By Neil Ravenscroft
October 28 2002

Neil Ravenscroft, in his reaction to Saturday’s result, puts his finger on one of our problems, as he highlights our lack of goals from the strikers. In last week’s column, I suggested that we are not doing as well in comparative fixtures this season to last. The reaction on the message boards was that fans think we are playing a lot better than last season and that our performances deserved a much better points haul than we have achieved.

All that was written before the creditable 0 – 0 at Coventry on Saturday. However, that was another game where, if we had taken our chances, we could have come away with all three points?

So why aren’t we scoring?

I don’t know the answer to that, if I did, I’d be a football manager, but we can look at the areas goals are coming from and compare that to Rotherham, a club in a position in the League we’d be filling if we had got those extra points our performances deserve.

This season, we have scored in all competitions 22 goals. 11 of these have come from the strikers (Jorge, Junior, Zdrilic and Birch), 8 from midfield and 3 from defenders.
Rotherham have scored 33 goals, 25 from the strikers (Robins, Byfield, Lee and Barker), 4 from midfield and 4 from defenders.

Granted that, in our case, the penalty takers are a defender and a midfielder (Aranalde and Sonner), whereas Lee or Robins take Rotherham’s, but there seems to be a discrepancy here.

The point I am trying to make becomes clear now. The four strikers we have on our books are not putting away enough of the chances that come their way. The midfield and defender’s strike rate is good, but it should not be 50% of the total. That is the problem we are suffering from at the moment and that is why we are not higher in the table.

Time for Jorge, Junior, Zdrilic and Birch to put that right in the next two home games!
Home wins are vital to our progress in this league and the picture would look rosy with wins against Palace and Sjoke.