Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem Bare Bones....

[Worthy4England]

My argument is that had we not got Jerome, JDB and Nlundulu and used that money to sign someone of more proven and reliable quality….you can see that as May or JCH or some exotic foreign signing…whatever…someone with a more demonstrable track record who isn’t 37…….and had just three senior strikers with Carty as 4th back up would we be worse off?

For me we wouldn’t be. Yes we’d be lighter overall BUT we’d have three strikers capable of the level and instead of essentially 2 and then bodies who come on and make us worse….

There are areas we probably need more cover in (wing back) as they are such specialist roles…. But up front for me the priority has to be quality over just making up the numbers, As it stands we are pretty much reliant on Charles and Charles alone.

Where did the £300k number come from for Nlundulu? I think Iles has just said 'six figures', but I can't remember ever seeing a specific number quoted in the press.

Iles this morning is saying that "Wanderers declined to publicise what they spent on Forrester, Gomes and Nlundulu but it is understood that all three fees combined would not have totalled the money [Bristol] Rovers were prepared to pay for Clarke-Harris."

Finances aside, I can certainly see BWFCi's argument (if not necessarily agree with it ) that Charles + JCH + Vic + (Carty) sounds better than the underachieving rabble we have at the moment. But it's worth noting that we run our forwards ragged and sub them, so every single game we'd be chucking the kid in for at least 30 minutes - and if someone got injured....

I have complained quite enough about Evatt making the squad too thin, but up top we certainly don't lack quantity... just quality (hopefully only currently).

4 strikers feels unworkable for how we're using them - for 60-70 minutes. One injury to the main two and you then can't actually execute that game-plan very well, unless you add someone (maybe CMG) into the mix, but then you can't bring CMG on in MF and we're not full of options there either.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

∆ Aye. We need five at least. Not all of those will be brilliant. But it's a shame when the majority of them are plap.

[BWFC_Insane]

But then you have to question whether to actually get out of the division the way we play is sustainable. If needing 5 strikers who can all run, press and do that is a requirement with a limited budget you are going to sacrifice something…and given we are sacrificing quality…..

We went up from the championship with a strike force comprising (in the main) Holdsworth, Ricketts and Marshall.

If your two up front is so pivotal in terms of how they play it is another potential pain point on top of the wing backs that this system naturally can become an issue for.

[TANGODANCER]

4 strikers feels unworkable for how we're using them - for 60-70 minutes. One injury to the main two and you then can't actually execute that game-plan very well, unless you add someone (maybe CMG) into the mix, but then you can't bring CMG on in MF and we're not full of options there either.

Just as a question, much ado is being made with more references to strikers than a box of Swan Vestas, but Dion Charles apart, just how many of our goals actually come from recognised strikers ? (You can extend the question into including last season). See, we got rid of Sadlier (potential goal-scorer) , but so far no real contenders have surfaced even for the crossbar challenge....unless I'm wildly wrong of course...

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Just as a question, much ado is being made with more references to strikers than a box of Swan Vestas, but Dion Charles apart, just how many of our goals actually come from recognised strikers ? (You can extend the question into including last season).

Do you mean us historically, or promoted teams generally? More than one way to skin a cat. We got out of D4 heavily reliant on Doyler's goals, but Big Sam's best seasons were facilitated by several players getting say 7+.

I'd say Sadlier's goal threat was far more periperhal (and later theoretical) than crucial, but it's understandable that it be mentioned given we aren't reliably getting goals from anyone bar Dion. When I was a lad, the BN regularly printed the full season's results/fixtures with goalscorers and it was always a worry when one name predominated. You don't see that too often now - in the programme, maybe - but I do it on my spreadsheet notes and, well:
.

Screenshot 2023-09-20 at 12.29.31.png (102.55 KiB) Viewed 3556 times

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Steven Battersby has tweeted (Xed? whatever, Elon) some interesting numbers:

Interesting stats re "Finishers". Here are the League only goals scored by substitutes during the Ian Evatt era. Remembering it was 3 subs only for 2020-21 & 2021-22, with 5 subs allowed since.
2020-21: Miller 3, Gnahoua 2, Isgrove 1, Sarcevic 1, Delfouneso 1 (Total 8 )
2021-22: Bakayoko 5, Bodvarsson 5, Afolayan 2, Sadlier 1, Charles 1 (Total 14)
2022-23: Bodvarsson 2, Afolayan 1, Bakayoko 1, Charles 1, Sadlier 1, R Williams 1, Nlundulu 1 (Total 8 )
2023-24: None to date. Let's hope this tally changes soon.

[The_Gun]

Dad Bod getting back to his old self would obviously make a huge difference. An on song JDB plus Vic and Charles would be a very reasonable rotation, albeit with terrible fourth and fifth choice options.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Dad Bod getting back to his old self would obviously make a huge difference. An on song JDB plus Vic and Charles would be a very reasonable rotation, albeit with terrible fourth and fifth choice options.

