Gregor

Haha nice one Buster but not losing will not really get us anywhere , it’s wins we need. However I’m sure you said only a few days ago that he wasn’t making any progress and would be off in a few weeks ?

AJ has moved on from Dunfermline as they make a change in management. I had a look at their league position and they are only one place behind us with two points less than ourselves. It was interesting to note that AJ has actually won more games than Robbo having a 30% win ratio whereas Robbo has only a 26% win ratio , which is second lowest in the league. Dunfermline deemed this not good enough so could Robbo be under pressure if he doesn’t win next couple of league games. Whats everyone’s thoughts on this?

I think 9 goals from 15 starts is actually pretty decent return .

Cant agree unless we are going to bring in Shankland Dobbie or McKay below table shows me why we should find a way to get Oakley and White starting on the park at the same tme as it would lead to more goals. The table below is of the current top ten scorers with Oakley and Austin, added for comparison in the championship and shows starts to goals, White and Oakley feature well. In starts to goals ratio White is 4th in league, in mins per goal Oakley is 4th in league.What is interesting is where Walsh is in the table, while he has been lauded by a lot of fans as being an integral part of our squad which I agree with btw, the three strikers all have better goal ratios than him. Walsh has started all 19 games while the others have starts of only 10,9 and 3. Players will always have more confidence when starting and also their match fitness will increase the game time that they have. We all want more wins we all want more goals and I have always backed the strikers we have but we must find a way to always have at least two on the park at the same time.Suerley its the managers job to make sure we have every chance of winning and if we cant play with 2 centre mids as we expoae ourselve he either finds a centre midfielder that can cope with playing in a two, or change formation to 352 to accomodate the strikers who will get us goals rather than accomodate the midfielders as we are doing at present. So all this talk about misfiring strikers is a smokescreen to accomodate players who are not contributing as much as they should be. White and Oakley have started the least number of games than any of the others but have certainly done well. Robbo hasnt helped the situation only playing one striker and constantly moaning about missed chances as he has virtually thrown the strikers under a bus. without actually having a true reflection of how we get to winning games. he walked off the park at Dumfries shaking his head in disbelief as to how we managed to come back and score 3 goals, well we had two strikers on the pitch and we went for it but the fact of the matter that once again we had concede 2 or more goals. Austin who has been forgotten has even a better ratio than Walsh. I honestlty think it would be a total waste of money to spend it on another striker but so many on here think our guys are rubbish when they are clearly not compared to others in same league. So maybe we have to look at other areas that needs improving than constantly saying we need a new striker. Game management is one area we need to improve on, not conceding 2 or more goals in a match needs addressed and if we addressed these areas we would be in a better position rather than take the easy option of blaming missed chances. The Mantis is correct I am passionate about this as I want us to start winning games. CHAMPIONSHIP TOP 10 SCORERS.xlsx

I think you have some sort of mystical amount of goals in your mind they should be scoring.

If you are referring to my reply then I dont think so , health is far more important than football.

18 starts 6 goals ratio 1 goal every 3 starts ?

No problem mate hope your health is ok

I honestly don’t think you will know until you try at times mate. I mean centre forwards have changed to centre half’s at times in careers. Also a recent one is the guy from Hearts who was signed for Cardiff as a right back and now plays as Centre forward. Sometimes managers have a mental block about things and others are braver and try different formations and players in different positions, one thing is sure that 4231 with same players isn’t getting us the wins that we crave. I feel that Oakley would run into Channels and in behind the defender where White when played as a two can come a bit deeper as he did with Austin on Saturday. If we don’t try we won’t know is where I’m coming from. I’m sure they were tried together in a pre season game which Barry Wilson they played well together. However we haven’t tried them in a competitive game from the start.

My point of quoting stats was to counter the argument that our strikers are rubbish . I think we have 3 good strikers and would like 2 of them getting starts together it wasn’t to say which one was better as they all have similar stats, but Austin and White have more goals and experience under their belts than Oakley.

Listening to talk sport this morning and Danny Murphy was discussing Defoe going to Rangers , his comment was get the ball to his feet and he will score goals , the same goes for most centre forward as they depend on good service.

Unfortunately he has never tried White and Oakley together also he has never tried Walsh up top with any other striker either so Robbo hasn’t tried all that he could try.

