The Voice - Match preview #41: Bradford City vs Crewe Alexandra Saturday 5th April 2025 3:00pm

I couldnt care less about goal ratio. It's such a short sighted, limited way of judging a striker. Give me a 1 in 6 striker who makes material contributions to winning games than a one in two striker who contributes nothing else. (This is not how I view Cook before anyone gets excited).

I'd prefer to win games than obsess over how many goals a striker scores.

 

A striker scoring one in two doesn't really have to contribute anything else, 23 goals a season would ensue you a starting spot every week.

 

TBH I’m not one of those who’s very critical of Kav. He has his limitations but I think he’s currently doing OK.
The main point of my post that you responded to was that it would have cost unrealistic sums to bring in an experienced proven striker in January, even assuming a suitable one was available and willing to come here.. However, I do believe we should have brought in another experienced striker as cover/competition for Cook over the past two summer windows.

 

How are you winning games without scoring enough goals?

A 1 in 6 striker scores around 8 goals a season. That puts huge pressure on everyone else to get enough goals for sucess and unless you have a Frank Lampard that's just not going to happen.

 

God you're so negative. Never mind the goals, just concentrate on the material contributions FFS.

 

Look at all the top clubs in every efl league. None of them have top goalscorers of more than 15. Most of them around 10.

Scoring a goal is such a limited measure of a strikers overall material value to a side.

I appreciate if a striker is scoring 20 plus a season then the likelihood is they are contributing a net positive value to the side's outcome but it doesn't mean that for certain.

It's perfectly possible to swap a higher scoring striker for one who scores less and see a more positive outcome for the side.

 

I think Kav is going to be a very good player.
You can see he is trying to learn from Cook and improve his hold up play. Every game he is getting better at backing into players. Maybe he forces a little too much but he definitely did it better against Crewe. My only real issue is that he is greedy when in a half decent chance/ not really a chance at all. There are quite often better options but he always goes for goal. I know it can be a good thing for a striker but not every time, but experience should improve that drastically. As well as his positioning

 

Anyway never mind that it wasn't a goal - what about the highlight of Saturdays game.
Aden Baldwins keepy uppy free kick . That's more like it! After reading the following farewell from a Notts County fan just after he signed, I've been disappointed with him so far. He's played far too conservatively and consistently!

https://gerritforward.wordpress.com/2024/05/31/go-well-aden-baldwin-the-worlds-most-entertaining-centre-back/

 

Certainly looks like we should've had a pen. It's an identical situation to the pen we conceded. Cross comes in, player in front misses the header and it bounces up on to the defenders arm. Ball clearly hits the arm. Can't see any difference to the Baldwin situation.

 

Calum Kavanagh's stats since New Year's Day (Becoming the first choice lone striker)

5 goals and 3 assists in 16 games. 1 in 2 for goal contributions. He is 21 year old.

Nakhi Wells at 21, also in League 2:

10 goals and 1 assist in 33 games. 1 in 3 for goal contributions.

Andy Cook at 21, was in the conference.

17 goals and 3 assists in 38 games. Decent as you'd expect, but at a lower level. The season before when he was 20 he scored 1 in 33.

Cook's first full season for us was at 31 and 32 years of age, probably just leaving his pomp. His stats were:

12 goals and 3 assists in 39 games.

All in all for a 21 year old, Kav isn't doing bad at all. He has areas to improve, if he didn't at that age he'd be worth a fortune and we simply wouldn't have him. It would be a mistake to just bin him off.

 

But you're now changing the goalposts.

Your original statement was 1 in 6 (8 goals) and now you're suggesting that all the successful clubs are happy with 10 to 15 goal strikers with 6 games left which is a minimum of 1 in 4 and imo a vastly different proposition.

 

It's 100% the clubs fault that Kav has been over exposed. He shouldn't be under this much pressure to perform at his age and we absolutely should have had a more experienced striker to at least rotate him with and take the weight off.

 

I guarantee you 100% without question if a striker is scoring 20+ goals a season he is contributing hugely to a point where other clubs will be looking at him as a possible transfer target. Scoring goals is the holy grail of football, without it you don't win.

 

That’s exactly how I saw it.. Pen all day.

 

In fact this reminds me of the time I read, i think on here, claims that Erling Haaland didn't contribute unless he was scoring, this at yearly a goal a game. Strikers with high game to goal ratios are as rare as rocking horse shit, that's why clubs pay top dollar for them.

 

I bet they’d pay more for a high goal to game ratio though

 

Understood. It definitely doesn't mean that a striker who scores half the number of goals can't be more valuable to the team.

 

All about the presence, m9.

 

In fairness to "he who shall not be named", he generally hit his fair share of goals in a season, even when he wasn't considered to be the main goal scorer.

 

Vadaine Oliver?