There’s been a predictable reaction to our defeat on Saturday on the messageboards. Plenty of posters demanding Bobby Zamora’s head and questioning Roy’s patience in continuing to play him as the spearhead of our attack.
The press also seem to have latched onto the ‘only four goals in six games’ statistic. Not only does this ignore the hatful of chances we had against Arsenal but it also doesn’t consider how predatory we’ve been in Europe already this season. In only one of our five games have we fired blanks. Roy’s retaining confidence in his first choice front two as well.
It is a problem in the sense that to win games you have to score goals and, against Arsenal, once again we created the chances but didn’t score them. It’s not something that bothers me in the longer term because I know if we continue to play as we are playing, with the chances we are creating, we will score the goals.Maybe on another occasion two or even three of those very good chances we created would have been scored and therefore you’d be saying: ‘you scored as many goals in one game as you’ve scored all season.’
I’m really rather happy with the way Zamora and Johnson are playing together. If they can continue the next 30-odd games then they’ll create a lot of problems for other defences, perhaps defences a little bit weaker than the Arsenal’s.
OT: Wayne Brown scores again http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TGXzrpjwbM
Hi tumpero – see my post from earlier today:
https://hammyend.com/?p=3548
Oh sorry, missed it
I really don’t understand why people feel the need to get upset. I thought Zamora was excellent on Saturday.
I’m not surprised with the media reaction, they’re just looking for a story and don’t have the interest to actually examine why we’re where we are. We certainly shouldn’t underestimate the size of the task ahead of us but I’m confident we’ll pick up enough points to be safe.
Yeah, I can’t understand the bile directed at Zamora by some. He could have had a hat-trick if it wasn’t for some inspired goalkeeping and he used his height to bring others into play.
I’m hoping my confidence about our quality and ability to move up the table isn’t misplaced.
Statistics can be made to tell any story (pretty much) but as a pair our strikers are under performing in that their job is to score goals. Last year in reality there were not a huge nuber of games when they were both fully fit. There have been issues in terms of fitness this season as well. They play well together in all but scoring. Against Perm they were on fire, the injury was the last thing we needed at that time.
The flip side of that is that last year Clint chipped in with his share of goals from midfield, Erik’s goals from far fewer starts and less minutes were crucial and indicate what we should be seeing from premiership strikers. The non productive pairing simply cannot be kept forever. It will need to broken before long.
I have no problem wih Roy sticking with the pairing he sees best, after all what do I know. However making chances and playing well, or even approaching as well as that acheived on Saturday without scoring is going to get us nowhere. Yes Arsenal are a good side, their keeper was their MOM and yes in other games that performance against most if not all of the other teams in the league will have resulted in points.
Lets see BZ and AJ against Basle lets see them go at Wet Spam and get a hatful at home against Hull and then the questions about the strikers will go away, until then they remain.