CONFIMRED - Sam Baldock

[Maneki Neko]

a strike force of bod, baldock, mcnulty +1 yoof is streets ahead of where we were last year imo, and for that I'm pretty happy.
adding an experienced half decent championship striker and a confident and hungry player who has done well in the league below us is good business.

Well quite

I find it quite sad that you're both content that a League 2 striker, a dross non-goalscorer and the epitome of an average striker who didn't even set the world alight in a promotion winning side as our strikeforce for next season. Very sad in fact.

I hesitat8 to throw kermorgant, lefondre, lita, long, kitson and doyle in your face, but....



and like ive said before after two years(++++) of having no strike force, id take bang average all day long.
Cardiff city's strike force was bang average last year, and they did ok.

and I think you may just be missing a whole bunch of budget related context in your whingeing

[Snowflake Royal]

I think the thing I most like about Clement's signings, is that they appear part of an incremental long term plan, rather than trying to buy half a new team that will take us up in one transfer window. The sort of strategy that Sir Steven of Coppell took. Inevitably a decent proportion of signings never really pay off, so if you're constantly looking to do a big turn around in one season, you're always likely to be disappointed.

Not only that, but you'll sign them on decent length contracts because if they're a success you don't want to lose them cheaply straight away, but if they fail as so many do you're then stuck with them *coughAlukoPogrebnyakDrentheGuthriecough*. You end up stacking up deadwood, and buying 10 - 13 new players a window, because you're constantly having to replace failures in your first team you can't get shot of. Whereas if you're stretching those big difference making signings out and using shorter term stop gaps, you waste less resource.

[Hound]

PC has confirmed we are close to signing someone - presuming this is Baldock

"It's not done yet, but we're working towards it," he told BBC Radio Berkshire during the club's pre-season training camp in Austria.

"And hopefully we'll have positive news very soon."

[Stranded]

From Football365 today on PL players who need a move:

Brighton – Sam Baldock

Why the need? Dropped out of first-team contention completely last season. Not the way forward for a 29-year-old.
Where’s the good fit? Reading have been strongly linked and, be honest, if I told you he’d actually joined Reading 18 months ago you’d probably believe me.

[NewCorkSeth]

I think the thing I most like about Clement's signings, is that they appear part of an incremental long term plan, rather than trying to buy half a new team that will take us up in one transfer window. The sort of strategy that Sir Steven of Coppell took. Inevitably a decent proportion of signings never really pay off, so if you're constantly looking to do a big turn around in one season, you're always likely to be disappointed.

Not only that, but you'll sign them on decent length contracts because if they're a success you don't want to lose them cheaply straight away, but if they fail as so many do you're then stuck with them *coughAlukoPogrebnyakDrentheGuthriecough*. You end up stacking up deadwood, and buying 10 - 13 new players a window, because you're constantly having to replace failures in your first team you can't get shot of. Whereas if you're stretching those big difference making signings out and using shorter term stop gaps, you waste less resource.

I'm a little confused about this post. Have we made a big difference signing this window?

Yiadom might be the closest but I don't think RB was our major problem last season. LB was more serious a problem and goal creation seemed minimal (although stats may prove me wrong on that)

A big difference signing this window would have been (or will be) a proven striker and the jury is put on Baldock. It seems very split here on him.

[Snowflake Royal]

I think the thing I most like about Clement's signings, is that they appear part of an incremental long term plan, rather than trying to buy half a new team that will take us up in one transfer window. The sort of strategy that Sir Steven of Coppell took. Inevitably a decent proportion of signings never really pay off, so if you're constantly looking to do a big turn around in one season, you're always likely to be disappointed.

Not only that, but you'll sign them on decent length contracts because if they're a success you don't want to lose them cheaply straight away, but if they fail as so many do you're then stuck with them *coughAlukoPogrebnyakDrentheGuthriecough*. You end up stacking up deadwood, and buying 10 - 13 new players a window, because you're constantly having to replace failures in your first team you can't get shot of. Whereas if you're stretching those big difference making signings out and using shorter term stop gaps, you waste less resource.

