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Cobblers / transfer window

Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2016 10:06 am
by Kairdiff Exile
No analysis at all on here of our Boxing Day defeat?

I guess it was too much to hope that we could overcome our Northampton hoodoo and Boxing Day hoodoo at the same time, but it's still gutting to concede that late. Given how many chances we created and the fact we couldn't convert them (coupled with our over-reliance on Maguire to generate goals), a striker must be Appleton's priority when the window opens. There's good reason why we might want cover elsewhere, but in most of those other positions we're waiting for people to come back from injury - whereas up front we still look short of quality.

Thoughts?

Re: Cobblers / transfer window

Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2016 11:29 am
by Radley Rambler
Goals win games - simple really. The performances against Oldham and Northampton showed how woeful we are in front of goal. At Bury, we didn't score a goal from open play. There has been a lot of talk about how we have created the most chances in League One but have one of the worst conversion rates. Not a great surprise really because we are playing plenty of creative players (McGuire, Hall, Johnson) but seem to have forgotten that we need strikers as well. Hemmings is so isolated, he must be getting very frustrated.

McGuire might actually be part of the problem here. He is a classic number 10 but given his class is being asked to basically pick the ball up deep and orchestrate nearly every attack, this means that we don't have enough bodies up top. Johnson put in some delicious low crosses on Monday but Hemmings was surrounded by about 5 defenders on each occasion and had no other support.

Oh well - first season back in League 1 and mid-table at Christmas - not bad but it'll be interesting to now see if Eales/Appleton stick or twist in the window especially given the former's recent messaging.

Re: Cobblers / transfer window

Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2016 1:20 pm
by Kairdiff Exile
Radley Rambler wrote:Oh well - first season back in League 1 and mid-table at Christmas - not bad but it'll be interesting to now see if Eales/Appleton stick or twist in the window especially given the former's recent messaging.
Indeed - and with all the injuries we've had and players we lost/released in the summer, I'm quite happy with mid-table. I'd be amazed if we threw much money at the transfer window though; there's little to be gained from doing so if we're not likely to be in the mix at either end of the table, and we'll get better value investing in the summer. We need a striker for the reasons you've highlighted, but I can't see many more faces coming in.

Pointless exercise perhaps, but I wonder how much better we'd be doing if we'd stayed injury-free this year. If we'd been able to pick Christian Ribeiro, Rob Hall, Joe Skarz, Wes Thomas et al when we'd wanted them, if Aaron Martin hadn't had his nebulous "off-field problems", if Marvin Johnson hadn't spent his first few months getting over his illness, if if if...! I reckon we'd be about six points better off (a few games we lost which we might have drawn and a few we drew which we might have won), which would put us on the playoff fringes. Had that been the situation, we might have had a case to push for investment, but as things stand I think any major spending will be left until the summer.

Re: Cobblers / transfer window

Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2016 1:53 pm
by Old Abingdonian
I would agree with this.

There were times on Monday when it looked as if the only idea on the field was to give the ball to Maguire to make things happen. Is he too influential in the team? He is clearly the strongest player, but in a generally well-managed media environment, he has made little secret of his desire to play as an out-and-out forward. If MApp has been forced to accede to this wish, then perhaps we have not adjusted accordingly - as others have said, he can't really create all the chances and score them. I suspect we also miss Sercombe, who did have a knack of busting a gut to get from midfield into the box.