It would make a big difference. At his best Bod was a savvy, calm finisher whosee appearance off the bench against tiring defenders gave the genuine feeling that goals - a feeling shared by fans, manager, team-mates and opponents. Now, it feels like Graham Taylor responding to needing a goal by replacing Gary Lineker with Alan Smith.

If Bod could be a frightening presence off the bench, that would leave Dan with more room and less expectation (or Jerome to See The Game Out, if we decide we must).

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

For me most of it boils down to Dan. Everyone as far as I recall was fairly happy with JDB re-signing at the time and the rest of the summer signings are ok, if not game changing amazeballs. My initial view of Dan was WTF. I was happy go along with signing him on the basis the summer content download would turn him into a footballer. The more I see the bigger the WTF

I'm also happy with the notion that we missed targets for whatever reasons and we've got what we've got rather than spend on fillers that wouldn't contribute anything. I am struggling with the concept that we couldn't have spent the Dan money on someone a little bit less shit. All we can hope is JDB gets fit and a few games sees the player we know he can be and Vic gets a little more consistent with the shooting part of the game. As it stands we are not finishing top 2 and the question is how close we can keep things to make it retrievable in January.

[BWFC_Insane]

Interesting listening to the wanderer podcast and Jack Dearden makes a point I made all summer. You can’t teach a striker. Finishing and being right place right time is instinct. Some have it. Some have that calmness. Some don’t.

[Prufrock]

Except it absolutely isn't...

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Except it absolutely isn't...

...interesting listening to The Wanderer podcast?

[BWFC_Insane]

Except it absolutely isn't...

It is. You can take someone with the natural striking instinct and add other stuff to their game. You can’t turn someone who doesn’t into SJM. Just never happening.

[Worthy4England]

Dad Bod getting back to his old self would obviously make a huge difference. An on song JDB plus Vic and Charles would be a very reasonable rotation, albeit with terrible fourth and fifth choice options.

It would make a big difference. At his best Bod was a savvy, calm finisher whosee appearance off the bench against tiring defenders gave the genuine feeling that goals - a feeling shared by fans, manager, team-mates and opponents. Now, it feels like Graham Taylor responding to needing a goal by replacing Gary Lineker with Alan Smith.

If Bod could be a frightening presence off the bench, that would leave Dan with more room and less expectation (or Jerome to See The Game Out, if we decide we must).

Last season he was mainly sub. 8 starts v 13 subs. Averaging ~36 minutes per appearance...He got 3 goals. All welcome, and whilst I like having a bit of "cult hero," doesn't seem reliable enough for much other than "off the bench" and even then, you need the fully functioning 7 in 1025 minutes version of him, really.

[Prufrock]

Except it absolutely isn't...

It is. You can take someone with the natural striking instinct and add other stuff to their game. You can’t turn someone who doesn’t into SJM. Just never happening.

It's just bollocks. It's why Eoin Doyle who absolutely did have the "where to be and when" never made in beyond the bottom two divisions. Because there's plenty you can't teach by the time you're a grown pro.

Whereas Raheem Sterling up until Guardiola took over at City:

Prem: 24 goals in 126 games, 0.19 a game.
All comps: 34 in 176, 0.19 a game

Under Pep:

Prem: 85 in 194, 0.46 a game
All comps: 120 in 292, 0.41 a game.

From a 1 in 5 to almost a 1 in 2 player, almost all of which where " being in the right place" finishes that he's talked several times about how it was coached.

That or Mystic Meg.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Dad Bod getting back to his old self would obviously make a huge difference. An on song JDB plus Vic and Charles would be a very reasonable rotation, albeit with terrible fourth and fifth choice options.

It would make a big difference. At his best Bod was a savvy, calm finisher whosee appearance off the bench against tiring defenders gave the genuine feeling that goals - a feeling shared by fans, manager, team-mates and opponents. Now, it feels like Graham Taylor responding to needing a goal by replacing Gary Lineker with Alan Smith.

If Bod could be a frightening presence off the bench, that would leave Dan with more room and less expectation (or Jerome to See The Game Out, if we decide we must).

Last season he was mainly sub. 8 starts v 13 subs. Averaging ~36 minutes per appearance...He got 3 goals. All welcome, and whilst I like having a bit of "cult hero," doesn't seem reliable enough for much other than "off the bench" and even then, you need the fully functioning 7 in 1025 minutes version of him, really.

Hence the qualifier "at his best", Worthy. Namely the spring of 2022, just after we'd bought him.

In that first half-season he came off the bench 11 times and scored 5 goals in 261 minutes – plus injury time, when oft he pounced. Add in Baka's angular awkwardness and it was quite the combo.

