A good result - but...

[Revolution]

It is the opposite of pot/kettle. It's about assessing every player objectively with the main emphasis on the team's success, rather than individual.

Sharp scored 21 goals last season, Clarke 18, both in average performing teams. On the basis of that alone, you'd expect them to be deadly together, with an improved squad and a new, recent promotion winning manager. Yet, when we played them as our central combination up top, our results were:

View attachment 19690

After this Wilder picked Done as his main striker. Although Done has yet to score he's given us movement, aggression and some pace up front, which has helped us stretch opposition teams, opening up more space for us to play in, and we've had three really positive games since, a start of an unbeaten run.

I think this illustrates the importance of getting the balance right, more than just selecting 11 individuals with decent previous records.

Regarding Sharp he has kept his place, but not played better in general play. Too many attacks have broken down when we've tried to include him, with defenders regularly just taking the ball off him. Hopefully the assist and goal on Sunday will give him a lift and help him improve his overall game.

Our results were poor in part because the team spent the game hoofing the ball up to Clark. Now he is out of the team that has stopped, and we have won twice using the midfield more. Done has helped with this, as you say, and Sharp has scored twice and laid one goal on for a wing back who would not have been in the penalty area if we were still hoofing the ball to Clark.

Hence I currently believe we are better off without Clark in the side.

 

[Revolution]

McNulty got 13 the previous season under Clough, with less starts and no penalties.

I think it's a fair point that is being made, when folk suggest that perhaps McNulty might have been able to score a similar amount of goals than sharp and we could have utilised the money elsewhere.

Anyway, that plonker has gone thank god.

I was very keen for McNulty to stay. I think he could have got more goals in a full year (though he only got 9 league goals, including one penalty).

Unfortunately the regime's current response to bad apples is to ship them out rather than try to make them knuckle down.

 

[Bergen Blade]

I don't think it's bollocks. I think it's impossible to do better without Sharp, especially with the least creative set of midfield players I have ever seen in my life.

We tried your "balance" with Scougall, Reed and Basham in 2014-5. Didn't get us the goals we needed as I recall as none of them could shoot or play a killer pass to save their lives. The tools are not there for the job you want them to do. Hence a 20 goal a season striker, slow as he may be, has his uses.

You're forgetting McCall the season his legs went, flanked by Carl Robinson and Monty.

 

[Silent Blade]

Hence a 20 goal a season striker, slow as he may be, has his uses.

Some of them were from penalties which is like a free shot at goal also pace isn't important when taking them. He missed 3 penalties too!

 

[Revolution]

You're forgetting McCall the season his legs went, flanked by Carl Robinson and Monty.

Yes, replacing Brown with Monty was another great United decision. McCall scored twice that season, as it happens.

Of course then things were better as we had an actual winger who was allowed to go to the byline in Ndlovu.

 

[Silent Blade]

You're forgetting McCall the season his legs went, flanked by Carl Robinson and Monty.

McCall was brilliant in 2002-03 but didn't score any goals. His legs had gone in 2003-04 but scored two goals so Revolution would say McCall was better in 2003-04?

 

[Revolution]

Some of them were from penalties which is like a free shot at goal also pace isn't important when taking them. He missed 3 penalties too!

That makes him a 17 goal a season striker. Do they grow on trees as well?

 

[Revolution]

McCall was brilliant in 2002-03 but didn't score any goals. His legs had gone in 2003-04 but scored two goals so Revolution would say McCall was better in 2003-04?

No I wouldn't. His legs went around Christmas.

McCall brought other things to the table in 2002-3.

I have no quarrel with a midfielder who doesn't score if he can do other things well. Gordon Cowans, Kevin McDonald and McCall all fit into this category. Coutts and the tiny twins do not.

 

[Grizzly blade]

Would love to know why he's considered a bad apple at the club.

I haven't seen any negative headlines really, other than the Twitter stuff with one of his mates. If he was falling foul of club discipline I'm sure we would know.
I suppose there may be question marks over his professionalism if he's returning to the club too fat, or not working hard enough. But surely that's down to the manger to manage and get the best from him. (Like the tough love Clough showed)

I haven't met the lad, but I reckon it's more like that he's good....has a bit of a cocky attitude as a result and the mouth to match.
Will be interesting to see if he gets games at Bradford.

 

[Silent Blade]

That makes him a 17 goal a season striker. Do they grow on trees as well?

Scored 5 penalties so 20 - 5 = 15 not 17!

 

[Revolution]

Scored 5 penalties so 20 - 5 = 15 not 17!

He also scored 21 goals Silent, not 20.

Do 16 goal strikers grow on trees as well? How many have we had since Evans?

 

[Silent Blade]

He also scored 21 goals Silent, not 20.

Do 16 goal strikers grow on trees as well? How many have we had since Evans?

