What's the Problem?

[Schards#2]

We have a 34 year old who has only scored more than 12 in a season once in the past decade

A youngster who is completely untried at this level

A currently injured Latvian who is, demonstrably, not good enough for the championship.

A young French striker who, thus far, looks completely out of his depth and unfit

I would contend that every other team in the division has better options up front.

#RelegationWatch

I like the rest of the squad but it's delusional to say we have a decent selection up front, we don't. Let's hope, (not you obv's), that the midfield can take up the slack goalscoring wise

[CountryRoyal]

Championship:

Aston Villa - Gestede, McCormack, Kodija - Ill give you this one

Barnsley - Winnall, Bradshaw, Armstrong - Have any of these 3 played at this level before?

Brighton - Murray, Hemed, Baldock - Probably good yeah

Derby - Vydra, Bent, Blackman - Good on paper yes

Huddersfield - Wells - Great squad depth there... Having 1 good striker doesnt make their strikeforce better surely?

Fullham - Martin, Smith, Aluko - 2 of those are sh!t..

Ipswich - McGoldrick, Pitman, Sears - I assume this is a joke.

Newcastle - Mitrovic, Gayle, Perez - Yup

Norwich - Jerome, Naismith, Lafferty - No arguments here

Nottingham Forest - Assombalonga, Fryatt - Yes to the first, no to the second. Again, squad depth.

Wednesday - Forristieri, Hooper, Fletcher - Hooper sure but Fletcher???

Wigan - Grigg, Le Fondre - Lol

Wolves - Dicko, Bodvarson, Mason - This one is def a joke. Right? ..... Right?

I make that 5 that are without a doubt better than us in a league of 25.

Even so you name 12 teams. 12 out of 24. That puts us by your reckoning as the 13th best strikeforce in the league and that list is VERY debatable. We have nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.

We have a 34 year old who has only scored more than 12 in a season once in the past decade

A youngster who is completely untried at this level

A currently injured Latvian who is, demonstrably, not good enough for the championship.

A young French striker who, thus far, looks completely out of his depth and unfit

I would contend that every other team in the division has better options up front. As for Div 1, I don't follow it closely but, based on the last time we played there, I would expect the above to be inferior to most in that division.

Samuel may grow into it, Mendes may improve as he gets acclimatised but, right now, our centre forward options are poor and it's daft to suggest otherwise

Exactly this. It's all well and good saying everyone elses strikers are shit, but they are in comparison to us let's remember. Our current strike force got a combined total of 6 championship goals last season.

[Forbury Lion]

The problem is we don't have a single striker who would be considered much above average in Div 1 let alone the Championship and, clearly, this is going to impact on our performance more negatively than if we did.

Last year we had Vydra, Sa, Blackman, Robson-Kanu all four of whom I would say are better than all of our current options.

Lets hope our style of play can mitigate this obvious weakness much in the way that Liverpool have under Klopp

Swift, a midfielder, is already two-thirds of the way to Vydra's league total for the whole of last season... I thought Sa was a good player but Blackman hit a freak run of form then reverted to type and HRK is not really a striker.

Vydra had a poor season but is a decent player and commanded an £8m+ transfer fee, which of our current forwards do you think could command even 25% of this figure?

Transfer fee isn't really a good indication of ability. In part it is driven by length of remaining contract and the desire of the other club to sell/buy.

[NewCorkSeth]

I make that 5 that are without a doubt better than us in a league of 25.

Even so you name 12 teams. 12 out of 24. That puts us by your reckoning as the 13th best strikeforce in the league and that list is VERY debatable. We have nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.

We have a 34 year old who has only scored more than 12 in a season once in the past decade

A youngster who is completely untried at this level

A currently injured Latvian who is, demonstrably, not good enough for the championship.

A young French striker who, thus far, looks completely out of his depth and unfit

I would contend that every other team in the division has better options up front. As for Div 1, I don't follow it closely but, based on the last time we played there, I would expect the above to be inferior to most in that division.

Samuel may grow into it, Mendes may improve as he gets acclimatised but, right now, our centre forward options are poor and it's daft to suggest otherwise

Exactly this. It's all well and good saying everyone elses strikers are shit, but they are in comparison to us let's remember. Our current strike force got a combined total of 6 championship goals last season.

Exactly. In comparison to us the majority of the division has around the same level strikers.
Im not saying we have a good strikeforce, Im saying the majority of the league have just as shite (and in some cases worse strikeforces) than us.

Its all well and good to bemoan our current forward line but last season 11 players scored over 15 goals of those only 6 are still in the Championship.
One was an obscure French player plying his trade in the Ligue 2 for a small team (Kodija)(sound familiar?) and two of the others had never scored over 12 goals (in a single season) in their respective careers (Hemed, Forestieri)
If you thought any of these players would score 15 or over goals last season then you should be a professional scout.

[Maneki Neko]

Championship:

Aston Villa - Gestede, McCormack, Kodija - Ill give you this one

Barnsley - Winnall, Bradshaw, Armstrong - Have any of these 3 played at this level before?

Brighton - Murray, Hemed, Baldock - Probably good yeah

Derby - Vydra, Bent, Blackman - Good on paper yes

Huddersfield - Wells - Great squad depth there... Having 1 good striker doesnt make their strikeforce better surely?

Fullham - Martin, Smith, Aluko - 2 of those are sh!t..

Ipswich - McGoldrick, Pitman, Sears - I assume this is a joke.

Newcastle - Mitrovic, Gayle, Perez - Yup

Norwich - Jerome, Naismith, Lafferty - No arguments here

Nottingham Forest - Assombalonga, Fryatt - Yes to the first, no to the second. Again, squad depth.