I'm a little confused about this post. Have we made a big difference signing this window?

Yiadom might be the closest but I don't think RB was our major problem last season. LB was more serious a problem and goal creation seemed minimal (although stats may prove me wrong on that)

A big difference signing this window would have been (or will be) a proven striker and the jury is put on Baldock. It seems very split here on him.

I think this window is about solid reliable signings, not marquee ones. We can look at one or two of those in winter / next summer once we've got on an even keel and cleared more deadwood.

[Zip]

Baldock is small and so is McNulty. Our other likely attacking outlets like Barrow, Aluko, Swift and most of all Kelly are hardly giants. Unless we start with Bodvarsson we will carry no aerial threat at all and with little physical presence in the box.

[NewCorkSeth]

I think the thing I most like about Clement's signings, is that they appear part of an incremental long term plan, rather than trying to buy half a new team that will take us up in one transfer window. The sort of strategy that Sir Steven of Coppell took. Inevitably a decent proportion of signings never really pay off, so if you're constantly looking to do a big turn around in one season, you're always likely to be disappointed.

Not only that, but you'll sign them on decent length contracts because if they're a success you don't want to lose them cheaply straight away, but if they fail as so many do you're then stuck with them *coughAlukoPogrebnyakDrentheGuthriecough*. You end up stacking up deadwood, and buying 10 - 13 new players a window, because you're constantly having to replace failures in your first team you can't get shot of. Whereas if you're stretching those big difference making signings out and using shorter term stop gaps, you waste less resource.

I'm a little confused about this post. Have we made a big difference signing this window?

Yiadom might be the closest but I don't think RB was our major problem last season. LB was more serious a problem and goal creation seemed minimal (although stats may prove me wrong on that)

A big difference signing this window would have been (or will be) a proven striker and the jury is put on Baldock. It seems very split here on him.

I think this window is about solid reliable signings, not marquee ones. We can look at one or two of those in winter / next summer once we've got on an even keel and cleared more deadwood.

Ah completely misunderstood. Agreed. We have a lot of dead wood to shift. Chances are a couple of our signings this window could fall into that category come 2019 though...

[Hound]

Baldock is small and so is McNulty. Our other likely attacking outlets like Barrow, Aluko, Swift and most of all Kelly are hardly giants. Unless we start with Bodvarsson we will carry no aerial threat at all and with little physical presence in the box.

Swift isn’t particularly small though obviously not going to win much in the air

Meite is a big lad, not really sure how he is in the air though

I’m thinking he’d like to play Baldock/McNulty and Meite/Bod up front, but not sure how that fits into what seems to be a preferred 4-3-3

FWIW was chatting to a Brighton fan today at work who said Baldock was excellent for them - just injury prone

[Snowflake Royal]

Could be planning for last 20 tactical shift to 2 up for a midfielder. Or a 3-5-2 (left back and Barrow a problem there) maybe a return to 4-4-2.

Aluko actually looked decent in the Besiktas highlights. And we looked quite slick in general... 4 all 1.50 we were in attack

[Elmparkoid]

Last season we let in too many goals and scored too few. The defence has now been upgraded and our forward line looks slightly, only slightly better. If the troops can be lifted this may be a good starting point!

[Brain Traysers]

To me signing Baldock would indeed appear consistent with a change in tactical approach to allow two up front, which according to whoscored.com, only happened six times last season (4 x 352, 2 x 422). A potential change in shape may be required to increase our attacking output – only Burton (8.8 ) managed fewer than our 9.9 shots taken per match last season. I can’t however see any evidence that suggests Clement has previously employed a system with two up front – Derby almost always started with a 433 in his 33 games there, while Swansea only started three games in the season where he took over in January.