I don't share the same obsession about goalscorers as you do. I am a believer in team balance, more players to chip in goals rather than relying on just the striker. Last season we needed centre backs and a striker with pace plus a few more other positions to add to the squad Clough left us but Adkins blew last year's budget (believed to be £8M from McCabe and the Prince) on Woolford, Sammon, Hammond and Sharp which is why we didn't get a play off place at least

 

[Revolution]

I don't share the same obsession about goalscorers as you do. I am a believer in team balance, more players to chip in goals rather than relying on just the striker. Last season we needed centre backs and a striker with pace plus a few more other positions to add to the squad Clough left us but Adkins blew last year's budget (believed to be £8M from McCabe and the Prince) on Woolford, Sammon, Hammond and Sharp which is why we didn't get a play off place at least

As I said to Bergen Blade, team balance is a tremendous thing to have, but it only works if you have creative midfielders and goalscoring midfielders, as we did in 2006 and 2012, for example.

This season we do not have these things, and by dropping a goalscorer we are wilfully making ourselves worse, as the other players cannot make up the slack. If we wanted to do this we should have brought at least 2 other midfielders in who have a track record of scoring.

I am not obsessed with goalscorers. Just goals.

 

[Champagneblade]

Yes, another player? Which one?

We had Che Adams, who everyone tells me is no good and who played most of the games anyway, and McNulty, who was banished on loan (but who I would have kept around), and Done, who was injured for the first half of the campaign (so it wouldn't have been him, contrary to what you say above), and Conor Sammon, who played half of the games anyway and who was rubbish.

So it would have been another forward? Who? Sharp wasn't blocking any youth player (DCL never looked like scoring). We don't know. What we do know is that Nigel Adkins would have been picking the player. that's worrying.

The idea that Sharp hurt that team is a joke. Having no pace generally hurt the team, agreed. Having a good goalscorer in front of a shocking midfield was a help, as he put chances away.

The idea that we would have been better off without Sharp, when this club has had the grand total of 3 20+ league goalscorers since 1990, seems to me to be wild speculation.

Again, people airily dismiss 20 goal a season stirkers as if they are easily replaceable. Incredible.

Enjoyable debate.

I would have given McNulty more of a chance and think he could have been the 20 goal striker as his strike rate suggested this.

I think 13 goals, with only one of them a penalty was an excellent return given he had only just come down to England and he was seldom given a proper run in the team, managing his 13 goals in just 2,051 minutes.

All things are not equal, but if they were, statistically, it took McNulty the equivalent of 22.79 matches to muster his 12 goals from open play. If this was extended to the 3,978 minutes Sharp played the following year, then this would equate to 23 goals from open play. That alone is enough to suggest we had a potential scorer. You then add the 5 penalties that Sharp scored to take you to 28. You are more than comfortably sitting on a 20 goal a season striker. You could even argue that as McNulty's conversion rate on penalties for United is 100% and Sharp's is closer to 75%, then McNulty could have been pushing 30 goals.

All things aren't equal of course. But you get what I am saying. And my point was the fact that you would have had 1.3m still in the kitty to improve the team's overall effectiveness.

 

[Revolution]

Enjoyable debate.

I would have given McNulty more of a chance and think he could have been the 20 goal striker as his strike rate suggested this.

I think 13 goals, with only one of them a penalty was an excellent return given he had only just come down to England and he was seldom given a proper run in the team, managing his 13 goals in just 2,051 minutes.

All things are not equal, but if they were, statistically, it took McNulty the equivalent of 22.79 matches to muster his 12 goals from open play. If this was extended to the 3,978 minutes Sharp played the following year, then this would equate to 23 goals from open play. That alone is enough to suggest we had a potential scorer. You then add the 5 penalties that Sharp scored to take you to 28. You are more than comfortably sitting on a 20 goal a season striker. You could even argue that as McNulty's conversion rate on penalties for United is 100% and Sharp's is closer to 75%, then McNulty could have been pushing 30 goals.

All things aren't equal of course. But you get what I am saying. And my point was the fact that you would have had 1.3m still in the kitty to improve the team's overall effectiveness.

I do take your point, though again, McNulty did not score 13 goals in league games. He scored 9.

Plus you are only replacing McNulty with Sharp. You aren't really going to get anything better out of him, just the same performance. What are you going to do with the extra money you save? I am not convinced Adkins was the man to spend it. For example, it was screamingly obvious that for us to improve on 5th:

But it is an interesting debate as you say. And it's highlighting another issue we come up against often in recent years: United make individual moves without considering the wider picture.

