Lack of goals

[PL21gull]

Why can't we score?
Is it the system? - eg. our top scorer has taken to making runs to the wings (and provides potential assists) but this often leaves Danny as our only player in the penalty box, and do we really expect Danny to outjump the defence and plant a header (especially as we nearly always go long with crosses instead of attacking the near post, which is more difficult to defend).
Should players who are not scoring or assisting be automatically picked despite under-performing?
How are most goals scored, by head or by foot? - evidently by foot, yet we continue to loft balls hopefully into the area.
Is it the shooting? - why is it so difficult to hit such a large target? - against Harrogate, for example, we faced a nervous young keeper, who was pretty clueless in the air, but who had only 3 straight shots to save. Quite simply, we do not make opposing keepers play enough, even though the wintry conditions make catching the ball more difficult, even though the modern ultra-light balls are designed to swerve in the air, and even though few keepers catch, or even try to catch, every ball cleanly.
So why do we not try aiming to make the keepers earn their money instead of blasting shots high and wide with no hope of a rebound/tap-in? (indeed, if we aim at the centre of the goal our mishit shots might then actually find the corner!).
Come on you Yellows, let's be more professional, composed, and ruthless in front of goal - please!

[royalgull]

we don't have enough attack minded players in the team. it's that simple.

[Dave]

Think it is very tough to pin point lack goals to any single reason, we say lack of goals yet only Gillingham, Port Vale and Burton have scored more goals at home than us. But to balance that 11 of those 17 goals have come from 3 home matchs alone.

Sometimes it is the system your game plan "A" will not allways work, so then not only do you need a plan "B" you need players on the pitch/bench who are capable of playing plan "B" I can't speak for away games haven't been to any yet, been to all home matchs incuding Harrogate, we have seen a few games as said where we have scored, we have seen a few games where plenty of chances have been created and missed, and then there has been a couple of games at home where the team have either been poor or the system has not worked.

Failing to convert chances can been down to a number of factors, decision making, pressure, confidence, lack of talent. Is it lack of talent? I believe not, I think injuries to key players hasn't helped Lee mansell get forward as much as last season, Danny Stevens who scored 10 last term has been in and out of the team due to injury and the loss of E-O-K who had a goal in him is part of it, we have injuries to attack minded players such as Morris and Macklin, and are playing with the very raw talents of Tompson and Criag.

Decision making is part of it aswell, how many times this season have we seen a ball put into the box and not one player has attacked the space in the penalty area, or seen the other keeper spill the ball and no one has been there, and then you hear the oh why wont someone gamble in there groans from the crowd.

Lastly confidence, in Billy Bodin we have a player who is no doubt capable of scored 15 goals a season, he has scored goals for wales youth, Swindon and on loan at us last season in my view it wrong suggest otherwise and moronic to suggest he doesn't care now he is not on loan.

We have seen a lot of chances fall to Billy Bodin, he has snatched shots wide left and right, he has tripped on the ball with the keeper to beat even missed the target from 4 yrds with the goal wide open, yep and when you are struggling to score and confidence is low that is what happens, what he needs is a good sloopy cuddle and to be just told to stop trying to force the ball home, relax and let it happen the goals will come and confidence will flow.

[A J]

We weren’t very high scorers last season and were over-reliant (and lucky!) on winning 1-0. Once you start conceding, it’s going to prove very difficult.

Surely the time has come for Ling to change our system and style of play, especially in the home games. We need a second striker, a poacher. I know he is very limited with the squad (unless we make some loan signing’s), but the system is so predictable, surely teams must be thinking ‘stop Howe’ and the job is nearly done. We seem so slow. We don’t break quick enough when we sit back as a 4-5-1. Another problem as mentioned, the goals from Mansell and Stevens, both regular scorers last season, are missing at the moment.

