the spreadsheets on an old laptop, not sure if I ever got them on my dropbox, but I'll check at the weekend

I came accross this (17/18 apprently), it's not that bad, not much difference to Bamford when at Leeds (when he was at his best) and doing better than Muapay etc. The problem was he didn't get as many minutes as some of the other top scorers, and Bamford was here in 17/18, not at Leeds. Think this may have actually been 18/19.



If your job is to be 8 yards out from goal and put the ball in the net, then that's fair enough. Loads of strikers have been good at that, players like Ronaldo or whatever get their goals from further out or cutting in or whatever, totally different teams styles, formations and players etc, similar to how Bamfords game was very different, and more appealing on the eye.

Sniffers don't creat chances for others as that's not their job, especially when as a lone striker, their game is to be within 10 yards of goal, at the best timing possible, and it's not to be assisting, it's to be shooting etc.

 

[BoroMart]

If your job is to be 8 yards out from goal and put the ball in the net, then that's fair enough

I'm not sure in the modern game that is enough and as you go up the quality ladder you simply don't get the time and space to do that very often because better defenders don't leave you unmarked very often. That's why Britt could score 30 in League 1, 13 against bottom half champ teams, and 1 against top half.

There's a massive difference in quality of positioning, decision making and most importantly concentration levels from players like Grant Hanley, Tim Reem, and Craig Cathcart compared to Josh Knight, Harlee Dean and Aiden Flint. You can't wait for the mistake against the former, you have to force the mistake. The later, hang around enough and they'll be out of position, make a bad choice, or switch off and leave you.

 

[jonny_greenings_sock]

The appointment was a disgrace to the fans and the club. Even if we had appointed Pulis or Allardyce, gone down and had a go we could have held our heads up.

It still leaves a bitter taste and seems like planning to go down in order to come straight back up. How did that one go then.

Unreal. I keep posting this but we were something like 4 points from safety with 12 games to go when Agnew took over… and went down weaker than Southgate’s team, who were so weak.

Edit: 3 points, 11 games.

 

[Mayor Goldie Wilson]

 

[jonny_greenings_sock]

See I don’t see Britt as the big disaster from that period. He was crap against the good teams, fee and wages way too high and didn’t fit whatever system we were supposed to be playing at all but he did okay, got an average Championship striker’s return for us - and at least he was here.

Fletcher was an absolute joke and Braithwaite was a disgrace.

The real criminal thing was having Patrick Bamford and Adama Traore on the bench, and then selling them both (I know that wasn’t Monk).

I mean… If your job is a football manager and you can’t see the ability those two have, you need a P45 delivered by registered post.

 

[Andy_W]

I'm not sure in the modern game that is enough and as you go up the quality ladder you simply don't get the time and space to do that very often because better defenders don't leave you unmarked very often. That's why Britt could score 30 in League 1, 13 against bottom half champ teams, and 1 against top half.

There's a massive difference in quality of positioning, decision making and most importantly concentration levels from players like Grant Hanley, Tim Reem, and Craig Cathcart compared to Josh Knight, Harlee Dean and Aiden Flint. You can't wait for the mistake against the former, you have to force the mistake. The later, hang around enough and they'll be out of position, make a bad choice, or switch off and leave you.

Yes, of course, the game is different from 10, 20, 30 years ago, but not much different within the last 5 years or so. Our style has changed more in the last year than previous mind, we went from defensive, to disjointed, to lump ball, to awful, to mixed, and now to actual football.

You keep missing that he did it for two years at Forest, either side of the injury, that's about as proven as you're gonna get, for players we could buy, and players have moved up the ladder for less. If we had paid £10m for a striker scoring at 130/160 minutes per goal in the champo, for two seasons we would hall have been doing backflips. 15m was too much though, as was his wages, but don't think I've said otherwise.

How many of our strikers have scored at a goal less than 200 minutes, when we've been good, never mind when we've been poor, and done that over two seasons?

Against good sides, you're just going to have the ball less (and they're going to have better players), so you're likely to create less, and concede more chances. There are a lot more teams with decent forwards, than decent defenders etc. Our defence for the karanka times was exceptional, but we also played a defensive style to suit that, hence why none of our strikers got many goals. A strikers output is largely based on setup, but long balls to Britt was not going to work, he wasn't that type of player and wasn't rapid for a balls over the top. He would have suited a footballing side who relentlessly got balls in the box, sort of like what we're trying to do now. The crossing back then was poor mind. Traore was our only creativity for one of the years, but his crossing wasn't exactly great (not compared to the balls Giles puts in, of any kind, or Jones low balls/ clever cut backs etc).

Different defenders suit different teams I suppose. We used to score a lot of set plays under the likes of Karanka (we had a few delivery options), but then we didn't when we had the likes of Flint, who used to score regularly for other teams. We ended up being one of the worst sides for set plays for a long time, largely as delivery was poor, that's going to hurt forwards too. We've had a lot of strikers with low returns, who have had better before here, and only a couple who done better after being here, it's not a coincidence.

Anyway, I've had enough now, got some actual work to do today Hopefully I don't see you again on this topic in a few months, as I think we've now got some actual supply, and Muniz will get plenty in this side (any striker should), and maybe even Forss too once he gets up to speed.

 

[indeedido]

Bamford when played at CF was light years better than Assombolonga.
I'd remind you Andy that Assombolonga has only ever scored 15 in a league season for us. Bamford did better than that, and that before you factor in what else Bamford brought to our team.
When pulis played Bamford at CF he did brilliantly as did the team.

