david in sweden

exactly my original point..looks like we got our wish !

seems to be the real discussion point in the run up to the Cheltenham tie. Yes KD is on good form, nice penalty save Kelv. but sometime we have to play Bart - if only to give him a game. Both he and Forecast are well over 21 but can only get an outing in U21 side as over-age players, but with no Reserves side and only kick-about style friendlies they'll go stale on the bench. No reflection on KD, but let him have a quiet day on the bench and watch instead. Cheltenham may not be a "walk-over ", but if we are forced to play Bart sometime, I'd prefer it was against Cheltenham..and not Chelsea... and NA can see him in action. Next week ? ..back to normal regardless even if he saves... 3 penalties. Kelvin is our no.1..... by a street.

well.....almost ! I don't think I'd play both Seaborne AND Martin, one or the other, with Fonte OR Jaidi, maybe

If Ricky is firing all all ..whatever you said, and he doesn't score against Cheltenham then we seriously have to look at some extra cover up front..

with two cats in the yard , it used to be so hard .....

I read an item that Peter Risdale ...was in for a bid for Argyle ! ..surely the kiss of death !

Oh , so you mean our50, 000 and their 10,000 ?

...has Skacel signed yet ?

might sound OK but at 1'78" tall he's hardly a big CF and we already have Connolly and Barnard around that height. He's likely a replacement for when Barney has his hernia op. ..but i'dstill like to sign another big man ..you know -- someone over 6' .. too much to ask?

ugh hu... 15 shots to 4 57% - 43 % HT 0-0 is it a good game I wonder, or ??????????

they could borrow Forecast if they want ...

It should also be remembered that some of the loans are for a limited time and (often) the clubs want them back anyway. Farming out players to a lower league /or helping another club out when they have injury problems is part and parcel of the game. It's a win-win situation for a player to prove himself, and either get a shot at a place with the mother club, or a regular place in another side. I don't expect Pulis or Wotton to come back, but might well see Punch and even Mills back with us after the New Year. Jack Saville is in that " grey area" ..will he become an Aaron Martin? ..or an Ollie Lancashire ?

Lots of good players .." play on " an injury, and it's the wise manager who doesn't use them too much. The hernia may not be so serious and if he starts, and gets a goal in the first 45, then it's sensible to sub. him as soon as he feels the problem returning. Enter; Connolly and / or Guly. It's good that we have several other players with 4-5 goals each already, so if we keep up with 3-4 goals a game then an op, ASAP !

For older fans who remember ..." give it to Ron ..on his head " .. it was a very single minded appraoch ..and it worked for a while. It was a master-stroke of Ted Bates to buy him in the first place, and pair him up with Terry Paine as his winger, but Ted never had a plan B and whenever Ron was absent / injured ..it showed. However, we were talking about two experienced international players. Yes, it was exciting to watch the very young Gareth Bale, and he did score a (very) few goals, too...but it did seem like the same phenomenon ...in that the manager of the day ( Burley ?)... didn't have a plan B, either. Bale brought some excitement to a team (and I use the word loosely) where he was the youngest player. If anyone was "responsible" for relegation it was the other 10 donkey's (or maybe only 9) who were on the pitch at the same time. Once again, (as I cited in the start of this thread) ... a case of a one-man band !

the trouble with most clubs is that a short-term panic sets a spending spree in motion and clubs spend like a man with six arms, and use money they don't have. It's nothing to spend for the sake of it - just because the money's there. It burns a hole in some pockets !

you're right Eric, few strikers in history are consistant as some defenders or goalies, they have a different mindset. OK ...every generation turns up a regular goalscorers... Wayman, Reeves, O'Brien, Ron Davies, Channon MLT .. but in general most strikers are " in and out " a lot of the time, and frequently have long , dry spells. best recent example was James Beattie who went 9 games before scoring at the start of 2002-03..and yet ended up with 23 in the league. Nothing would surprise me to see Lambert get a hat-trick in the next week or two and go on a goal splurge !

Oh HIM ! he's gone down as the man (a boy, at the time )... who got a Man Utd. manager sacked ! In a League Cup replay at the Dell v. MU ...we stuffed them 4-1 in November 1986 He came on as sub on 75 mins. and scored twice in 9 mins. Ron Atkinson got the bullet two days later!