[AustrianAndyGull]

It is the system and not having enough players who can play it well enough. On top of that i feel we are far too slow to get men forward in attack when Rene does hold the ball up well and get into promising positions, especially away. The breakaway goal we scored at Vale is an example of this. The ball broke kindly for Rene near the half way line and he ran into towards their box ( bearing in mind strength is renes forte and not pace ) he held the ball up for what seemed like an eternity, dallied with it a bit to put off the defender and an onrushing Morris was able to take a simple lay off and finsih superbly into the bottom corner. Morris took a gamble to get forward and it paid off and not only that IT CREATED A GOALSCORING OPPORTUNITY AND IT GAVE RENE AN OPTION. It all again comes down to needless negative tactics from Ling. I don't mind playing that way if we break with purpose, speed and with numbers but we never do so the amount of times Rene has to hold it up and lose it because there is no support or he ends up having to play the ball back just to retain possession is increased greatly. On the subject of Rene, and a really serious point in my opinion is the way that Rene's goals have come about. At least two i have seen (Chesterfield and Wycombe away ) were both created out of absolutely nothing, a defensive error for the Chesterfield one and bang 1-1 and the Wycombe one where he managed to score from nothing. It isn't even as if the chances he gets are being created by other team members. In addition the Vale goal was all down to Rene seizing on a mistake, holding the ball up immaculately and hanging on for Morris. Attack wise we ARE a one man team and this reliance on one player is short sighted management and will bite Lingy on the arse. If he is out for any length of time we've got nobody to take on that mantle with the system Martin seems to want to adopt week in week out. It doesn't suit the attacking players we have generally so why play that way all the time? Like i've said before, just imagine this season without Rene, not just his goals but his assists and workrate and where do you think we would be in the table? Scary thought isn't it. In fact it is probably down to Rene that we are just outside the play offs and not Martin Ling, anyone considered a leftfield idea such as that?

[PhilGull]

Is it the system or the players? Well it's both (or neither).
We don't have the outside forwards to play 4-3-3, we either need to bring in new players to play the current system, or find a new system to best suit the current players. Having said that, in theory a front three of Jarvis, Howe and Bodin, should work but it seems that Jarvis is unable to play like that and Bosin is just badly out of form.
I think we should try a 4-4-2, but who gets dropped from the middle of the park? It's tough and so far I think Ling has been right to stick with it. However, I think now we're getting to the point where something new needs to be tried. Last weekend would have been the perfect time to do, with Howe out.
Maybe something like Lathrope and Craig in the middle with Howe and Bodin up front.

[AustrianAndyGull]

Rene also scored the winner at Wimbledon, the winner in the last minute at home to Aldershot, got us back into it at the mem when we were dead and buried and in the other away games at Fleetwood, Rotherham and Barnet he didn't score but nobody else could and in the game he was suspended against Oxford we still couldn't score with the replacements. The more i look at the stats the more i actually believe that Rene has got Ling out of some REAL sh*t this season and there is still 2 thirds of it left. If we don't start attacking or get someone in who can add goals in the current system Ling plays then we'll finish bottom half without a doubt.

[AustrianAndyGull]

Ling isn't brave enough to have tried something different v Oxford Phil that's also a point i'm making. We can't progress as a team if he has blinkers fitted all the time like Frankel!

[Alpine Joe]

forevertufc

Think it is very tough to pin point lack goals to any single reason, we say lack of goals yet only Gillingham, Port Vale and Burton have scored more goals at home than us. But to balance that 11 of those 17 goals have come from 3 home matchs alone.

That's not a stat that particularly concerns me. I think we created more chances at home to Chelltenham when we scored 2 than in the next home match against Rochdale when we scored 4. We were well capable of creating a decent amount of chances against Gillingham and beating them. Considering we're amongst the highest goalscorers at home, are still unbeaten at home as we approach the middle of November, and defeated the league leaders at Plainmoor a couple of weeks ago I can't imagine Ling is puzzling his head on trying to devise a different system to play at home.

