Viktor Gyökeres

I agree we're light up front, I can't argue that... However, Wilder wants 5 strikers and Coburn will 100% be one of those 5 strikers.

Yeh I would imagine he would be but won't, and shouldn't be a starter.. not if we're serious about doing what Wilder has come here to do.

I'm reading a lot of acceptance and settling on the fact that some of these young lads are going to be part of our first team picture this season and that it's alright, when it's not. It's excuse making for our inability to recruit.

Stuff like "We've got Hackney there, he's looked good in pre season and he won't start anyway because Howson and Crooks are there".

The season is long as we all know and if we're relying on the likes of Hackney to come into that team and contribute after loss of form, suspensions, etc, we aren't going to get far... and that's nothing against him or any of the others.

Boro need numbers through the door and we need quality ASAP.
 
Yeh I would imagine he would be but won't, and shouldn't be a starter.. not if we're serious about doing what Wilder has come here to do.

I'm reading a lot of acceptance and settling on the fact that some of these young lads are going to be part of our first team picture this season and that it's alright, when it's not. It's excuse making for our inability to recruit.

Stuff like "We've got Hackney there, he's looked good in pre season and he won't start anyway because Howson and Crooks are there".

The season is long as we all know and if we're relying on the likes of Hackney to come into that team and contribute after loss of form, suspensions, etc, we aren't going to get far... and that's nothing against him or any of the others.

Boro need numbers through the door and we need quality ASAP.

Never suggested Coburn will be in our starting 11, and we are definitely light up front... but Coburn is no longer "a young lad we're settling for". He is 100% deserving of a place in the squad.

I can almost guarantee Coburn will be on the bench nearly every game this season, he'll get more minutes than he did last season, and he'll probably score a few goals.

What's the point of having a youth team if none of them are ever given a chance?

If Boyd-Munce isn't in the squad, he's too old to bring in as a youth so we can't use him at all. Shall we just not sign these type of cheap/free young players anymore?

Every year we bring in 1-2 young lads to the squad. I'm not saying they're starting players, but they should be in the squad and given a few minutes here and there.

Last year Coburn and Jones were brought in and they've both done really well. This year... in my opinion, it should be Bilongo and Hackney.
 
It's not that difficult to understand that what you've put there isn't what I said, you're totally misrepresenting the conversation here.

I never once said he deserves £4m to sit and not play, I said he isn't going to miss out on several million in wages to come play for a lower league club out of "profession pride" given how little earning potential he has left in his career given his age and how little footballers earn post retirement. He probably values money in his and his families bank over the opinions of footy forum fans on his love of the game.
I was responding to "Nano", not you.
Nevertheless, thank you for your opinion (y)
Lets see who we get through the door and make a positive start to the season.
UTMB.


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I did comparisons last year between Britt and a couple of other champo CFs, I remember Grabban was one. Anyway Britts stats were heavily weighted at the bottom 6-8 teams, much moreso than the other strikers. Even bog standard ones like Waghorn who score much more frequently against top half sides.

I put it down to how he scores most of his goals. Most of his goals are when he can get himself free within 8 yards of goal, again moreso than his contemporaries. He can find space without the ball, but can't create space with the ball at his feet. Now his finishing is pretty good from within 8 yards. But it takes a defender who doesn't have the concentration and awareness to allow you that space. Players like Ream and Egan don't switch off as often as Mark Beevers or Marc Roberts.

It's not even about creativity, many of the other strikers were in sides that didn't create enough, and his stats for finishing beyond 8 yards are very poor. I don't think he has the power or accuracy in his strikes, or disguise either. It's always telegraphed where he's going to put it, too long/slow a backlift, which makes it, advantage keeper. there are a lot of technical issues to his game.

I make it 28 of his goals were against bottom 8 relegation sides, 3 against play offs and above, and 14 against midtable sides. He's great in a team that wants to avoid relegation, he's below average against midtable sides, and useless if you want a shot at promotion.

Fair play, at least you've looked into it in detail (y)

When Britt played for Forest (averaging 1 in 2, over two seasons), nearly every goal he scored was against teams above Forest. We've not had a player get 1 in 2 in the league (any league) since I've been alive, I think. I'd love to know who the last player was to do that? I thought Bernie did, but it appears not.