In his two most recent full seasons playing for Brighton (2016/16 and 2016/17), Baldock started the game as part of a front two on 26 and 27 occasions, coming off the subs bench a further 3 and 4 times. He never started as the lone striker in the handful of games in which Brighton played only one up top. After promotion Brighton switched to a more defensive set up, starting only one striker (often supported by Pascal Groß in an advanced midfield role); they only started a front two on 5 occasions. This suggests Baldock was squeezed out to accommodate the change in shape that (potentially) led to Brighton’s survival.

I think he is best suited to a secondary striker role, usually playing a little deeper than a target man (Murray or Hemed while at Brighton) – which is a role we haven’t played over the last couple of seasons. Indeed, his style looks more like Grabban, who has shown how successful he can be in this league when playing up top rather than out on the wing…



In Brighton’s 2015/16 promotion winning season, while starting up front, Baldock managed 11 goals, at 0.47 goals per 90 mins. In the season before, Baldock only scored 4 goals, at 0.19 goals per 90 mins. What is surprising is that the 7 extra goals came from only having four more shots (60 vs 56), and the basic location profile of shots was almost identical (around 2/3 in the penalty area, just over a quarter outside of the box, 7-11% in 6 yard box). This means his overall shot conversion rate increased from 7% to 18%, while his shot conversion from each location trebled (e.g. from 6% to 18% outside the box) – he scored from all 4 of his shots taken in the 6 yard box. To me, these conversion rates look unsustainably high.

By contrast JDB and Kermorgant were typically more active in the penalty area, which was the location for 70-80% of their shots across the last two seasons, and only 2 between them over the last two seasons across 91 starts as strikers (both Yann in 2016/17). Last season, JDB converted 10.4% of his shots 48, almost double the 5.6% he converted in the 21 games he started up front for Wolves in 2016/17. Kermorgant only converted 4% of his 24 shots taken in his 13 starts last season, significantly down from the 16.5% conversion rate in his stellar 2016/17 campaign.

Unfortunately there is not a whole lot of granular data publically available which would allow me to dig any deeper, but the author of the excellent Experimental361 blog does produce a neat chart showing the attacking threat breakdown of different teams. The author plots expected goals (xG) per 90 mins (x-axis) against the actual scoring rate per 90 mins (y-axis). I could only find one for 2016/17 ( I don’t think he produced them for 2015/16), which shows Baldock above the shaded area, indicating he performed in the top 10% of scorers by this measure. While this level of data isn’t available for earlier seasons, it does seem like his performance was a bit of an outlier, consistent with his raw goal stats.



For completeness, here is how our attack fared last season – although take care when comparing given the inconsistent axis ranges.


Interestingly, JDB performed exactly as expected given the quality of shots he took (he is not a bad finisher, although this measure says nothing about his ability to move into the right areas, nor his ability to generate a shot when receiving the ball in a dangerous area). The other conclusions I make from the chart are certainly not surprises; Yann struggled to get back to his 2016/17 form, Barrow scored more than he probably should have, and Aluko was not very good (although this was consistent with his poor 2016/17 conversion rate vs xG in the 2016/17 chart for Fulham on that blog).

In my opinion, Baldock would be a decent signing if available at the right price – 29 is just the wrong side of a typical striker’s peak, and you can make an argument either way about what impact a full season away from first team football might have. The signing would allow a potential change of shape, although not one previously used by Clement. A more attacking formation should lead to more shots and goals – hopefully the addition of Meyler in particular means a potential switch in approach doesn’t come at the expense of more shots/goals conceded – only 6 or so teams fared worse than us last season. If we were to sign him, we could probably reasonably expect a bit of mean reversion to high single figure goals scored this season if given a similar number of minutes in the right system - possibly even low double digits if he started in more than 2/3s of games like he did for Brighton. Of course he could prove 2016/17 wasn't a flash in the pan - who really knows?

I would however be disappointed if we paid a ‘high’ fee (>£3m?), which I would see as a big portion of what little funds we seemingly have at our disposal, especially if there is no change in shape – I don’t think Baldock would suit the lone striker role, and would be underutilised out wide (Grabban II).

