Bergen Blade
Well-Known Member
The Baxter behind a target man combination seems to work ok (not great) at home, providing Murphy and Flynn are on form in the wide positions. Teams who come to the Lane often defend deep, which means there's not a lot of space to run into anyway. Based on home form (and home goals scored) we'd be mid table.
But in away games I feel we're really missing pace up front. We've scored 8 away goals this season, which is the worst in the division. Porter/Paynter can win flick ons and Baxter is good at playing through balls, but who's going to run onto them? They are all slow. When we're not threatening the space behind defences we make it so much easier for them and we become predictable, slow, ponderous. Not only that, when home teams find us easy to deal with they can focus more on attacking and throw more players forward, leading to more pressure on the defence.
0-3 defeats to Crewe may make managers think they need to shore up things defensively. But if reports are right, we didn't create anything going forward yesterday, and I think we have to think again regarding our strikers. Sometimes you can compensate for an obvious weakness temporarily, but in the long run you tend to get found out.
We've got Shaun Miller, but he's sadly not showed that he's regained his form after his injury and we can't rely on him. I don't like relying on loans, but without a pacey goalscorer I think we'll continue to struggle to score goals away from home.
Neil Warnock used to say 'you can never have too many strikers'. Although he may have taken it too literally himself, it's a piece of advice the Blades have neglected completely. The last two seasons United have found themselves going into crunch end of season games with no decent, pacey striker available. Let's make sure it doesn't happen again. The loan window opens on February the 8th.
But in away games I feel we're really missing pace up front. We've scored 8 away goals this season, which is the worst in the division. Porter/Paynter can win flick ons and Baxter is good at playing through balls, but who's going to run onto them? They are all slow. When we're not threatening the space behind defences we make it so much easier for them and we become predictable, slow, ponderous. Not only that, when home teams find us easy to deal with they can focus more on attacking and throw more players forward, leading to more pressure on the defence.
0-3 defeats to Crewe may make managers think they need to shore up things defensively. But if reports are right, we didn't create anything going forward yesterday, and I think we have to think again regarding our strikers. Sometimes you can compensate for an obvious weakness temporarily, but in the long run you tend to get found out.
We've got Shaun Miller, but he's sadly not showed that he's regained his form after his injury and we can't rely on him. I don't like relying on loans, but without a pacey goalscorer I think we'll continue to struggle to score goals away from home.
Neil Warnock used to say 'you can never have too many strikers'. Although he may have taken it too literally himself, it's a piece of advice the Blades have neglected completely. The last two seasons United have found themselves going into crunch end of season games with no decent, pacey striker available. Let's make sure it doesn't happen again. The loan window opens on February the 8th.