- Jamie Murphy would have had to stay
- the centre half situation would have to be sorted out properly
- we would need a lot more goals from midfield

Nothing Adkins did helped to sort these issues out. And it wasn't cash that was the issue. He signed players we didn't need or who were falling off a cliff. When I saw the team for Gillingham last season I genuinely thought he hadn't a clue what the problems were with the squad. I think it's wishful thinking that not signing Sharp would have seen us finish any higher.

 

[BushBlade]

As I said to Bergen Blade, team balance is a tremendous thing to have, but it only works if you have creative midfielders and goalscoring midfielders, as we did in 2006 and 2012, for example.

This season we do not have these things, and by dropping a goalscorer we are wilfully making ourselves worse, as the other players cannot make up the slack. If we wanted to do this we should have brought at least 2 other midfielders in who have a track record of scoring.

I am not obsessed with goalscorers. Just goals.

I think it depends on how you define 'balance'. My definition is not necessarily a team where goals are distributed proportionally around the team but one with few or no obvious weaknesses.

I think the issue with Adkins bringing Billy in is that he tends to play in a front two and we didn't have the players to accommodate that.

In the lower leagues you don't get many 'all-rounders', complete footballers. They tend to be good at certain things but poor at others. They're more 'specialists' and managers tend to recruit them to perform specific roles in a specific way of playing. That's why CW has had such a big overhaul.

Of course, Adkins could have rectified this by signing a couple of central midfielders who could play 442 but instead went for Hammond. Or he could have signed a CH earlier and gone for 352, as he eventually did.
Or he could have looked at what we had and signed a striker who could play in the lone role and not wasted money on Hammond, Sammon and Billy, allowing him to strengthen defence and sign a proper wide player instead of Woolford.

Any of these options would have made us a better all round team.

It's taken Wilder and Knill about a month to work out what it took Adkins six to discover. And they've already addressed it, to an extent.

 

[Revolution]

I think it depends on how you define 'balance'. My definition is not necessarily a team where goals are distributed proportionally around the team but one with few or no obvious weaknesses.

I think the issue with Adkins bringing Billy in is that he tends to play in a front two and we didn't have the players to accommodate that.

In the lower leagues you don't get many 'all-rounders', complete footballers. They tend to be good at certain things but poor at others. They're more 'specialists' and managers tend to recruit them to perform specific roles in a specific way of playing. That's why CW has had such a big overhaul.

Of course, Adkins could have rectified this by signing a couple of central midfielders who could play 442 but instead went for Hammond. Or he could have signed a CH earlier and gone for 352, as he eventually did.
Or he could have looked at what we had and signed a striker who could play in the lone role and not wasted money on Hammond, Sammon and Billy, allowing him to strengthen defence and sign a proper wide player instead of Woolford.

Any of these options would have made us a better all round team.

It's taken Wilder and Knill about a month to work out what it took Adkins six to discover. And they've already addressed it, to an extent.

Yes, that goes to another of the points I'm always banging on about - making signings with an eye on your overall plan, rather than in isolation. Adkins really didn't think through what he needed, or look at what the players he was signing could actually do (though there is an argument that he had a right to expect more from Woolford, who based on previous performance should have been a hell of a lot better than he was, and Hammond. To have both fall off the cliff at the same time is arguably bad luck. Sammon had a track record of being crap).

In this regard, whilst Wilder seems to be ahead of Adkins in terms of identifying needs, I was still puzzled by 3 things he did/did not do:

1. Rely on Long with no tried and tested back up: he has now sorted this.

2. Not Sign at least one more midfielder with goals in him

3. Sign Clarke, who does not seem to fit well into his preferred system.

I still think point 2 will cost us.

 

[Ricky]

Adkins, the total fraud that he is, knew absolutely nothing about players - the players who were in our squad, or players elsewhere who were potential signings. He only knew about players he previously worked with, and Sharp was available, so he signed him. Sharp was always going to be a safe, successful signing in L1 but he wasn't what we needed, especially when you consider the budget we had.

We had a number of areas that needed strengthening that Adkins either failed to address or belatedly addressed with poor, expensive signings. I wanted us to sign a decent target man, give McNulty and Done a chance and sign someone with pace on loan. If we'd done that I think we could well have been better off from a goalscoring point of view, and as a team because we would've had money to spend on other positions.

Champagne's post (#115) sets out the correct reasoning as to why you're not necessarily totally dependent on a 20 goal striker - someone else replaces him and the dynamic can chance, possibly for the better overall. But on balance having someone like Sharp in L1 should never hold you back. Having someone like that doesn't mean you can't get pace, physicality and creativity into the side, it's not a choice between one or the other. And you have to remember that Sharp got his goals last season in a team lacking those things, when individually I also think he was quite average by his standards.

 

[bartman]

Some of them were from penalties which is like a free shot at goal also pace isn't important when taking them. He missed 3 penalties too!