[Old Man Andrews]

To me signing Baldock would indeed appear consistent with a change in tactical approach to allow two up front, which according to whoscored.com, only happened six times last season (4 x 352, 2 x 422). A potential change in shape may be required to increase our attacking output – only Burton (8.8 ) managed fewer than our 9.9 shots taken per match last season. I can’t however see any evidence that suggests Clement has previously employed a system with two up front – Derby almost always started with a 433 in his 33 games there, while Swansea only started three games in the season where he took over in January.

In his two most recent full seasons playing for Brighton (2016/16 and 2016/17), Baldock started the game as part of a front two on 26 and 27 occasions, coming off the subs bench a further 3 and 4 times. He never started as the lone striker in the handful of games in which Brighton played only one up top. After promotion Brighton switched to a more defensive set up, starting only one striker (often supported by Pascal Groß in an advanced midfield role); they only started a front two on 5 occasions. This suggests Baldock was squeezed out to accommodate the change in shape that (potentially) led to Brighton’s survival.

I think he is best suited to a secondary striker role, usually playing a little deeper than a target man (Murray or Hemed while at Brighton) – which is a role we haven’t played over the last couple of seasons. Indeed, his style looks more like Grabban, who has shown how successful he can be in this league when playing up top rather than out on the wing…



In Brighton’s 2015/16 promotion winning season, while starting up front, Baldock managed 11 goals, at 0.47 goals per 90 mins. In the season before, Baldock only scored 4 goals, at 0.19 goals per 90 mins. What is surprising is that the 7 extra goals came from only having four more shots (60 vs 56), and the basic location profile of shots was almost identical (around 2/3 in the penalty area, just over a quarter outside of the box, 7-11% in 6 yard box). This means his overall shot conversion rate increased from 7% to 18%, while his shot conversion from each location trebled (e.g. from 6% to 18% outside the box) – he scored from all 4 of his shots taken in the 6 yard box. To me, these conversion rates look unsustainably high.

By contrast JDB and Kermorgant were typically more active in the penalty area, which was the location for 70-80% of their shots across the last two seasons, and only 2 between them over the last two seasons across 91 starts as strikers (both Yann in 2016/17). Last season, JDB converted 10.4% of his shots 48, almost double the 5.6% he converted in the 21 games he started up front for Wolves in 2016/17. Kermorgant only converted 4% of his 24 shots taken in his 13 starts last season, significantly down from the 16.5% conversion rate in his stellar 2016/17 campaign.

Unfortunately there is not a whole lot of granular data publically available which would allow me to dig any deeper, but the author of the excellent Experimental361 blog does produce a neat chart showing the attacking threat breakdown of different teams. The author plots expected goals (xG) per 90 mins (x-axis) against the actual scoring rate per 90 mins (y-axis). I could only find one for 2016/17 ( I don’t think he produced them for 2015/16), which shows Baldock above the shaded area, indicating he performed in the top 10% of scorers by this measure. While this level of data isn’t available for earlier seasons, it does seem like his performance was a bit of an outlier, consistent with his raw goal stats.



For completeness, here is how our attack fared last season – although take care when comparing given the inconsistent axis ranges.


Interestingly, JDB performed exactly as expected given the quality of shots he took (he is not a bad finisher, although this measure says nothing about his ability to move into the right areas, nor his ability to generate a shot when receiving the ball in a dangerous area). The other conclusions I make from the chart are certainly not surprises; Yann struggled to get back to his 2016/17 form, Barrow scored more than he probably should have, and Aluko was not very good (although this was consistent with his poor 2016/17 conversion rate vs xG in the 2016/17 chart for Fulham on that blog).