Britt also got 8 more goals away from home for us, than he did at home, that's a stat I found surprising, we all know it's harder to score away.

I think 90% of it comes down to who you play for, and what style they play.

Even if you compare it to lord Bamford, a player most of us liked/ loved, who has proven he can do it in the prem. He managed 17 goals here, in his best season for us, and in his last season before going to Leeds he got 11 in 39 (8 in 26 when playing CF). Of those 11 goals in 5 were against bottom 4 clubs, 4 mid table, 1 below us (7th) and 1 against top. That's no better than Britt's record. In Bamford's first season with Leeds (they didn't go up) he was scoring a goal every 150 mins (a bit better than 1 in 2), but the year they won the league he still only got 16.

I'm not using the above to say Brit is as good a player as Bamford now, but back then I think he would have outscored him in any side if they both played CF, obviously Bamford's come on a bit, and Britt's gone downhill since.

Goals still count against all sides, if you beat the bottom 12 home and away 1-0 then you will pick up enough elsewhere to get automatic promotion.

Riis got 16 goals for a side who only scored 52, that's good going, Piroe got 22 out of Swansea's 58, also great (I think both of them would have outscored Britt and Paddy). I think anything more than 1 in 3 for us in previous seasons (or a goal every 200 minutes which works out similar for substitutions) is a pretty good return, but with now having more creativity a goal every 150 mins should be the target. We need a striker getting around 22-25 this year, it's critical.
 
Are we really struggling ?
We don’t have our strikers yet but 2 of the 3 key areas are sorted in keeper and left wing . We even have a back up keeper
We're just lacking a bit of depth, other than the obvious forwards. The first 11 looks very, very strong (except missing a forward).

Getting Giles or someone on that LH side as good was something I really wasn't expecting, and that might pay off with just bringing in one good forward, rather than hopefully two.

The backup keeper is probably better than any of our keepers from the last few years too, going off him getting players player and supporters player of the year. Leinehan might now end up being our first choice CB too, which is also great.
 
Fair play, at least you've looked into it in detail (y)

When Britt played for Forest (averaging 1 in 2, over two seasons), nearly every goal he scored was against teams above Forest. We've not had a player get 1 in 2 in the league (any league) since I've been alive, I think. I'd love to know who the last player was to do that? I thought Bernie did, but it appears not.

Britt also got 8 more goals away from home for us, than he did at home, that's a stat I found surprising, we all know it's harder to score away.

I think 90% of it comes down to who you play for, and what style they play.

I mostly agree with this, when he scored 15 in 30 in the 14/15 season Forest recognised his goal scoring ability and played a very basic 4-5-1 "get the ball to Britt" strategy.

However, after this season he suffered a very bad knee injury and was out for the entire 16/17 season. He came back and scored 14 in 17/18, but it's been all downhill from there (as we've seen).

I think we took a massive gamble with £15 million and Forest recognised that he wasn't the same player after he came back so sold him on.
 
He wasn't included because he isn't the type of striker we want. He's a big hold the ball up type striker (or he's supposed to be anyway). We're looking for a faster striker who's good with his feet.

We don't have pre-season to put players in shop windows, we do it to get the team fit and playing the same game.
He is a striker

He is better than having nobody

He also scored more goals than Coburn in the championship last season
 
I was responding to "Nano", not you.
Nevertheless, thank you for your opinion (y)
Lets see who we get through the door and make a positive start to the season.
UTMB.
But nano hasn't said that he "deserves" it either, just said it's a job and it's his choice to make which is what I said. Can't see anyone arguing that footballers deserve their salaries in this thread
 
He is a striker
He is better than having nobody
He also scored more goals than Coburn in the championship last season

True he is better than nobody, but including him in the team means we have to change everything we've been working on for the last 3-4 weeks.

As fans we probably don't know the full story regarding transfers - but I'm pretty confident we'll bring in at the very least 1-2, hopefully 2-3 main strikers before the season starts.
 
I mostly agree with this, when he scored 15 in 30 in the 14/15 season Forest recognised his goal scoring ability and played a very basic 4-5-1 "get the ball to Britt" strategy.

However, after this season he suffered a very bad knee injury and was out for the entire 16/17 season. He came back and scored 14 in 17/18, but it's been all downhill from there (as we've seen).

