Area of weakness that remains....

[Mr Angry]

Whilst I have been really impressed with the quality of the new signings, it seems to me that we have one area of weakness that we haven't addressed - a goal-scoring central midfielder; don't get me wrong - a central midfield of Guthrie, Ledge, Jem and Tabb is good, but I don't see any significant (10-15) goals coming from there.

Presumably, we are going to play 442 and have expectations of our strikers getting the goals neccesary to keep us up, with the odd goal from the defence at set pieces thrown in, but I'm a tad concerned that this alone might not be enough at this level.

Any decent - and reasonably prolific - central midfielders in our price range worth considering?

[pea]

Any decent - and reasonably prolific - central midfielders in our price range worth considering?

no

[GSY-Royal]

Any decent - and reasonably prolific - central midfielders in our price range worth considering?

I believe Swansea have just snapped up Spanish central attacking midfielder Michu for around £2m, looks an absolute steal as he scored 15 times in La Liga last season for Rayo Vallecano. Will fill the Sigurdsson void quite nicely for them, but would have been an ideal signing for us too.

Koren's scoring rate isn't amazing, but it's probably better than what we've got.

[Wimb]

Sigurdsson has been the only goal scoring midfielder we've had in recent years but he was playing just off the striker anyway. Since switching to 4-4-2 not having one hasn't significantly hampered us as we've been getting goals from the strikers, out wide and from set pieces.

[Mr Angry]

GSY-Royal - VERY quick edit there!!!

I checked (no snowball); Guthrie's record is 9 goals in over 150 games....

[moonwalklikebas]

.... Brian Howard.........................................................

[Saaaaaaaammmmmm]

Like I mentioned on a another thread Jake Taylor fits the mould but don't think anyone knows exactly what level he is. Exeter fans certainly raved about him but then that is League 1. Not sure if you can read too much into him not going to Portugal as he's only just back from injury

[Optimist]

I think 10-15 goals from CM is enough really, especially as our wingers could get around those same numbers as well. Also either LB will be main free kick taker, and our CBs will get on the end of a few corners and free kicks, and Cummings is due a goal!! As long as the strikers keep firing we'll be fine.

[Ian Royal]

I don't think you'll find many goalscoring midfielders who can play in a two man midfield and regularly score 10-15 goals a season at PL level. I'm not sure I can think of any at all!Especially if they aren't on pen / fk duty. EDIT: think you meant the whole midfield. darn.

Even Sidwell couldn't do that well regularly at Championship level. IIRC he rarely beat 10 goals.

A much more realistic desire is two central midfielders who can score 10 between them. That should be enough if your attackers are contributing properly.

Striker 1: 15
Striker 2: 8
Striker 3: 5
Striker 4: 3
Midfield: 10
Wings: 10
Defence: 6

That gives you 57 goals which is a more than reasonable amount for a PL season IMO. When we got relegated we got 41 and 44 would have kept us up. When we finished 8th we only got about 53!

Ledge and Karacan generally manage about 5 - 6 between them, so it's only an extra few goals Guthrie has to add to the mix

[andrew1957]

In 2006-7 when we were 8th the scoring was as follows:

Strikers 24 (Doyle 13, Lita 7, Long 2, Kitson 2)
Central Mid 7 (Sidwell 4 Harper 3)
Wide mid 9 (S.Hunt 4 Seol 4 Oster 1)
Defence 8 (Gunnar 3 Ingi 2 Sonko 1 DLC 1 Shorey 1)
Own goals 4

Total 52

I think the current squad could replicate this sort of scoring record - it will then be a question of "is our defence strong enough to concede just say 48?" (as we did that year).

[Saaaaaaaammmmmm]

You can find all goalscoring stats here: http://www.readingfc.co.uk/page/Goalscorers/0,,10306~201110306,00.html

[GSY-Royal]

GSY-Royal - VERY quick edit there!!!

I checked (no snowball); Guthrie's record is 9 goals in over 150 games....

Haha, just had a look afterwards and realised. I could have sworn he scored quite a few in the season they went down?