In my opinion, Baldock would be a decent signing if available at the right price – 29 is just the wrong side of a typical striker’s peak, and you can make an argument either way about what impact a full season away from first team football might have. The signing would allow a potential change of shape, although not one previously used by Clement. A more attacking formation should lead to more shots and goals – hopefully the addition of Meyler in particular means a potential switch in approach doesn’t come at the expense of more shots/goals conceded – only 6 or so teams fared worse than us last season. If we were to sign him, we could probably reasonably expect a bit of mean reversion to high single figure goals scored this season if given a similar number of minutes in the right system - possibly even low double digits if he started in more than 2/3s of games like he did for Brighton. Of course he could prove 2016/17 wasn't a flash in the pan - who really knows?

I would however be disappointed if we paid a ‘high’ fee (>£3m?), which I would see as a big portion of what little funds we seemingly have at our disposal, especially if there is no change in shape – I don’t think Baldock would suit the lone striker role, and would be underutilised out wide (Grabban II).

Jesus.

[Coppells Lost Coat]

To me signing Baldock would indeed appear consistent with a change in tactical approach to allow two up front, which according to whoscored.com, only happened six times last season (4 x 352, 2 x 422). A potential change in shape may be required to increase our attacking output – only Burton (8.8 ) managed fewer than our 9.9 shots taken per match last season. I can’t however see any evidence that suggests Clement has previously employed a system with two up front – Derby almost always started with a 433 in his 33 games there, while Swansea only started three games in the season where he took over in January.

In his two most recent full seasons playing for Brighton (2016/16 and 2016/17), Baldock started the game as part of a front two on 26 and 27 occasions, coming off the subs bench a further 3 and 4 times. He never started as the lone striker in the handful of games in which Brighton played only one up top. After promotion Brighton switched to a more defensive set up, starting only one striker (often supported by Pascal Groß in an advanced midfield role); they only started a front two on 5 occasions. This suggests Baldock was squeezed out to accommodate the change in shape that (potentially) led to Brighton’s survival.

I think he is best suited to a secondary striker role, usually playing a little deeper than a target man (Murray or Hemed while at Brighton) – which is a role we haven’t played over the last couple of seasons. Indeed, his style looks more like Grabban, who has shown how successful he can be in this league when playing up top rather than out on the wing…



In Brighton’s 2015/16 promotion winning season, while starting up front, Baldock managed 11 goals, at 0.47 goals per 90 mins. In the season before, Baldock only scored 4 goals, at 0.19 goals per 90 mins. What is surprising is that the 7 extra goals came from only having four more shots (60 vs 56), and the basic location profile of shots was almost identical (around 2/3 in the penalty area, just over a quarter outside of the box, 7-11% in 6 yard box). This means his overall shot conversion rate increased from 7% to 18%, while his shot conversion from each location trebled (e.g. from 6% to 18% outside the box) – he scored from all 4 of his shots taken in the 6 yard box. To me, these conversion rates look unsustainably high.

By contrast JDB and Kermorgant were typically more active in the penalty area, which was the location for 70-80% of their shots across the last two seasons, and only 2 between them over the last two seasons across 91 starts as strikers (both Yann in 2016/17). Last season, JDB converted 10.4% of his shots 48, almost double the 5.6% he converted in the 21 games he started up front for Wolves in 2016/17. Kermorgant only converted 4% of his 24 shots taken in his 13 starts last season, significantly down from the 16.5% conversion rate in his stellar 2016/17 campaign.

Unfortunately there is not a whole lot of granular data publically available which would allow me to dig any deeper, but the author of the excellent Experimental361 blog does produce a neat chart showing the attacking threat breakdown of different teams. The author plots expected goals (xG) per 90 mins (x-axis) against the actual scoring rate per 90 mins (y-axis). I could only find one for 2016/17 ( I don’t think he produced them for 2015/16), which shows Baldock above the shaded area, indicating he performed in the top 10% of scorers by this measure. While this level of data isn’t available for earlier seasons, it does seem like his performance was a bit of an outlier, consistent with his raw goal stats.



For completeness, here is how our attack fared last season – although take care when comparing given the inconsistent axis ranges.


