How to win a football match: score more goals than the opposition
Craig Davies` brace against Cardiff City sees him rise to the top of our goalscoring charts with the incredible total of seven. He is closely followed by Eidur Gudjohnsen and Zach Clough on six, while Adam Le Fondre, Darren Pratley and Matt Mills are just one shorter; Joe Mason has five; Chungy, Feeney and Danns have netted three. Jermaine Beckford notched an impressive two, and David Wheater, Dean Moxey, Emile Heskey, Filip Twardzik, Jay Spearing, Liam Trotter, Mark Davies, Max Clayton, Saidy Janko and Tom Walker have each scored one. These starts include goals in all first team competitions.
The above suggests that we lack a goalscorer: someone upon whom we can rely to win us games. However, we have scored 50 league goals so far this season which is more than the five teams directly above us, and 15 more than our neighbours Wigan Athletic.
One could argue that having goals coming from various different players is actually better than having one striker who notches 30 goals a season with few others chipping in. This way, if this wonder striker were to be sold/injured/out of form, we would miss him greatly.
The only natural goalscorers I think we have are Adam Le Fondre and Zach Clough. Had you asked me this question a few years ago, I`d say that Jermaine Beckford could score 20+ a season. The problem is that Le Fondre is on loan and will be gone come the end of the season; the only way we`ll have him in August is if we pay money for him- and a lot of it! I personally believe Clough to be a better player when deployed in a deeper role so he can carry the ball forwards, however this may hinder his goalscoring oppourtunities. Also do we want to have to rely on a 19 year old who has been prone to injuries during his so far short professional career?
I rate Craig Davies. I feel that although there are aspects of his game that need to be worked on: namely finishing and composure, he could be a very good player at this level. He is strong, athletic and technically not too bad at all. However, he won`t bag as many goals as we require to climb up the table.
Yeah, Gudjohnsen`s scoring record has been quite good since his return, but we shouldn`t rely on a 37 year old next season who, by the way, we might not even have!
Max Clayton has the potential to be a goalscorer, but he has had issues about his composure in the past. His ability to pick up pockets in behind the defence is something rarely seen in Championship football, let alone world football.
While having a variety of goalscoring options is good, at least one of them needs to be scoring more than 10 goals a season. Look at the clubs who have done well in this league recently, they`ve had players like Charlie Austin, Chris Martin, Danny Ings and Troy Deeney firing them up the table.
It is worth mentioning, however, that finishing is less than half the battle. Chances have to be created, and the defence needs to be able to protect leads gained by scoring goals.