Theres a lot of people venting feelings about certain players playing that shouldn't be, others that aren't that should be and those that are out injured, that may be the one or some of the reasons why we havent won lately or more consistently. But I think when our chances are analyzed it should be down to simply not being able to put the ball in the back of the net. We just haven't been able to score with the chances we've had and I think its more a problem of keeping Kane fresh, giving him healthy competition and also the ability to rotate or sub when its needed than anything else.
If for example we had Vardy, Giroud or Costa on the end of that sublime through-ball that Lamela played to dissect the Leicester defense yesterday, then I would hazard a guess we would have scored. And the other chances we had that we should have also taken means we would have won the game rather than sitting here in anger.
Its not like we had no idea how to get through them, its not like we had no game plan or was completely unable to crack open their defense. We had chances. A few of them in fact. But we just couldn't score ANY of them. That to me is simply a goal-scoring problem. Now I don't want to start an out-right riot by suggesting anything outrageously controversial but if someone can get the attempts-to-goals scored ratio of Kane, I would be very interested to see what it is.
And again, I'm not saying that Kane isn't a great striker, but if I'm completely honest, he does have shades of Defoe in him like all normal strikers that go through phases - where their shots on goal heavily outweigh the goals scored.
In other words, yes, he does need a few attempts to get a goal. And once again, I'm not saying he's not a great striker - in fact I personally rate him as good as anyone else in the PL....BUT I think having another great striker helps and would compliment our squad to a point where we have other capable scorers in there who we can turn to as well. And at the moment we aren't in that situation where we can, which is why our recent games have only highlighted what is in my opinion a lack of strength in depth in our goal-scoring dept. Not anywhere else.
We could argue about Carroll, Mason, Bentaleb or anyone else who we feel might need to be playing, but those players (apart from mason's goal against Sunderland) aren't going to get us goals. Simple as.
We have created good chances lately. We just haven't taken them. Saying this person or that shouldn't have been playing is acknowledged and agreed upon, but I don't think that would have made a difference to scoring. It may well have made our attacks better and more promising and dangerous, but you would still need someone up top to stick it in the back of the net.
The newspaper rumours about us being interested in in Dembele from Fulham are interesting. He's a striker but 1. Young & inexperienced 2. Plays in a lower league. So unless we can pick out another gem like Alli in someone like Dembele I would really wonder what we are thinking of for this transfer window. Is DL going to Levy us again and get in another poor/cheap player to what we really have been crying out for, for years? Or will he really spend the money to bring in a well known, proven goal scorer who is almost guaranteed to bring us the goals we have been lacking? Honestly, I think we aren't going for Saido as if we were, we wouldn't ben leaving it late again. We've learnt our lesson and DL has learnt now that selling clubs wont sell their top players at the end of the window with no time to get in replacements of their own. So my guess is we will go for Dembele or someone who isn't so well known and have to hope they hit the ground running and score some/enough goals to help us get top 4.
On the other players point though. I don't understand why Bentaleb or Dembele or Son didn't play yesterday rather than Carroll to give us width or another dimension on the pitch. I am wondering if he is giving him a few games to see if he can get better quality out of him with a run of some games. But if that's the case why hasn't Son been given more of an opportunity too?
If for example we had Vardy, Giroud or Costa on the end of that sublime through-ball that Lamela played to dissect the Leicester defense yesterday, then I would hazard a guess we would have scored. And the other chances we had that we should have also taken means we would have won the game rather than sitting here in anger.
Its not like we had no idea how to get through them, its not like we had no game plan or was completely unable to crack open their defense. We had chances. A few of them in fact. But we just couldn't score ANY of them. That to me is simply a goal-scoring problem. Now I don't want to start an out-right riot by suggesting anything outrageously controversial but if someone can get the attempts-to-goals scored ratio of Kane, I would be very interested to see what it is.
And again, I'm not saying that Kane isn't a great striker, but if I'm completely honest, he does have shades of Defoe in him like all normal strikers that go through phases - where their shots on goal heavily outweigh the goals scored.
In other words, yes, he does need a few attempts to get a goal. And once again, I'm not saying he's not a great striker - in fact I personally rate him as good as anyone else in the PL....BUT I think having another great striker helps and would compliment our squad to a point where we have other capable scorers in there who we can turn to as well. And at the moment we aren't in that situation where we can, which is why our recent games have only highlighted what is in my opinion a lack of strength in depth in our goal-scoring dept. Not anywhere else.
We could argue about Carroll, Mason, Bentaleb or anyone else who we feel might need to be playing, but those players (apart from mason's goal against Sunderland) aren't going to get us goals. Simple as.
We have created good chances lately. We just haven't taken them. Saying this person or that shouldn't have been playing is acknowledged and agreed upon, but I don't think that would have made a difference to scoring. It may well have made our attacks better and more promising and dangerous, but you would still need someone up top to stick it in the back of the net.
The newspaper rumours about us being interested in in Dembele from Fulham are interesting. He's a striker but 1. Young & inexperienced 2. Plays in a lower league. So unless we can pick out another gem like Alli in someone like Dembele I would really wonder what we are thinking of for this transfer window. Is DL going to Levy us again and get in another poor/cheap player to what we really have been crying out for, for years? Or will he really spend the money to bring in a well known, proven goal scorer who is almost guaranteed to bring us the goals we have been lacking? Honestly, I think we aren't going for Saido as if we were, we wouldn't ben leaving it late again. We've learnt our lesson and DL has learnt now that selling clubs wont sell their top players at the end of the window with no time to get in replacements of their own. So my guess is we will go for Dembele or someone who isn't so well known and have to hope they hit the ground running and score some/enough goals to help us get top 4.
On the other players point though. I don't understand why Bentaleb or Dembele or Son didn't play yesterday rather than Carroll to give us width or another dimension on the pitch. I am wondering if he is giving him a few games to see if he can get better quality out of him with a run of some games. But if that's the case why hasn't Son been given more of an opportunity too?
