Match Thread AFC Wimbledon vs Bradford City Saturday 14th January @ 3:00pm - the voice

My Apologies,that will teach me not to make assumptions.

 

"invent trauma"

Ridiculous statement to make.

Look, that's my point of view and I ain't arguing with you because we all know how argumentative you can be. If you want to ask a question to understand my point of view that's fine but I ain't arguing with you.

 

Happy with a point today but it’s the Rochdale game that will Fook it up

 

Yes Tuesday night was a big let down if we'd done our job like we should have we'd now be 3 points off Northampton with a game in hand.

 

25 games into the season and not a single goal from a defender yet.

Would be interesting to see how many goals we've scored from corners or free kicks. I can think of Cook scoring at Tranmere and he maybe got one another?

This must be a massive area of opportunity for us to improve on.

I can recall a few good opportunities for Platt in particular, but doesn't feel like the quality of the set-piece balls into the box is good enough.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0dwdc15

Hughes post match interview.

 

Spot on, fans attend games to see goals and excitement.

 

That's the reason I go, although maybe in my younger days I could have picked another team with regards scoring goals and excitement .
Have you just got back not the best entertainment today.

 

Our goal tally in the league, FA cup and league cup is 34 at this moment. With Cook on the bench, Wright gone and Young out on loan the rest of the squad have amassed 12. Hughes is gonna have to get the goals from somewhere in this squad cos without Cook and Wright there ain't much there.

 

He is number one at the moment because we are going more direct and cook can’t hold the ball up and struggles to challenge without giving fouls away. Cook should play alongside a line leader because he would be better suited. By the way I don’t think Oliver was to blame on Tuesday he did well first half. Cook may return but he needs to improve on the form he was showing when he was dropped

 

Exactly. And the problem is we don't create enough chances. Today was particularly poor selection playing two guys who have hardly played for months. It really put a lot of pressure on Eisa or the full backs to try and create something and we wouldn't necessarily expect the full backs to be bombing up the field when we're away from home.

 

Eisa has the potential to replace Wrights goals, indeed his minutes per goal is lower than Wrights

However 7 of our regulars this season, being 4 defenders, Gilliead, Smallwood and Chapman have scored 3 (three) league goals between them.

A quick look shows Piergianni alone has 5 league goals for stevenage as a defender. The three CBs showing on the BBC for Northampton today have 9.

We must be bottom 7 for potency / goals scored from corners.

 

Can’t get the ball past the first defender that’s why.

 

Just reflecting on your post a bit more and it feels like we're in a pretty similar position to last season (aside from Cook). We are not creating many chances or scoring a lot of goals (aside from Cook). It could be argued that the players we have this season have a higher technical ability especially Chapman, Eisa, Nevers, East, Smallwood all good technical players but if they are not able to create chances or score goals then we're in a pretty similar position to at least the second half of the season that Hughes was in charge.

 

How do defenders score when smallwood can't beat the first man on corners every game

 

Hughes usual defensive interview when he doesn't like question on young.

And how he thinks walker was just starting to influence the game when he was sent off. Walker was very poor like the rest of them.

 

Corners generally are a very low success rate for goals from what i remember, something less than 10%. But i do agree that in lower league football you need to make better use of set pieces

 

To be fair, he also overhits a fair few straight into touch.

Would love to see some data on his effectiveness.

And I can't believe we don't have someone with better delivery.

 

I don’t know how accurate it is but I just did a quick google and it stated 3% of corners are scored, I do think our fan base have to high of an expectation around them. That said I agree Smallwood’s delivery is awful in the main, trouble is Wroght had a go and he was even worse it barely got off the floor. I’d be shocked if it hasn’t been looked at in training, worrying that Smallwood is probably the best at them.

We could do with a set piece specialist, people would moan at McMahon at times but we were spoiled with his delivery for a number of years. It’s never been replicated since.

 

Alongside corners, free kicks into the box and the odd long-throw in, giving even just another 4 or 5 goals that could have turned a couple of frustrating draws into a win would probably have seen us in 4th and right alongside Northampton.

I'd love to understand why Smallwood continues to take set pieces.