Interestingly, JDB performed exactly as expected given the quality of shots he took (he is not a bad finisher, although this measure says nothing about his ability to move into the right areas, nor his ability to generate a shot when receiving the ball in a dangerous area). The other conclusions I make from the chart are certainly not surprises; Yann struggled to get back to his 2016/17 form, Barrow scored more than he probably should have, and Aluko was not very good (although this was consistent with his poor 2016/17 conversion rate vs xG in the 2016/17 chart for Fulham on that blog).

In my opinion, Baldock would be a decent signing if available at the right price – 29 is just the wrong side of a typical striker’s peak, and you can make an argument either way about what impact a full season away from first team football might have. The signing would allow a potential change of shape, although not one previously used by Clement. A more attacking formation should lead to more shots and goals – hopefully the addition of Meyler in particular means a potential switch in approach doesn’t come at the expense of more shots/goals conceded – only 6 or so teams fared worse than us last season. If we were to sign him, we could probably reasonably expect a bit of mean reversion to high single figure goals scored this season if given a similar number of minutes in the right system - possibly even low double digits if he started in more than 2/3s of games like he did for Brighton. Of course he could prove 2016/17 wasn't a flash in the pan - who really knows?

I would however be disappointed if we paid a ‘high’ fee (>£3m?), which I would see as a big portion of what little funds we seemingly have at our disposal, especially if there is no change in shape – I don’t think Baldock would suit the lone striker role, and would be underutilised out wide (Grabban II).

Jesus.

+1

Thats a big read for a friday morning.

[Royalwaster]

Jesus wept.

[andrew1957]

I would tend to agree that it is pointless signing Baldock unless we are reverting to 4-4-2. We have better wide options already and Bodvarsson and probably Meite would be more appropriate for the single striker role and we already have a smaller player who can play off the larger man in McNulty. Just don't see where Baldock fits in unless we have injuries.

[Snowflake Royal]

I would tend to agree that it is pointless signing Baldock unless we are reverting to 4-4-2. We have better wide options already and Bodvarsson and probably Meite would be more appropriate for the single striker role and we already have a smaller player who can play off the larger man in McNulty. Just don't see where Baldock fits in unless we have injuries.

What about having options and a plan to change shape and go more attacking if we're losing.

No point swapping Bod for Meite and doing the same thing if we're losing and need one / two / three goals.

[windermereROYAL]

Well sky are reporting that Brighton are still retaining an interest in signing Liam Moore, if they are trying to tie that into any deal they can bloody well sod off. a giant at the back or a midget up front? no contest really!!!

[Pepe the Horseman]

To me signing Baldock would indeed appear consistent with a change in tactical approach to allow two up front, which according to whoscored.com, only happened six times last season (4 x 352, 2 x 422). A potential change in shape may be required to increase our attacking output – only Burton (8.8 ) managed fewer than our 9.9 shots taken per match last season. I can’t however see any evidence that suggests Clement has previously employed a system with two up front – Derby almost always started with a 433 in his 33 games there, while Swansea only started three games in the season where he took over in January.

In his two most recent full seasons playing for Brighton (2016/16 and 2016/17), Baldock started the game as part of a front two on 26 and 27 occasions, coming off the subs bench a further 3 and 4 times. He never started as the lone striker in the handful of games in which Brighton played only one up top. After promotion Brighton switched to a more defensive set up, starting only one striker (often supported by Pascal Groß in an advanced midfield role); they only started a front two on 5 occasions. This suggests Baldock was squeezed out to accommodate the change in shape that (potentially) led to Brighton’s survival.

I think he is best suited to a secondary striker role, usually playing a little deeper than a target man (Murray or Hemed while at Brighton) – which is a role we haven’t played over the last couple of seasons. Indeed, his style looks more like Grabban, who has shown how successful he can be in this league when playing up top rather than out on the wing…



In Brighton’s 2015/16 promotion winning season, while starting up front, Baldock managed 11 goals, at 0.47 goals per 90 mins. In the season before, Baldock only scored 4 goals, at 0.19 goals per 90 mins. What is surprising is that the 7 extra goals came from only having four more shots (60 vs 56), and the basic location profile of shots was almost identical (around 2/3 in the penalty area, just over a quarter outside of the box, 7-11% in 6 yard box). This means his overall shot conversion rate increased from 7% to 18%, while his shot conversion from each location trebled (e.g. from 6% to 18% outside the box) – he scored from all 4 of his shots taken in the 6 yard box. To me, these conversion rates look unsustainably high.