[maffff]

Like I mentioned on a another thread Jake Taylor fits the mould but don't think anyone knows exactly what level he is. Exeter fans certainly raved about him but then that is League 1. Not sure if you can read too much into him not going to Portugal as he's only just back from injury

Saw him a few times, very doubtful he would be able to cope in the Championship, let alone the Premier League. After a good start didn't exactly stick out in League One. He was their most creative outlet but end product massively lacked, the majority of passes went wayward and his shooting was about on par with Jobi's. I think he is probably in the same position as Scott Davies, seen as 'the next big thing' but doesn't quite justify the hype. If he were to depart I reckon he'd find a mid table League One side and stick around that level for a while.

[RFCSPACE]

Own goals 4

I see room for improvement.

[Blakey's Right Peg]

Out of interest, does Scott Davies feature regularly for Crawley?

[Z175]

Its all about styles of play. Chelsea and Spurs need a goal scoring midfielder...I'm not sure we do. That said Brians not afraid to change style/formation, so I'm sure he will adapt over the season.

To my mind, Brian inherited a team with Sigurdsson, Howard, Matejovsky and Davies (28 apps, 3 goals 8 assists for Crawley to answer the above) but identified two box to box midfielders as the way to succeed in the second tier, based on Harper/Sidwell.

Leigertwoods arrival allowed us to revert to this differt style of play, where we would be solid in games for 90 mins, and expect 1 of the "front four" of Kebe, McAnuff, Long, Hunt to get us a goal.

We took this a step further this season, with Kebe and McAnuff (and Robson Kanu )working their socks of at the back when necessary, but still able to be the source of our creativity. (12 goals and 26 assists from the 3 of them) . Leigertwood and Karacan managed only 3 assists between all season out of a combined 76 games, with Tabb only adding 1 assist, so it shows how we play down the flanks, in tried and trusted Coppell style.

Yet what accelerated us to the top of the table was being able to score goals from those assists and Jason Roberts and Adam Le Fondre were world class at this 6 goals from 17 shots Roberts and 12 goals from 33 shots Alf... more than 33% of the time they got a shot of was a goal. By contrast Lionel Messi scored 77 out of 304 chances, about 25%, Demba Ba 17 from 109, and Stuart Downing a comical 0 from 72 shots in the PL. Pavel Pogrebnyak however scored his 6 goals from only 19 shots, including his first 3 shots in the UK. This would suggest we will play a similar style next season, using the central midfield to control the game but only attacking down the flanks.

One might suggest this is not going to work in the PL, but of course we finished 8th with Harper and Sidwell in a similar set up. However they did of course chip in with goals, so its a valid argument to suggest our midfield is too goal shy at present.

But is it? Another characteristic of the 2nd half of last season was Leigertwoods scoring. This gave us yet even more additional firepower to win the title. Both Leigertwood and Karacan need to improve on this side of their game to emulate the 106 teams PL debut, but in my mind working with them and Guthrie to add goals, is a better option than going for a Koren style player, who is better at creating and making goals than breaking up play and getting the ball wide.

So we need box to box players who are going to be able to convert chances from arriving late in the box, these are the sort of chances we will make. At the moment we could be better at it, so if we sign a player it will be someone in that ilk.

No apologies for stat binge, I know they're incredibly popular on here.

[Z175]

Like I mentioned on a another thread Jake Taylor fits the mould but don't think anyone knows exactly what level he is. Exeter fans certainly raved about him but then that is League 1. Not sure if you can read too much into him not going to Portugal as he's only just back from injury

Saw him a few times, very doubtful he would be able to cope in the Championship, let alone the Premier League. After a good start didn't exactly stick out in League One. He was their most creative outlet but end product massively lacked, the majority of passes went wayward and his shooting was about on par with Jobi's. I think he is probably in the same position as Scott Davies, seen as 'the next big thing' but doesn't quite justify the hype. If he were to depart I reckon he'd find a mid table League One side and stick around that level for a while.

Didn't make the algarve tour, despite being raved about in Slovenia...at full back.

Makes me wonder whether our traditional loan moves to blood talent doesn't just inhibit it. Taylor, D'Ath, Davies didn't seem to do very well. Bignal would be an example whos I think scored more for Reading than in 8 loan moves! Going away from your team mates, your home, being desperate to impress, a manager who doesnt know you, your position, can see why its hard for midfielders.

To my mind loans work better when a players breaking through already, Antonio and McCarthy are good examples.