He didn't miss three penalties thou last season. It was two. (One was retaken as the keeper was about 6 yards off his line). You say a penalty is 'missed' if it was actually scored

 

[bartman]

Scored 5 penalties so 20 - 5 = 15 not 17!

Does anyone ever discount the penalties Le Tissier or Shearer took ?

 

[Danny_Boy]

Does anyone ever discount the penalties Le Tissier or Shearer took ?

No of course they don't, goals are goals regardless.

It's a ridiculous argument to want to get rid of or drop a 20 goal a season striker. I'm done debating it as in my opinion there's no debate to be had. If you want him dropped or sold then frankly you're wrong! Thankfully it's seems Wilder agrees with me so happy days.

My days of banging my head against a brick wall arguing with folks that have some sort of vendetta against our top scorer because of the salary he is on, because he doesn't run about like a moron chasing lost causes, because he doesn't win enough headers when we play long ball crap or because of the "posh" car he drives are over.

UTB.

 

[Balham]

What's better? A poacher who scores 20 goals in a season but whose style of play doesn't create many - say 5 assists - or a forward who brings others into the game, scoring 10 but setting up, directly or indirectly, 20 more goals?

 

[Revolution]

What's better? A poacher who scores 20 goals in a season but whose style of play doesn't create many - say 5 assists - or a forward who brings others into the game, scoring 10 but setting up, directly or indirectly, 20 more goals?

Probably the latter - but again, who are the players who are going to capitalise on the assists? There are precious few in our squad.

 

[Silent Blade]

What's better? A poacher who scores 20 goals in a season but whose style of play doesn't create many - say 5 assists - or a forward who brings others into the game, scoring 10 but setting up, directly or indirectly, 20 more goals?

Deffo the latter. Every time!

 

[Champagneblade]

I was very keen for McNulty to stay. I think he could have got more goals in a full year (though he only got 9 league goals, including one penalty).

Unfortunately the regime's current response to bad apples is to ship them out rather than try to make them knuckle down.

It's probably worth the research to point out that of the four goals he scored in cups, 2 were against Premier League teams, Southampton and QPR. The other two being Mansfield and Plymouth so it's not that during that season he was a flat track bully in the cups.

I really do think as it sounds you do, that we could have managed McNulty better as a club. For all the rumours he's not been fined or dropped for ill discipline like Che had.

Particularly with Lavery on board I'd like to see us recall him in Jan especially if one of the strikers isn't weighing in. It would genuinely be like a new signing and at very little cost.

 

[Silent Blade]

Does anyone ever discount the penalties Le Tissier or Shearer took ?

Le Tissier's penalty record is 48 out of 49, Shearer's record is 45 out of 50, all at the top level football. Sharp's record for last season is 5 out of 8 in League 1 and in Johnstone's Paint Trophy! No comparison!

Shearer scored 313 goals in the top level that were boosted by 45 penalties

Last season Sharp scored 20 league 1 goals that were boosted by 5 penalties!

 

[Jan Age]

Wikki says:

409 appearances 162 goals = 1 goal every 2.5 games...

We could argue about different types of striker but Sharp is a goal scorer... which is what strikers should be.

Quite simply the lad is mustard in this league.

Does that mean he should never be dropped?... know.. we should pick the players as circumstances dictate... but Sharp should and will play the majority.

 

[bartman]

Le Tissier's penalty record is 48 out of 49, Shearer's record is 45 out of 50, all at the top level football. Sharp's record for last season is 5 out of 8 in League 1 and in Johnstone's Paint Trophy! No comparison!

Shearer scored 313 goals in the top level that were boosted by 45 penalties

Last season Sharp scored 20 league 1 goals that were boosted by 5 penalties!

Sorry Silent but you can't look at two players' career stats then isolate a season for another player. to try and make a point You aren't comparing like for like. You are also choosing two top players and not players lower down the leagues.

About a third of Le Tissier's league goals were from the spot...does this make him a poor forward ? 20% of Shearer's goals for England were penalties...so he wasn't that good was he ?

Can you please confirm the three 'legal' penalties Sharp missed last season please as I cannot recall them all

 

[Revolution]

Le Tissier's penalty record is 48 out of 49, Shearer's record is 45 out of 50, all at the top level football. Sharp's record for last season is 5 out of 8 in League 1 and in Johnstone's Paint Trophy! No comparison!

Shearer scored 313 goals in the top level that were boosted by 45 penalties

Last season Sharp scored 20 league 1 goals that were boosted by 5 penalties!

Unfortunately, the alternative to Sharp isn't Shearer or Le Tissier. It's Leon Clarke.

 

[Pollingtonblade]

Unfortunately, the alternative to Sharp isn't Shearer or Le Tissier. It's Leon Clarke.

If some on here had been scousers in the 80s they'd have demanded those lazy shit liners Rush and Lineker be dropped.