By contrast JDB and Kermorgant were typically more active in the penalty area, which was the location for 70-80% of their shots across the last two seasons, and only 2 between them over the last two seasons across 91 starts as strikers (both Yann in 2016/17). Last season, JDB converted 10.4% of his shots 48, almost double the 5.6% he converted in the 21 games he started up front for Wolves in 2016/17. Kermorgant only converted 4% of his 24 shots taken in his 13 starts last season, significantly down from the 16.5% conversion rate in his stellar 2016/17 campaign.

Unfortunately there is not a whole lot of granular data publically available which would allow me to dig any deeper, but the author of the excellent Experimental361 blog does produce a neat chart showing the attacking threat breakdown of different teams. The author plots expected goals (xG) per 90 mins (x-axis) against the actual scoring rate per 90 mins (y-axis). I could only find one for 2016/17 ( I don’t think he produced them for 2015/16), which shows Baldock above the shaded area, indicating he performed in the top 10% of scorers by this measure. While this level of data isn’t available for earlier seasons, it does seem like his performance was a bit of an outlier, consistent with his raw goal stats.



For completeness, here is how our attack fared last season – although take care when comparing given the inconsistent axis ranges.


Interestingly, JDB performed exactly as expected given the quality of shots he took (he is not a bad finisher, although this measure says nothing about his ability to move into the right areas, nor his ability to generate a shot when receiving the ball in a dangerous area). The other conclusions I make from the chart are certainly not surprises; Yann struggled to get back to his 2016/17 form, Barrow scored more than he probably should have, and Aluko was not very good (although this was consistent with his poor 2016/17 conversion rate vs xG in the 2016/17 chart for Fulham on that blog).

In my opinion, Baldock would be a decent signing if available at the right price – 29 is just the wrong side of a typical striker’s peak, and you can make an argument either way about what impact a full season away from first team football might have. The signing would allow a potential change of shape, although not one previously used by Clement. A more attacking formation should lead to more shots and goals – hopefully the addition of Meyler in particular means a potential switch in approach doesn’t come at the expense of more shots/goals conceded – only 6 or so teams fared worse than us last season. If we were to sign him, we could probably reasonably expect a bit of mean reversion to high single figure goals scored this season if given a similar number of minutes in the right system - possibly even low double digits if he started in more than 2/3s of games like he did for Brighton. Of course he could prove 2016/17 wasn't a flash in the pan - who really knows?

I would however be disappointed if we paid a ‘high’ fee (>£3m?), which I would see as a big portion of what little funds we seemingly have at our disposal, especially if there is no change in shape – I don’t think Baldock would suit the lone striker role, and would be underutilised out wide (Grabban II).

I disagree.

[Snowflake Royal]

To me signing Baldock would indeed appear consistent with a change in tactical approach to allow two up front, which according to whoscored.com, only happened six times last season (4 x 352, 2 x 422). A potential change in shape may be required to increase our attacking output – only Burton (8.8 ) managed fewer than our 9.9 shots taken per match last season. I can’t however see any evidence that suggests Clement has previously employed a system with two up front – Derby almost always started with a 433 in his 33 games there, while Swansea only started three games in the season where he took over in January.

In his two most recent full seasons playing for Brighton (2016/16 and 2016/17), Baldock started the game as part of a front two on 26 and 27 occasions, coming off the subs bench a further 3 and 4 times. He never started as the lone striker in the handful of games in which Brighton played only one up top. After promotion Brighton switched to a more defensive set up, starting only one striker (often supported by Pascal Groß in an advanced midfield role); they only started a front two on 5 occasions. This suggests Baldock was squeezed out to accommodate the change in shape that (potentially) led to Brighton’s survival.

