Some of our players come in for abuse and are overly criticised at times namely Polworth and the strikers.

A different way to look at this we have three centre forwards who have some of the best conversion ratios in  start/goals  in the championship , Polworth does get assists and is a decent player, but so are the strikers their goals ratio to starts would back that up, but I think we would get more from Polworth and more goals if we played two up top together.One of the best games Polworth had was when we changed to 442 after being three goals down to Queens away and pulled back to draw in last twenty minutes of game.Polworth got the space in middle of park to drive forward as we played with width, stretched the game, and defenders had two forwards to contend with and space opened up.

I personally think the formation is stifling Polworth with 3 in the middle and we would get so much more goal opportunities with having two forwards on from the start.In thinking all of this i looked at the stats of our strikers compared to their peers in the Championship and looked at our midfield to front players stats in their time with the club.

In my mind 4231 is not getting us the wins we need , so surely when we have three of the best strikers in the league at least maybe the manager should try them as a pairing to get more goals.

In all competitions this season

White 13  starts 8 goals ratio of 1.62 only Shankland Dobbie and McKay have better ratios of top 25 goalscorers from Championship

Austin 7 starts 4 goals ratio of 1.75 only Shankland Dobbie  McKay and White have better ratios

Oakley 10  starts 5 goals ratio of 2 only Shankland Dobbie McKay White and Trouten have better ratios

If you take league games only Shankland Dobbie and Mckay have better ratios than both Oakley and White, thats why I get annoyed when the strikers are constantly criticised as these two guys are decent players.

We play five midfielders every week out of six and only play one forward out of 3.

Have a look at stats below which is all games started for the club and goals scored, maybe this is  why we dont score enough goals, we are not giving enough starts to the players who will get the goals by only playing 1 forward every game. Actually we dont play Austin at all now and he has marginally the best ratio of all players. I understand the strikers should have the better ratios but to play five midfielders and only one striker is not helping our quest for goals.

player             starts     goals    ratio    % chance of scoring
                
AUSTIN            16         10         1.6                       62%
WHITE              13          8         1.62                      61%
OAKLEY           39          17        2.29                     43%
WALSH            21           7           3                         33%
DORAN           148         28       5.28                      19%
WELSH            16           3        5.33                      19%
POLWORTH   147        16        9.18                      11%
CHALMERS     63         5         12.6                       8%

Trafford has started 32 games and yet to score, Vigurs on the other hand in his last spell with us  here started 106 games scoring 21 goals ratio of 5.04 which relates to 20% chance of scoring a goal when starting. I think its fair to say we miss him as he brings a bigger goal threat than all other midfielders apart from Tom Walsh.

Some people dont like stats and say you can use them to prove anything, but surely they give a little insight as to why we may be hampering our chances of scoring the goals we need to win games

Maybe this  could be the  time for the manager to at least try something different and give two lads out of three an opportunity to start some games together for the benefit of all 4 players including Polworth and the club .If we dont try we wont know if a partnership of Oakley and White would work ,Robbo hasnt  tried these two as a  starting pairing all season, maybe now is the time.

Maybe we have the answer in front of us just by tweaking things and changing formation to 442

Edited December 18, 20187 yr by Gregor

Today was a 4-4-1-1 with Polworth sitting jus behind Oakley. Neither scored ( Walsh & Doran did) , so how does that effect the stats !!!!! Needless to say.......,,delighted with the result !!!!!

Muirtown Jaggie it looked a 4231 to me and it’s was great to get the win but still think we sit in and allow the opposition to dominate play at times

Granted Robbo wasn’t going to change to two up as it doesn’t seem to be his way especially after we went two goals up.

Still convinced if we were more aggressive  and play more  offensive with two strikers we would win more games convingly.

The stats for strikers as you were asking now is 

White 13 starts 8 goals (ratio 1.62 )

Austin 7 starts 4 goals ( ratio 1.75 )

Oakley 11 starts 5 goals ( ratio 2.2)

All decent stats and thought although neither striker scored today they both played well imo

Also thought Trafford did well when he came on too and put himself about well too. Ridgers once again has to be congratulated as he certainly played his part in getting the victory.

We don’t make it easy for ourselves and missing the penalty really didn’t help when we could have buried them as they had just got a man sent off and I feel Morton heads would have gone down just before half time. Walsh and Doran did well in an attacking sense but feel we need an out and out left sided player like Calder to deliver balls into box from that side of pitch .Polworth had a mixed day and I watched more closely as others have said he gives up at times and that’s exactly what happened as he was in and out of the game and his slackness cost us the goal however he created one for us too  so that was good.

Looking forward to next week now as I feel we can go there with some confidence. 

20 hours ago, Snafu said:

We were playing 4-4-2 at the start of the season and it was chronic.

Lets keep 4-4-2 in the 90's and 00's where it belongs.

Even though we didn't play 4-4-2 under either Pele or Butcher

We need attacking midfielders

 

Well just watched the Rangers game on TV and when they switched to the 90s style 442 changed the game dramatically just liked we did against Queens when going two up.

2 up top is definitely the way to go in Scottish football imo.

 

 

Edited December 23, 20187 yr by Gregor

23 hours ago, Snafu said:

 

...Lets keep 4-4-2 in the 90's and 00's where it belongs.

Even though we didn't play 4-4-2 under either Pele or Butcher...

 

Going back a bit with Pele, who played 4 defenders, 4 midfielders and I'd say 2 up top.

Same Pele?

Bored now.

5 hours ago, Shorty said:

Bored now.

What u bored with