I think we took a massive gamble with £15 million and Forest recognised that he wasn't the same player after he came back so sold him on.
He scored at a faster rate in 16/17, a goal every 130 mins, in a Forest team who finished 21st, which is pretty much a miracle. 14/15 was a goal every 161, when Forest finished 14th.

It's exceptionally difficult to deduce from the above, that he's going downhill, that looks like he's going massively uphill. £15m was still a lot mind, but that's the going rate for a proven 1 in 2 striker who is mid twenties, unless they want out/ running contract down etc.

For striker stats for us, I don't think the problem has been the nails so much, it's been the hammers, and guys holding the hammers. But....I'm not against that though, we've had a pretty strong defence for a long while and probably had to play defensive or even Pulisball. It's not great for our strikers, but probably the best overall way of us getting results for our team/ budget. 15 for us, could be like 20 or even 25 for someone else etc.
 
But nano hasn't said that he "deserves" it either, just said it's a job and it's his choice to make which is what I said. Can't see anyone arguing that footballers deserve their salaries in this thread
I will decide who and how I respond to.
We will leave it there.
 
Even if you compare it to lord Bamford, a player most of us liked/ loved, who has proven he can do it in the prem. He managed 17 goals here, in his best season for us, and in his last season before going to Leeds he got 11 in 39 (8 in 26 when playing CF). Of those 11 goals in 5 were against bottom 4 clubs, 4 mid table, 1 below us (7th) and 1 against top. That's no better than Britt's record. In Bamford's first season with Leeds (they didn't go up) he was scoring a goal every 150 mins (a bit better than 1 in 2), but the year they won the league he still only got 16.
I see Bamford as not a great goalscorer, but a scorer of great goals.

He can create for himself, he can outwit top CBs. A different beast to Britt
 
Are we really struggling ?
We don’t have our strikers yet but 2 of the 3 key areas are sorted in keeper and left wing . We even have a back up keeper

The squad is still pretty threadbare, so yes I would say there is a long way to go if we want to be contenders.
 
But nano hasn't said that he "deserves" it either, just said it's a job and it's his choice to make which is what I said. Can't see anyone arguing that footballers deserve their salaries in this thread
I was sort of going to try and justify it a little bit/ or at least try and look at it from their side, but decided against it.

I was going to use the odds of success, giving up a lot of freedom in the best years of their life, public spotlight, dicks like us whinging at them week in week out, short earning window at massive tax/ agents fees, expected to spend loads/ peer pressure to fit the lifestyle etc. It's probably not as rosy as most make out, for the vast majority (albeit still rosy).

Someone earning 50k could end up with similar in their bank in their lifetime to an average champo footballer who doesn't get a decent job afterwards (most don't). Nobody can compete with premier league big earners or top champo earners, but the odds/ risk of making that are extremely slim.
 
He scored at a faster rate in 16/17, a goal every 130 mins, in a Forest team who finished 21st, which is pretty much a miracle. 14/15 was a goal every 161, when Forest finished 14th.

It's exceptionally difficult to deduce from the above, that he's going downhill, that looks like he's going massively uphill. £15m was still a lot mind, but that's the going rate for a proven 1 in 2 striker who is mid twenties, unless they want out/ running contract down etc.

For striker stats for us, I don't think the problem has been the nails so much, it's been the hammers, and guys holding the hammers. But....I'm not against that though, we've had a pretty strong defence for a long while and probably had to play defensive or even Pulisball. It's not great for our strikers, but probably the best overall way of us getting results for our team/ budget. 15 for us, could be like 20 or even 25 for someone else etc.

It's 100% hindsight and when we signed Britt, I was really excited - I thought we'd hit the jackpot and he'd be firing us to promotion.

But even though he did have his best season in 16/17... Not many players come back from being totally out of the game for 18 months, and even though it appeared he had, it was still a huge risk.

Look at him now, 10 goals last year for a mid-table Turkish team? and he's only 29?... I think knowing what we know, it wasn't just our striker graveyard that killed him off - he was slowly losing his ability, and he probably still is.
 
I see Bamford as not a great goalscorer, but a scorer of great goals.

He can create for himself, he can outwit top CBs. A different beast to Britt
Yeah, but a great goal is worth the same as a 5 yard tap in.