Wednesday - Forristieri, Hooper, Fletcher - Hooper sure but Fletcher???

Wigan - Grigg, Le Fondre - Lol

Wolves - Dicko, Bodvarson, Mason - This one is def a joke. Right? ..... Right?

I make that 5 that are without a doubt better than us in a league of 25.

Even so you name 12 teams. 12 out of 24. That puts us by your reckoning as the 13th best strikeforce in the league and that list is VERY debatable. We have nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.

We have a 34 year old who has only scored more than 12 in a season once in the past decade

A youngster who is completely untried at this level

A currently injured Latvian who is, demonstrably, not good enough for the championship.

A young French striker who, thus far, looks completely out of his depth and unfit

I would contend that every other team in the division has better options up front. As for Div 1, I don't follow it closely but, based on the last time we played there, I would expect the above to be inferior to most in that division.

Samuel may grow into it, Mendes may improve as he gets acclimatised but, right now, our centre forward options are poor and it's daft to suggest otherwise

agree on the whole...but....not with that bit. or at least the word demonstrably

[Ian Royal]

Is anyone vehmently saying there is a problem?

We would have liked another striker, the club clearly wanted another striker. Therefore, I think it is only natural for there to be some disappointment there.

With Rakels out we are arguably one short up top, but we can only play one in our system. hopefully now that Kermogant has his first goal he may go on a little run, or Samuels/Meite will stay fit and prove their potential.

+1 there's only a probelm if your expectations were that we would sign a completely new quality xi and be looking at finishig top 6.

Some of the signings aren't looking fabulous, but that's par for the course. It's disappointing that the area we arguably been weakest and most disappointing for longest has not been well bolstered. But shit happens.

[Lower West]

We would have liked another striker, the club clearly wanted another striker. Therefore, I think it is only natural for there to be some disappointment there.

The club was fishing. You wouldn't leave such an important part of the jigsaw until the last minute.

Looks like the majority of the squad can play in u23 fixtures. That's a shrewd way of getting players up to match fitness and sharpness. Also build on the style of play. So that when someone comes in there's no impact.

[Stranded]

We would have liked another striker, the club clearly wanted another striker. Therefore, I think it is only natural for there to be some disappointment there.

The club was fishing. You wouldn't leave such an important part of the jigsaw until the last minute.

Looks like the majority of the squad can play in u23 fixtures. That's a shrewd way of getting players up to match fitness and sharpness. Also build on the style of play. So that when someone comes in there's no impact.

Maybe, but I believe there was a desire to get one more in following the Rakels injury.

[Ian Royal]

We would have liked another striker, the club clearly wanted another striker. Therefore, I think it is only natural for there to be some disappointment there.

The club was fishing. You wouldn't leave such an important part of the jigsaw until the last minute.

Looks like the majority of the squad can play in u23 fixtures. That's a shrewd way of getting players up to match fitness and sharpness. Also build on the style of play. So that when someone comes in there's no impact.

Maybe, but I believe there was a desire to get one more in following the Rakels injury.

I think fair to add that they've made quite an effort to put goals into the side separate to a striker as well, given we'll mainly be playing with one.

Swift and Harriott both seem to have a pretty good scoring record so far. Kermorgant could go either way and we're not going to find much better than Dom Sam for a decent price.

[Hoop Blah]

I'm sure the club didn't just leave it until the last minute to try and add another forward to the squad, even though the Rakels injury probably forced them to look a little wider than they'd originally planned.

Buying goals is the hardest and most expensive addition to any squad but hopefully one of the punts we've made will pay off and contribute more to the goals scored column than we're expecting right now.

Only time will tell.

[kikijuju88]

We have to be realistic, we don't have excellent but only average players. So we can't expect a lot from the team.
We have to support them and hope they will honor their shirt and why not a good surprise at the end of season..

[Top Flight]

We're having a fantastic season so far. I was only expecting us to finish 4th bottom, yet we are in mid table.

Stam is doing a great job. I'm very pleased. Keep up the good work RFC.

[genome]

We're having a fantastic season so far. I was only expecting us to finish 4th bottom, yet we are in mid table.

Stam is doing a great job. I'm very pleased. Keep up the good work RFC.

no you weren't, you were tipping us for relegation

[Ian Royal]

We're having a fantastic season so far. I was only expecting us to finish 4th bottom, yet we are in mid table.

Stam is doing a great job. I'm very pleased. Keep up the good work RFC.

no you weren't, you were tipping us for relegation

One person has idiotically low expectations, then declares the season fantastic so far, 5 games in having leapt from about 19th to midtable off the back of 1 win.

TF just demonstrating why he's in a minority view of 1.

[The Cap]

Maguire wrote:
Extrapolating a 46 game season from 5 matches is meaningless.

Blimey, talk about word for the day. That's more like word for the month

[CountryRoyal]

Maguire wrote:
Extrapolating a 46 game season from 5 matches is meaningless.

Blimey, talk about word for the day. That's more like word for the month

Where's Snowball?

[Forbury Lion]

A currently injured Latvian who is, demonstrably, not good enough for the championship.

agree on the whole...but....not with that bit. or at least the word demonstrably

Hard to argue with the injured or Latvian bits though.

[Winston Smith]

Everyone wanted Samuel back and given a chance last year.. now we have him, are they regretting that?

reDomgrexiters

[Forbury Lion]

Everyone wanted Samuel back and given a chance last year.. now we have him, are they regretting that?

Has he been given a chance yet?

[Bart7]

To me I always saw this season under Stam as a development year. He needs to put in place his philosophy and get all the players singing off the same hymn sheet.

If we finish anywhere above mid-table I would be extremely happy. More realistic to expect a playoff push in the 17-18 season.

A place in the playoffs this season would be a welcome surprise though