If the results and performances away from home are as bad as austriangull tells me they are, then that is where a different plan might be considered. Morris took a gamble and it paid off. If it's a gamble of course there's also the chance that it won't pay off; that Morris will be stranded in the opposition penalty area when the pass is intercepted and the home team stream forward in numbers, and now the man that Morris would have picked up is running free and unmarked. So lets not forget that gambles aren't win/win and can just as easily lead to conceeding a goal.

Now which teams don't need to gamble so much and don't need to get lots of men forward in order to nick a goal away from home ? The ones in the fortunate position of having a player who can conjure up a goal out of nothing, and austriangull provides us with examples to tell us we have such a player. We can attack Barnet and be very unlucky not to score 2 or 3, we can attack Bristol Rovers even when we've only got 10 players and score 2. That doesn't alter the fact that away results aren't up to last season and Lingy will be working on ways to improve things.

Finally going back to Plainmoor, yes chances have 'fallen' to Billy Bodin that he's missed when he should have scored. But a great deal of those chances are ones that he's played a large part in creating himself. Chances that only a player of Bodin's skill could have created in the first place, and moves that never would have developed into a goalscoring chance if a lesser player had been involved.

Problems that need working on, and there's no harm discussing possible solutions, but wholesale change when it's not necessary would destroy a lot of the existing good bits as well.

[Sexy_Gulls]

Is it the system or the players? Well it's both (or neither).
We don't have the outside forwards to play 4-3-3, we either need to bring in new players to play the current system, or find a new system to best suit the current players.

Largely agree with this. With 3 up front you need 1 to hug the touchline when the play is on their side and the other to drift into the centre so there's at least two players in the box. I think it is better to have two wide forwards rather than two wingers, unless the wingers are exceptionally tricky (think Chelsea with Duff/Robben/Cole). We have Bodin, who is the exceptionally tricky winger, but he is low on shooting confidence as has been overstated, Stevens, limited Winger, and two kids in Macklin and Thompson. Young attacking players will want to drop deep and receive the ball so as to impress the manager, when really what we need is the wide players getting in the box. I noticed against Barnet both Mansell and Easton were taking turns to get forward which is an improvement, but it doesn't solve the issue.

But, as also mentioned a lot, we don't have a second striker good enough to partner Howe (or even a third, which we would for backup) so I wouldn't castrate Ling for sticking with the current system. The only other option is to play Bodin as a deepr central striker, but I reckon we would end up with the same problem - Only Rene in the box.

I want Ling to sign a poacher to partner Howe. Someone who plays off the last man, someone who may or may not be called Elliot Benyon.

[GulldenBoy]

I was at Barnet and for all the possession and chances created we simply could not hit the target. Every other shot was spanked high or wide of the goal. There seems to be a lack of composure in front of goal at the moment. They need to stop trying to leather it and guide it in.

[Gullscorer]

You can't score goals if you haven't got the balls..

[GulldenBoy]

You can't score goals if you haven't got the balls..

Against Barnet that certainly wasn't the problem as we had the most possession by far, although i don't know about other games recently.

[AustrianAndyGull]

It's incredible how the three away games i have missed we scored twice against Bristol Rovers although we played cack apparently and lost, we played our best attacking performance of the season at Barnet, AND played ok at Wimbledon and WON!! I've been to all the rest where we've scored 3 in 5 and not won!

Bloody typical!

I reckon that York is going to be one of those freak random games like the Aldershot home one ( which i also missed due to illness! ) and it's going to be 4-3 to the Gulls and have everything. We'll get battered tomorrow no doubt but i've just got a feeling we're in for a corker at Bootham Crescent next weekend and our scoring problems will be temporarily eased.

[Gulliball]

4-5-1 worked for us last year when Mansell scored 15 from central midfield and we had O'Kane pulling the strings. Now we have Howe isolated and the goals aren't coming. You can't play three defensive midfielders and expect to create chances.