I think he is best suited to a secondary striker role, usually playing a little deeper than a target man (Murray or Hemed while at Brighton) – which is a role we haven’t played over the last couple of seasons. Indeed, his style looks more like Grabban, who has shown how successful he can be in this league when playing up top rather than out on the wing…



In Brighton’s 2015/16 promotion winning season, while starting up front, Baldock managed 11 goals, at 0.47 goals per 90 mins. In the season before, Baldock only scored 4 goals, at 0.19 goals per 90 mins. What is surprising is that the 7 extra goals came from only having four more shots (60 vs 56), and the basic location profile of shots was almost identical (around 2/3 in the penalty area, just over a quarter outside of the box, 7-11% in 6 yard box). This means his overall shot conversion rate increased from 7% to 18%, while his shot conversion from each location trebled (e.g. from 6% to 18% outside the box) – he scored from all 4 of his shots taken in the 6 yard box. To me, these conversion rates look unsustainably high.

By contrast JDB and Kermorgant were typically more active in the penalty area, which was the location for 70-80% of their shots across the last two seasons, and only 2 between them over the last two seasons across 91 starts as strikers (both Yann in 2016/17). Last season, JDB converted 10.4% of his shots 48, almost double the 5.6% he converted in the 21 games he started up front for Wolves in 2016/17. Kermorgant only converted 4% of his 24 shots taken in his 13 starts last season, significantly down from the 16.5% conversion rate in his stellar 2016/17 campaign.

Unfortunately there is not a whole lot of granular data publically available which would allow me to dig any deeper, but the author of the excellent Experimental361 blog does produce a neat chart showing the attacking threat breakdown of different teams. The author plots expected goals (xG) per 90 mins (x-axis) against the actual scoring rate per 90 mins (y-axis). I could only find one for 2016/17 ( I don’t think he produced them for 2015/16), which shows Baldock above the shaded area, indicating he performed in the top 10% of scorers by this measure. While this level of data isn’t available for earlier seasons, it does seem like his performance was a bit of an outlier, consistent with his raw goal stats.



For completeness, here is how our attack fared last season – although take care when comparing given the inconsistent axis ranges.


Interestingly, JDB performed exactly as expected given the quality of shots he took (he is not a bad finisher, although this measure says nothing about his ability to move into the right areas, nor his ability to generate a shot when receiving the ball in a dangerous area). The other conclusions I make from the chart are certainly not surprises; Yann struggled to get back to his 2016/17 form, Barrow scored more than he probably should have, and Aluko was not very good (although this was consistent with his poor 2016/17 conversion rate vs xG in the 2016/17 chart for Fulham on that blog).

In my opinion, Baldock would be a decent signing if available at the right price – 29 is just the wrong side of a typical striker’s peak, and you can make an argument either way about what impact a full season away from first team football might have. The signing would allow a potential change of shape, although not one previously used by Clement. A more attacking formation should lead to more shots and goals – hopefully the addition of Meyler in particular means a potential switch in approach doesn’t come at the expense of more shots/goals conceded – only 6 or so teams fared worse than us last season. If we were to sign him, we could probably reasonably expect a bit of mean reversion to high single figure goals scored this season if given a similar number of minutes in the right system - possibly even low double digits if he started in more than 2/3s of games like he did for Brighton. Of course he could prove 2016/17 wasn't a flash in the pan - who really knows?

I would however be disappointed if we paid a ‘high’ fee (>£3m?), which I would see as a big portion of what little funds we seemingly have at our disposal, especially if there is no change in shape – I don’t think Baldock would suit the lone striker role, and would be underutilised out wide (Grabban II).

I disagree.

That's by far and away the best stats based analysis posted on Hobnob in years, if not ever.

Still, it's an awful lot of words to say "dunno lol". And as most of us know, stats are only a small slice of the picture, telling us little on their own.