Non-scoring Strikers

Can we play more cautiously away from home?

we might be able to set up a little different with more defensive minded players however i dont recall many recent away games where we have gone hell for leather and had a multitude of shots or chances created.

If anything i feel we are too cautious away from home sometimes in not being decisive or clinical and not showing enough attacking theat.

 

I'm not sure.

It only didn't work at Burton, for example, because we didn't take our chances and our backline conceded yet again on the opponents first attack.

A lot obviously hinges on the summer window but f we can strengthen the backline sufficiently then I think we've got enough in the system currently to win games pretty much anywhere in this division.

 

It must be nice knowing you dont have to completely mark a forward out the game to keep a clean sheet.

If you can afford to give them a few chances and they still can't take them, that must make life a bit easier.

Still not easy preventing the attacking midfielders and wing backs from chipping in, but certainly easiER

 

Our defence as with anything can be improved on but is probably the least of our problem. Defensively we are sound most games, we've just had a habit away from home of conceding when on top.

 

I mostly agree but we can't praise the amount of goals we concede on a whole when purely discussing the away form.

On the road, we concede too many, 1.5 goals a game to be exact. That's way too much pressure on the forward players and to score twice in away games gives us too much of a hill to climb imo.

Perhaps we can change that by the 3 in the middle as suggested but we tried that at Wimbledon and again, defensively we were poor.

I'm not sure what the answer is as we actually tend to restrict teams from having too many good opportunities at times which would suggest we're defending well but then when one goes in, we seem to implode.

We certainly need to concede less away from home anyway and strengthening the weak back 3 and probably the keeper would be a great start imo.

 

We have scored the second least amount of goals in the top 14. Our defence is the 6th best in the division in terms of goals conceded. Our back three can be improved on, understandable being our first season but what i've just quoted suggests the back three isn't the problem, that problem is how we approach games away from home now teams have sussed how what we are gonna do. Changing the back three ain't solve the problem of us scoring goals, Port Vale away we only scored twice despite god knows how many efforts, Reading away in complete control but made no effort to put the game to bed. There have been other games where the front five set up simply hasn't worked and it usually coincides with Sarce and Bobby being bypassed and then game passing them by. As others have suggested drop an extra player into midfield and go two up top, the extra man also allowing the wing backs to get further up the field (Tyreik always looks better further up field)

 

I do wonder if we will use the extended break to look at ways a 352 could work as we tried it against Wimbledon but quickly abandoned it when it wasn't working.

The only part of it I'm not sure about is what the set up for the 3 would be as there are quite a few different options but I'm not sure which would be the most balanced.

 

Again though, you're using overall stats to prove something away from home. Our goals conceded column isn't 6th best away, it's around 15th and had we not collapsed at the back in the Reading game you mentioned there'd have been 3 points right there.

I agree the goals column and taking chances away from home needs to be better but we are scoring goals, averaging at a goal a game. We just don't keep enough enough stubborn clean sheets as we do in the home games.

 

At the beginning of the season we seemed to attack from all angles and at pace. We had overloads on both wings and scored a lot of goals. This has in the main been nullified, but Alexander has failed to come up with an alternative away from home. Having the wingbacks on either touchline, leaves big gaps in midfield on the bigger pitches when compared to VP. This helps neither defence or attack, but the real issue is the lack of a clinical striker, or at least one focal striker capable of holding up play. The experiment with Humphrys hasn't worked and still Alexander refuses to give him a run in his favoured position. Instead of persisting with him as the lone striker he should play him on the left and work with him to release the ball more often, because he gets into good areas but is just too selfish.

 

A goal a game won't get you promoted. And we really didn't collapse against Reading, they didn't have a shot on goal for 90 minutes, it was our inability to put our domination of the pitch into goals that cost us that game, we should have been out of sight. Our defence was in complete control until O'Connor elbowed Baldwin in the face breaking his nose. For me i'll tell you where we struggle and thats because we are very predictable going forward. I'd like to see us change it up when teams compress the midfield stopping our full backs getting forward. The front three become isolated as the central two can't get forward. Fix this you start to fix our away form problems.

 

I wonder if our scoring problems are partly down to Sam Walker being so poor in our goal. When players are training against him, everything is probably going in, which most likely gives them a false sense of confidence. Then when they face an average keeper in a match, suddenly all their shots are getting saved instead, its not like we aren’t creating chances.

 

This is like one of those 9-11 conspiracy theories.

 

I am probably completely over simplifying this or being tactically naive but imagine if we played away exactly as we do at home where we win the majority of matches. I feel we would get more points than this cautious approach where we seem to expect to lose.

 

For me, you've mentioned our biggest current problem in the first paragraph when you said Reading didn't have a shout on target in 90 minutes yet they still won the game. This is a recurring theme whereby teams are scoring with very few shots at goal and while I accept that we need to be more clinical, there isn't a world where we're going away and scoring twice more often that not so the odd clean sheets are vital.

 

That has happened a few times and need to be addressed

 

Do we think it is a form or ability issue? Humphs has never been prolific no matter what position he's used in. Mullin wasn't exactly tearing up things barring one season at Cambridge, and then when he was probably at his peak for a L1 try, he went to the national league to bag goals in a level far below him at the time. Swan has never been able to muster a lengthy run and Wheatley is still young and learning. Looking into their stats since Jan, we have strikers who are probably performing well in terms of getting efforts away, we just don't have good finishers. Below are our strikers current details since Mansfield on NYD......

Humphrys - 2 goals in his last 25 shots from 619 mins of football - Averages a shot every 25 mins
Mullin - 0 goals from 2 shots from 265 mins of football - Averages a shot every 133 mins
Swan - 1 goal from 6 shots from 305 mins of football - Averages a shot every 51 mins
Wheatley - 0 goals from 15 shots from 510 mins of football - Averages a shot every 34 mins

Humps and Wheatley are the ones who have had the most minutes since 2026 began and both are actually performing well in terms of getting shots off. Our main two, lets say 3 as Swan isnt a million miles behind since he came back, are getting efforts away at least in the same ball park as the rest of the L1 top marksmen. Below are the average shots per min rate for the top 5 scorers in L1 this season:

Ballard - averages a shot every 38 mins
Wootton - averages a shot every 43 mins
Marriott - averages a shot every 33 mins
Wareham - averages a shot every 37 mins
Fletcher - averages a shot every 46 mins

So..... Is it a case of our strikers are just performing at their level and we have a pile of average L1 strikers who might get a few but not "promotion" level striker numbers? Or, is it that in a rotational unit, they just don't build enough performance level playing 45-60 minutes? Humps has played over 70 minutes 2 times in 15 apps since Jan 1st. Mullins most mins in a game is 45 so far at Wigan. Swan is also at 45 since coming back, Wheatley has played over 70 just 1 time in 11 games for us. Compared again to the top scorers this season, Ballard manages 90 most weeks, the earliest he's been taken off this season is 74 mins in. Wootton again plays 90 if he plays, been taken off before 70 mark just once. Marriott again plays most the game if he plays, he gets his minutes managed a little more but he still has only been taken off before 70 mins in 3 times from 20 starts and one of those were due to injury, the others were both at 65 mins in. Wareham and Fletcher again are strikers who mainly either play 90 or are taken off towards the end.

It's tough sticking with strikers who don't deliver for 90 mins, but on the other hand how are they expected to build some form or rhythm if they go off at HT most starts?