Feel sorry for Smyth already. He hasn't even kicked a ball for us yet & a lot of you are writing him off as useless already..
Ridiculous
Nobody is writing him off as useless
The disappointment is that Smyth isn't the type of player many of us wanted, which is someone who plays up top as a goal poacher, whether an experienced lower division pro or a PL academy player.
After we could have signed 2 left backs today, both top players, but it wouldn't be what the squad needed
I can understand the difficulties of getting a striker in, and suspect we'll be trying again in January
We'd all love a 20 goal a season man, but having one is not essential. We got promoted with 73 goals (excluding the play-offs) last time in League 1, which was actually the lowest total in the top 6 despite us having, in Taylor, Grant and Vetokele (albeit two of those not for the entire season) three of the most talented strikers in the division.
The key is we have to get better at getting our midfielders on the score sheet, and I think that will require us to play a bit differently (maybe Bowyer needs to allow a few more shots from range for example). Set pieces could be important for us too, but we now have decent dead ball delivery in the team and a good amount of height, plus we've actually been quite good from set pieces anyway in terms of number of goals scored thanks to Jacko's coaching. It's obviously hypothetical, but I don't think it would be unrealistic to say the goals could be shared around as follows and that would get us to 73 same as in 18/19. Our defence and midfield look very decent so we shouldn't concede a ton, just expect us to be winning more games 2-1 and 2-0 than 3-1 and 4-0, but that has generally been the way under Bowyer. With the departures this week and Phillips potentially being frozen out, there may be a little wriggle room to do something in January as well if the right player were to become available.
All these people complaining about who we have up top, I wonder what they said about Yann (who granted wasn't massively prolific and was a great foil for BWP, but was a fantastic footballer anyway)
Exactly. Big difference between when deals happen & when they are announced. Sky will be publishing deals all evening that officially were papered before 5pm but have hit the media hours later.
We'd all love a 20 goal a season man, but having one is not essential. We got promoted with 73 goals (excluding the play-offs) last time in League 1, which was actually the lowest total in the top 6 despite us having, in Taylor, Grant and Vetokele (albeit two of those not for the entire season) three of the most talented strikers in the division.
The key is we have to get better at getting our midfielders on the score sheet, and I think that will require us to play a bit differently (maybe Bowyer needs to allow a few more shots from range for example). Set pieces could be important for us too, but we now have decent dead ball delivery in the team and a good amount of height, plus we've actually been quite good from set pieces anyway in terms of number of goals scored thanks to Jacko's coaching. It's obviously hypothetical, but I don't think it would be unrealistic to say the goals could be shared around as follows and that would get us to 73 same as in 18/19. Our defence and midfield look very decent so we shouldn't concede a ton, just expect us to be winning more games 2-1 and 2-0 than 3-1 and 4-0, but that has generally been the way under Bowyer. With the departures this week and Phillips potentially being frozen out, there may be a little wriggle room to do something in January as well if the right player were to become available.
Bogle
12
Washington
10
Maddison
10
Doughty
10
Aneke
8
Smyth
5
Shinnie
3
Gilbey
3
Pratley
2
Levitt
1
Morgan
1
Williams
1
Watson
1
JFC
1
Innis
2
Pearce
1
Famewo
1
Purrington
1
Those are realistic numbers, as I don't see a prolific goalscorer in the squad. 2 years ago we had better CB options though, Bauer, Sarr and a younger Pearce were all experienced players of Championship quality. Plus we had Bielik who sometimes played there
This year we have Pearce (2 years older), Deji (L1 quality), Famewo (class but inexperienced) and Inniss (unproven)
Comments
The disappointment is that Smyth isn't the type of player many of us wanted, which is someone who plays up top as a goal poacher, whether an experienced lower division pro or a PL academy player.
After we could have signed 2 left backs today, both top players, but it wouldn't be what the squad needed
I can understand the difficulties of getting a striker in, and suspect we'll be trying again in January
We've now got a midfield (with depth) that can create and score themselves.
It's been a bloody good window.
So QPR come in for Bonne and don't offer Smyth as part of the deal, knowing full well Bowyer fancies him?
Odd.
Only thing we can dip in now is free transfers, of which there is a lot of talent still floating about
Because Smyth wasn't our first choice.
He could be great at Cafc but Sorba may well have been the first option ?
This year we have Pearce (2 years older), Deji (L1 quality), Famewo (class but inexperienced) and Inniss (unproven)