pulling my hair out....

[FFC1987]

Don't know about anyone else, but I do find Fonte's lack of ability to miss his marker and find a yard to become one of said options a little frustrating. Its not all him obviously but against the likes of Boro etc when Ryan got in behind and just put the ball in a dangerous area with no one on end was frustrating.

[MJG]

The thing is it is incumbent on other players to use pace, power or guile to get into a space and give the wingers a target, and neither Fonte nor Kamara are doing that

If I'm a winger I'm looking for options. A striker (as we only play one), possibly the other winger far side. and one or two coming in from central positions.
Its not only strikers.
You look back at goals towards end of last season and a lot were pull backs to midfielders.

"Pull backs to midfielders" - well we didn't play with a striker toward the end of last season so that void was occupied by a "midfielder", piazon/Ayite/Kebano, playing in the striker's position. But I presume the £8m we spent on Fonte was intended to buy someone who could take that role and finish more clinically and consistently. But he is probably worse in the striker role than the any of those 3 midfielders

you know perfectly well what I meant by pull back for midfielders. You want a player in six yard box, one behind coming from wide and and one or two striving in the box. In many ways I don't care if they are strikers, midfielders or a Goalkeeper going for a walk, it's about options.

so you're saying we're fine carrying on with the 4-6 formation and no strikers then? in that case we can send back fonte in january, and no need to replace him, if we're going to rely on midfielders (or defenders or even the GK) to get all our goals

where have I said that?

[Logicalman]

er, lets cool heads lads, just let it go, eh?  094.gif

[colinwhite]

Anyone got stats on goals scored from cutbacks in the last couple of years?
The thing I feel most frustrating is that the whole team knows that getting to the by-line is how we open deep sittig teams up and yet we fail to get on the end of things , and blindly play the ball onto their first defender almost every time.

[MJG]

The thing is it is incumbent on other players to use pace, power or guile to get into a space and give the wingers a target, and neither Fonte nor Kamara are doing that

If I'm a winger I'm looking for options. A striker (as we only play one), possibly the other winger far side. and one or two coming in from central positions.
Its not only strikers.
You look back at goals towards end of last season and a lot were pull backs to midfielders.

"Pull backs to midfielders" - well we didn't play with a striker toward the end of last season so that void was occupied by a "midfielder", piazon/Ayite/Kebano, playing in the striker's position. But I presume the £8m we spent on Fonte was intended to buy someone who could take that role and finish more clinically and consistently. But he is probably worse in the striker role than the any of those 3 midfielders

you know perfectly well what I meant by pull back for midfielders. You want a player in six yard box, one behind coming from wide and and one or two striving in the box. In many ways I don't care if they are strikers, midfielders or a Goalkeeper going for a walk, it's about options.

so you're saying we're fine carrying on with the 4-6 formation and no strikers then? in that case we can send back fonte in january, and no need to replace him, if we're going to rely on midfielders (or defenders or even the GK) to get all our goals

where have I said that?

"I don't care if they are strikers, midfielders or a Goalkeeper going for a walk"

players getting into the box. If a winger gets to the byline he should have 3 or more options.