[Woodcote Royal]

Whilst I have been really impressed with the quality of the new signings, it seems to me that we have one area of weakness that we haven't addressed - a goal-scoring central midfielder; don't get me wrong - a central midfield of Guthrie, Ledge, Jem and Tabb is good, but I don't see any significant (10-15) goals coming from there.

Presumably, we are going to play 442 and have expectations of our strikers getting the goals neccesary to keep us up, with the odd goal from the defence at set pieces thrown in, but I'm a tad concerned that this alone might not be enough at this level.

Any decent - and reasonably prolific - central midfielders in our price range worth considering?

I wouldn't discount McAnuff taking on this role and neither would I discount us playing one up front.

I agree that we appear short of an out and out attacking midfielder but a central 3 containing McAnuff and Leigertwood could be quite potent.

[SCIAG]

I think we're fine tbh. Legs and Karacan both managed to score more goals when Roberts came in and added creativity. Yes, they might struggle to keep doing that at this level, but I don't think we desperately need 10-15 goals from central midfield- how many goals do Modric and Parker get? Or Scholes and Carrick? In any case, adding a true goalscoring midfielder would either mean making sacrifices defensively, or only playing with one striker. Given that we have five senior strikers (the four of whom all scored for us last year) I think it will be rare for us to play with just the one up front next season.

Like I mentioned on a another thread Jake Taylor fits the mould but don't think anyone knows exactly what level he is. Exeter fans certainly raved about him but then that is League 1. Not sure if you can read too much into him not going to Portugal as he's only just back from injury

Saw him a few times, very doubtful he would be able to cope in the Championship, let alone the Premier League. After a good start didn't exactly stick out in League One. He was their most creative outlet but end product massively lacked, the majority of passes went wayward and his shooting was about on par with Jobi's. I think he is probably in the same position as Scott Davies, seen as 'the next big thing' but doesn't quite justify the hype. If he were to depart I reckon he'd find a mid table League One side and stick around that level for a while.

Didn't make the algarve tour, despite being raved about in Slovenia...at full back.

Makes me wonder whether our traditional loan moves to blood talent doesn't just inhibit it. Taylor, D'Ath, Davies didn't seem to do very well. Bignal would be an example whos I think scored more for Reading than in 8 loan moves! Going away from your team mates, your home, being desperate to impress, a manager who doesnt know you, your position, can see why its hard for midfielders.

To my mind loans work better when a players breaking through already, Antonio and McCarthy are good examples.

Pearce, Karacan, Henry, Robson-Kanu and Sigurdsson were all loaned out and did well, two are Championship players, two are on the cusp of being Premiership players and one is a top draw Premiership player. D'Ath did fine for Yeovil, and Davies was excellent for Aldershot. Taylor was one of Exeter's better players when he first went there but he's been kept out the side by a) McDermott always fielding his strongest team- thank goodness or we wouldn't have gone to Wembley and we wouldn't have won the league- and b) us not needing an attacking midfielder. I doubt he'll break into our team unless we get relegated, but I hope he gets a quality loan and proves me wrong.

I don't know why Bignall has stuck around this long tbh.

[chilipepper91]

Whilst I have been really impressed with the quality of the new signings, it seems to me that we have one area of weakness that we haven't addressed - a goal-scoring central midfielder; don't get me wrong - a central midfield of Guthrie, Ledge, Jem and Tabb is good, but I don't see any significant (10-15) goals coming from there.

Presumably, we are going to play 442 and have expectations of our strikers getting the goals neccesary to keep us up, with the odd goal from the defence at set pieces thrown in, but I'm a tad concerned that this alone might not be enough at this level.

Any decent - and reasonably prolific - central midfielders in our price range worth considering?

I wouldn't discount McAnuff taking on this role and neither would I discount us playing one up front.

I agree that we appear short of an out and out attacking midfielder but a central 3 containing McAnuff and Leigertwood could be quite potent.

McCleary could take this role too, or possibly even ALF, I've always said that he has the finisher's touch but also (annoyingly) an eye for setting up others.

I don't see us controlling possession in many games, however, so I think it will be the same style as we saw last year - patient without the ball, deadly countering with it.

Out of interest, did we play any formation other than 4-4-2 in any match last year? I can only ever remembering us fielding two strikers.