(By contrast, when starting in that half-season Bod only scored 2 in 765 minutes. But it's 2 more than our subs have managed thus far...)

[Mar]

Steven Battersby has tweeted (Xed? whatever, Elon) some interesting numbers:

Interesting stats re "Finishers". Here are the League only goals scored by substitutes during the Ian Evatt era. Remembering it was 3 subs only for 2020-21 & 2021-22, with 5 subs allowed since.
2020-21: Miller 3, Gnahoua 2, Isgrove 1, Sarcevic 1, Delfouneso 1 (Total 8 )
2021-22: Bakayoko 5, Bodvarsson 5, Afolayan 2, Sadlier 1, Charles 1 (Total 14)
2022-23: Bodvarsson 2, Afolayan 1, Bakayoko 1, Charles 1, Sadlier 1, R Williams 1, Nlundulu 1 (Total 8 )
2023-24: None to date. Let's hope this tally changes soon.

Checked out the goals scored in 2022-23. Sadlier (14th Jan), Randell (14th Feb) and N'lundulu (7th May) were the only ones to score off the bench since January.

Our current front line gives me the following impression:

Jerome - Experienced, thoughtful but no pace and ends up being the equivalent of Danny Shittu up top.
N'lundulu - Fast, skilful, but comes across like a headless chicken that doesnt know when to pass
Bodvarsson - History of strong and impressive, but a five minute man cant contribute
Adeboyejo - Decent, but panicky. Maybe trying too hard to force it
Charles - All round decent.

If we're going two up top, Charles and Adeboyejo are the obvious choices but when you look at game management its seems like a bad choice as a duo containing any of the other three hasn't worked.

Perhaps we need to start with another combo to get impressive subs that threaten. Clearly the current game plan is using Jerome to see out games. Makes sense I suppose, but we need a forward that has the ability to score.

Start with Charles & N'lundulu, press from N'lundulu and Charles as per our current strategy.
Adeboyejo on for N'lundulu at HT, our best partnering on for a good 15-20 mins.
Jerome/Bodvarsson on for Charles at 60-70 mins. Leaving us with Jerome/Bodvarsson and Adeboyejo up top.


Clearly pace is key in our tactic, but if we're expecting to win the game with the interplay between Charles and Adeboyejo then we need options for when its not working. I'm not N'lundulu's biggest fan, but i'm fairly certain there's a player in there. AT the minute, i'm more concerned if there's an effective grafter in there. If he can do that, he starts for me, we need goalscorers on the pitch at all times, and when we don't have Adeboyejo or Charles on, we don't have a threat up top.

[BWFC_Insane]

You can’t describe a player who has the worst first touch ever witnessed as ‘skilful’.

Nlundulu is big and quick. Like a lot of premiership academy rejects. But fundamentally whilst he’s a great athlete he’s an absolutely dreadful footballer. I suspect Allardyce would have had a chance of making something out of him but it would rely on a desire from the player and a realisation that to be effective they’d need to be far more agricultural in style. I think he could be good backing in, knocking defenders about and holding it back to goal. But to do that he’d have to really want it. And accept that is his sort of limitations in a Kevin Davies style way.

[Worthy4England]

I thought this time last year, Dion had the worst first touch ever!

[Mar]

You can’t describe a player who has the worst first touch ever witnessed as ‘skilful’.

I just did. Not that i'm expecting you to agree with it, but i've seen him beat a few players with his skill in close quarters. Sadly that doesn't take away from that awful first touch you mentioned. He does struggle to get the ball under control quite frequently, which is the problem we've got. It's like Jekyll and Hyde.

Nlundulu is big and quick. Like a lot of premiership academy rejects. But fundamentally whilst he’s a great athlete he’s an absolutely dreadful footballer. I suspect Allardyce would have had a chance of making something out of him but it would rely on a desire from the player and a realisation that to be effective they’d need to be far more agricultural in style. I think he could be good backing in, knocking defenders about and holding it back to goal. But to do that he’d have to really want it. And accept that is his sort of limitations in a Kevin Davies style way.

I suspect the intention is for Evatt to make something out of N'lundulu. It's easier for a player to hyper specialised like N'lundulu is it's going to be significantly harder. Like you said, the player really needs to want it and have the brains to take in the instruction. Squad interviews have eluded to him not being the sharpest tool in the shed, so you'd have to hope theres a longer turn around in terms of instructing him and actually seeing the end product. Hopefully its just a case of repeating behaviours and getting it to become second nature.

I'm guessing Evatt rates his ability very highly when it comes to making a player learn new roles but like we've seen with the likes of Comley and Sadlier its not always going to work. I thought N'lundulu's time was up at the end of the last season. Crazy we've paid money for him and not just loaned him again.