As you have said yourself you don’t get to as many games now, yet you seem to want to criticise players without actually watching the 90 mins in the stadium. Now I understand you may have valid reasons for not being there. You have a problem with me using the term Sheep but isn’t that like being a sheep and following other people’s opinions rather than watching the 90 mins and coming to your own opinion. I agree with you that some are peed off because we have been at a higher level but that is a problem of fans not accepting where we actually are. Expectation sometimes can be a hindrance and clouds ones judgement of players on the field of play. The booing of Polworth when he was subbed yesterday was a disgrace . We have to accept we are playing in the Championship which is a tough league Rangers and Hibs found that out and took 3 seasons to get back to premiership and they have far bigger resources than ourselves . Now Dundee Utd are in their 3rd year down here yet some of our fans can’t accept its where we are. Its clear that some fans on here don’t seem to like our strikers or think they are any good especially White who gets stick constantly. You quoted Shankland who is having an excellent season but he plays in a team who plays with two up top , he has also been with Ayr last season in a league below getting used to playing with his team mates and being in a winning side. Also Shankland starts constantly which is a massive benefit to strikers. Shankland is proving to be more prolific than ours but that does not prove that ours are duds. When I last checked only 3 ( Dobbie Shankland and McKay) players have better ratios than White yet many of our fans say he is a dud when clearly the facts don’t support that particular opinion. However it may be just a preference of a type of player and White doesn’t fit the profile of some folks preference , that’s fine in my book, but some of the abuse he gets on here is incredible when you actually look at what he has achieved in only his first few months with us. Our strikers are in and out of team as the manager chops and changes the strikers , and I feel we have started with one up top too many times so based on all of this Our three strikers have done well to have the stats they have achieved but it’s still not good enough for some fans. I stand by my quoting of stats Goals / Starts/ratio White 9 goals /15 starts:/ 1 goal every 1.66 starts Austin 4 goals / 7 starts / 1 goal every 1.75 starts Oakley 5 goals /11 starts/ 1 goal every 2.2 starts Most clubs would be happy to have strikers who are scoring a goal every couple of games. We have two who have better ratios than that and one who is just outside of that , but the problem is we only start one of them at a time.Austin is a forgotten man for starting games yet has decent stats, we started the season playing two up and won four games out of five . So Mantis do you agree the stats are decent or not.? I have no problem with yourself or others having a different opinion to mine, but to keep on just blaming the strikers after every performance is surely not an accurate reflection of the problems of the team.

? I love stats and their stats are decent.

That old chestnut ? No mate not his mate just a guy who likes debate and I also like to look at things from different POV to be the devils advocate if you like. I don’t like being a sheep and just following other people’s opinions for the sake of it especially if I think views are so out of kilter to what I’m watching.Different POV makes people think about what they say , oh and I’m also a lover of stats because they kinda cut through the haze of opinions.

Agree 100%

Well if you can’t see that White got off the ground yesterday to head a pass to Walsh Then we will just have to agree to disagree.Does he win every High ball no he doesn’t but will win his share. He is a good striker and his stats back that up .But why let the facts get in the way of your opinion. You say you hope white gets the goals , he has scored 9 goals from a total of 15 starts including 5 from 10 league starts , I really think you are wanting Ronaldo or Messi up front ?

100% correct compare and contrast the support away from home to the home support is massive in difference.

I changed it from rubbish to totally disagree so apologies from my original post However in all of these only two opportunities featured White ,and he is the only striker , don’t think there was a one on one for him as just checked the highlights and they wee half chances which were blocked and saved by keeper so don’t agree with a lack of composure comment. Also when we went two up front White ,the striker ,created the goal by a well directed header to Walsh who finished with aplomb. So in reality of all the 12 chances you quoted only 3 included White and in the only chance when he had a decent ball played to him he picked out Walsh with accuracy the other two chances were scraps. I feel your post actually support my opinion that we need to get more decent balls to the strikers especially White who will do something with the ball as proven in last 2 games. To constantly ridicule our top scorer is just wrong mate, and if you have a look at his past clubs in Scotland he has been top scorer with Stirling and Livingston and is now top scorer with us , so maybe we have to create more chances for Him and not blame him for the misses of others. Im convinced When we play with one forward the chances are falling to non strikers who don’t have the same ability to convert . What your analysis points out that maybe we need to acquire a goal scoring centre midfielder and accept that in our last two games Our 2 goals were scored and created by White by decent balls into box one by Walsh and other by Tremarco. However we cannot get away from the fact we have conceded 4 goals in these games in the latter part of each game. So thanks for your post as hopefully it helps clarify for others where I’m coming from.

Yeah but that’s the problem we have tom compare apples with apples and our strikers are decent championship strikers when you compare them to other championship strikers.

Spot on mate keep on doing the same thing expecting different result is definition of insanity.

Totally disagree mate have a look at the other strikers in the league and look at their ratios and compare with ours , only Shankland Dobbie and McKay have better ratios of starts to goals . We have decent strikers , Why are you looking at the strikers to blame for yesterday as in your own words you said the next twenty minutes were going to be a nightmare. That is because you don’t have any faith in our defence to maintain the lead but you continue to blame the strikers who have just created and scored and excellent goal , that doesn’t make sense at all . When we went in front after going two up front with a well worked goal , that big donkey and traffic cone as some call him , having a very good assist and a very good finish from Walsh. But as in many times this season we proceed to lose two goals , that is what needs looked at as we can’t keep conceding two goals and expect to win games. The spotlight needs to be put on the defence but lots of fans like yourself keep blaming White especially, which is bizarre when he has a very good scoring ratio, and talking about missed chances and Totally overlooking the fact that we concede too many goals. Last week we lost the game and so many blamed the missed chances but forgot that the county keeper had a good few outstanding saves so much so he got man of the match. I think missed chances are sitters , and how many sitters did we miss in last two games but we have conceded 4 goals in last 2!games. Priority is to stop conceding goals especially 2 a game.

Ah you are the one quoting scoring stats now ? ?

Happy New Year everyone