Outwitting CB's is great, but so is being in the right place at the right time, it's hard to coach either, and if someone has both then they've cracked it.
 
Before the start of last season, Coburn had only played 49 minutes of professional football.
Jones had only played 11 games in the Scottish second division (mostly as a sub and only scoring 1 goal).

Should they have not been included in last seasons squad? What's the difference?

You can say "they're better players" - but without the luxury of hindsight, we'd have had no idea if they were better players if we didn't include them.

Boyd-Munce will 100% be in and around the team this season, and Bilongo's had a really good pre-season.
Some times you get lucky with youth players doing well when they fill in. The typical route is to send them on loan and see if they do well. Jones was a revelation but you can't expect to unearth one of them every year. If we hadn't have been really short last season and had to start Jones then he'd have probably gone on loan again before the window closed. Coburn was a back-up but you'll remember that we had 4 other strikers that couldn't hit a barn door so he got a chance.

Youth players don't count towards the 25 so we can, and should, have 25 plus youth. The youth players are really there for an emergency. The ones we think will be good in the future will be out on loan getting regular football to prove themselves. The ones we have left over in the squad aren't typically those that you'd expect to make the 1st team this season. This is why we can have 5 strikers though because Coburn is 19 so we can have 4 senior strikers plus Coburn in the squad. Same with Bilongo.

Boyd-Munce made 1 appearance last season even when we were woefully short in midfield so not sure Wilder thinks he is ready. He hasn't even featured in 10 championship games in his career.
 
It's 100% hindsight and when we signed Britt, I was really excited - I thought we'd hit the jackpot and he'd be firing us to promotion.

But even though he did have his best season in 16/17... Not many players come back from being totally out of the game for 18 months, and even though it appeared he had, it was still a huge risk.

Look at him now, 10 goals last year for a mid-table Turkish team? and he's only 29?... I think knowing what we know, it wasn't just our striker graveyard that killed him off - he was slowly losing his ability, and he probably still is.

Aye it was a risk, but most signings are, but suppose it was only 12 months out and a couple of months getting fit, it's a lot easier to recover nowadays and no doubt we gave him one hell of a medical.

I don't think it changed his game all that much back then, not with regards to what his best attributes where, but some players do peak early and it probably took 5 years of his career at the back end. He's clearly no good now, but it is 5 years on.
 
True he is better than nobody, but including him in the team means we have to change everything we've been working on for the last 3-4 weeks.

As fans we probably don't know the full story regarding transfers - but I'm pretty confident we'll bring in at the very least 1-2, hopefully 2-3 main strikers before the season starts.
I was at Morecambe

Uche would do a better job as a central isolated forward than Watmore

With Giles deliver and Jones getting to the by line he could be very effective in the middle
 
Some times you get lucky with youth players doing well when they fill in. The typical route is to send them on loan and see if they do well. Jones was a revelation but you can't expect to unearth one of them every year. If we hadn't have been really short last season and had to start Jones then he'd have probably gone on loan again before the window closed. Coburn was a back-up but you'll remember that we had 4 other strikers that couldn't hit a barn door so he got a chance.

Youth players don't count towards the 25 so we can, and should, have 25 plus youth. The youth players are really there for an emergency. The ones we think will be good in the future will be out on loan getting regular football to prove themselves. The ones we have left over in the squad aren't typically those that you'd expect to make the 1st team this season. This is why we can have 5 strikers though because Coburn is 19 so we can have 4 senior strikers plus Coburn in the squad. Same with Bilongo.

Boyd-Munce made 1 appearance last season even when we were woefully short in midfield so not sure Wilder thinks he is ready. He hasn't even featured in 10 championship games in his career.

Being realistic, we're not going to have a 25 man squad. I don't think we've had a proper 25 man squad at the start of the season for years when you count injuries (Ameobi and Fisher last year) and then late loans coming in (which could still happen).

We have 16 right now including the 3 GKs and excluding Coburn, and I think we can agree we're not going to sign 9 players before the window closes, so Boyd-Munce... is in the 25.

I think there's a case for Coulson being included in the 25 too if he doesn't find a new club.
The latter 3-4 squad positions are as you said, "emergencies", and there's no benefit for us sending Coulson out on loan again.
 
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