It really isn't just about us over paying for Assombolonga, or paying him too much.
He was slow, had terrible technique, hopeless in the air, lazy and didn't link well with his team. Even taking penalties, he didn't do the job we paid so much money for
Nobody else wanted him and even on a free he ended up in Turkey...failing.

That you keep defending him is perverse.

 

[Andy_W]

The real criminal thing was having Patrick Bamford and Adama Traore on the bench, and then selling them both (I know that wasn’t Monk).

I mean… If your job is a football manager and you can’t see the ability those two have, you need a P45 delivered by registered post.

We've done a few odd things over the years.

It's mad that we had Stuani on the wing too, when we were struggling for a good forward, he was clearly excellent at timing runs and finishing, and not a great winger. He's scored 102 goals in 166 league games since he left us, and over 40 of those came in his first two seasons in La Liga, in 65 games.

He's back in La Liga now, 35, and still knows where the goal is, Girona must have been laughing their nuts off.

 

[Andy_W]

Bamford when played at CF was light years better than Assombolonga.
I'd remind you Andy that Assombolonga has only ever scored 15 in a league season for us. Bamford did better than that, and that before you factor in what else Bamford brought to our team.
When pulis played Bamford at CF he did brilliantly as did the team.

It really isn't just about us over paying for Assombolonga, or paying him too much.
He was slow, had terrible technique, hopeless in the air, lazy and didn't link well with his team. Even taking penalties, he didn't do the job we paid so much money for
Nobody else wanted him and even on a free he ended up in Turkey...failing.

That you keep defending him is perverse.

Bamford was a better footballer, never said he wasn't, and I rated him highly. He's much better now though, than he was for us. He was a very good link-up player too, and very clever in his role, but didn't look like a player who could score 25, not when we had him anyway.

His best season (14-15) he got 17 goals, but he was playing in a better side than which Britt ever did. His last season under Monk his confidence was a bit shot after being sub for 3 years, and then he wasn't suited to lone striker lump ball, just as much as it didn't suit Britt. PAddy could play out wider though, Britt clearly wasn't suited to that. Paddy's another example of a player we did not make good use of.

He still only got 16 goals for Leeds when they went up mind, not exactly Mitrovic etc and Leeds were second top socrers I think. It was 6 years after he got 17 for us, than when he got 17 for Leeds in the Prem under Biesla, and his third season under Bielsa.

It's horses for courses, some strikers can suit any team andy varying roles, but they're rare. For others you need to play to their style. Britt was similar to Rhodes I suppose. Need to be in a front two, not playing lump ball, and creating chances.

I'm only really talking about his first couple of seasons, don't blame him for not doing anything under Woody, we were tactically inept, and he had started a downward spiral around then anyway. He's passed it now, for this level, but still playing for an average side, who apparently play one up top, and he's second choice behind Balotelli. Still got a goal every 173 mins last year mind, which is not the end of the world, for someone who is sub 2/3 games.

 

[BoroMart]

See I don’t see Britt as the big disaster from that period. He was crap against the good teams, fee and wages way too high and didn’t fit whatever system we were supposed to be playing at all but he did okay, got an average Championship striker’s return for us - and at least he was here.

Fletcher was an absolute joke and Braithwaite was a disgrace.

The real criminal thing was having Patrick Bamford and Adama Traore on the bench, and then selling them both (I know that wasn’t Monk).

We should never have spent that on an unproven player like Britt coming off the back of a serious injury. He wasn't even regularly in Forests first team the back end of the season before we bought him.

Anyway that 15m should have been spent on other areas we could have signed Gross, Chalobah and Watkins for less than we paid for Britt and kept Bamford

 

[BoroMart]

How many of our strikers have scored at a goal less than 200 minutes, when we've been good, never mind when we've been poor, and done that over two seasons?

Another way to look at it is that the most successful side he has ever been in in his life was that Pulis side that didn't lay a glove on Villa in the play offs, where he was in James Chesters back pocket all 180 mins.

He scores vs poor players, no doubt.

But we spent that money for a game changer to get us promoted, not to make sure we finished above Rotherham and Birmingham and Burton. So by that reasoning he has to be deemed a flop.

The fact that today, more than 5 years after signing him, we are still financially constrained by him (and will be for another 18 months), shows how much of a mistake he was.

 

[Andy_W]

Another way to look at it is that the most successful side he has ever been in in his life was that Pulis side that didn't lay a glove on Villa in the play offs, where he was in James Chesters back pocket all 180 mins.

He scores vs poor players, no doubt.

But we spent that money for a game changer to get us promoted, not to make sure we finished above Rotherham and Birmingham and Burton. So by that reasoning he has to be deemed a flop.

The fact that today, more than 5 years after signing him, we are still financially constrained by him (and will be for another 18 months), shows how much of a mistake he was.

The team was a flop, for many years, I wouldn't expect more than 15 goals for a side like that, playing how we did. Goals per minute he had a good return.
He didn't do much else mind, but we knew that before we signed him, and bought him just to do what he did I suppose.

If it was that easy to score against poor players, then everyone would have a hat full, they still need to get the chances etc.

We've had a lot of strikers playing against similar poor players, and none of them have made the most of that. Some of it is down to quality, but a lot of it is down to how we played.

I don't consider him a flop, but I don't think he tore it up either, but can't imagine many would have done in those sides.

The high fee, and ludicrous wages were a mistake, no denying that. But we could have potentially reduced some of that, but didn't again through bad handling of players, which we were very good at, we seem better now. We still seem to struggle to bring in good purchases (top/ high-demand players), without offering high values and wages, but I can understand that to a degree, due to our location.