[quote=paulwantsapint;898766 looking good on his debut? ........you'd have to go a long way to see better than Colin Clarke's hat-trick debut game in August 1986.

tbf ..he had two sub.appearances in away games before that, but it was a devasating HOME debut - agreed. call it a flash in the pan, but he had only 5 apps. that season (mno more goals ) and had to wait 6 months before his next game, ...and yet another year before he got to be a regular fixture in the side. ..still it was great start.

I agree totally Kraken, over a period of 50 years I've seen some diabolical misses by players who had big reputations as goalscorers.... But the real marksmen could do it. George O'Brien (59 -66) and Terry Paine owed a chunk of their amazing goal tallies to good penalties...as did Ron Davies some years later. David Peach still holds the league record for the most penalties scored by a full-back, although he (like Bale and Bridge ) was capable of playing elsewhere, too. Mick Channon's record goal tally, included a few pens. but he scored far more from open play. MLT was undoubtedly the " best" allround scorer. Only 1 miss in 49 attempts , and (as anyone who has watched those ancient videos wiil see,) often scored from free-kicks that would have shamed David Beckham. (Two v. Newcastle at the Dell are legendary). whilst his goals from open play were often spontaneous miracle shots... like the famous one v. Blackburn -beating 4 defenders and then lobbing the keeper ex-Saints Tim Flowers... from 30 yeards out. Much of this thread seems to have waivered between ; big (tall) goalscorers and dead ball specialists !..my original thought was that ...yes it's good to have OPTIONS but if Lambert were to be injured (let alone -off form) we wouldn't have an option - except to change the formation because of that. Either you decide to play a big man up front..or use more midfielders to feed "shorter " more mobile front men. An injured CF means you don't have options ! A good, stong striker can do a good job of tying up two or three defenders - even if he doesn't score every game . hence my concern about lack of big men up front .

that was last season...don't expect that every time...!

easy answer...there are so many of them..(ex saints that is ...)

I think I understand your point, but do you really understand the complexities of running an ordinary large organisation ..and football clubs are anything except ordinary. If your letter is either " fan-mail, or the Comment / criticism type, doesn't rate as a high prioirity in the whole run of things . and I'm sure SFC wouldn't employ someone just to write nice relpies to everyone's letter. Letter-writing , or just letting off steam on sites like this are a good remedy for the stess and frustration of not haveing your side win 4-1 every week, but I really think NC (rightly so) has a higher list of prioirites that all the letters that inevitably flow in. Entreprenuers are fixed on their plan and mission are seldom swayed by outside influences / opinions. It's nice to get a reply. I once got a reply from Rupert Lowe when I expressed my thoughts on some matter, but he was polite but didn't agree with my viewpoint. but your point is well taken, however, it will seldom get the response you want, and if he ever got to read the letter..he'd either agree with you .--or he wouldn't.

Options yes, but Lambert shouldn't be the sole option for a big man up front, but we must have at least ONE big man. The very good examples you quote above are all from the Prem. where there is a lot more skill than in L1 and there are midfielders who are able to change playing style at the drop of a hat, but at this level playing " nice football " is a bonus when you play on sub-standard pitches and have heavyweight defenders kicking you in the a*se! I agree with NA that we need a squad different styles of play/ players especially with some of the away fixtures we have to play. You can play to a big man if you have wingers (or whatever you want to call them nowadays) but no-one can play good (or expect midfielders to deliver the goods when playing on a mud heap.) " Talented ball players " (Barney/ Connolly) are good to have - type McMenemy's prima donnas, but you need a big man to hold off the 6' 3" centre halves in the meantime.

maybe I could argue that, but he ( Bale) was with us such a short time that it scarcely feels like it. Specatclular though he was he didn't have a huge goal tally though. Of course Ricky is an ace penalty specialist , too ..(hence the MLT comment - has he missed one yet ?) Actually I didn't want to get hung up on the dead ball comment, but was more interested in the one man goalscorer phenomenon. I thought that 1997-98 was a fun season when we had FOUR strikers who all got around 10 each. (MLT, Hirst, Östenstad and Kevin Davies.)that evened it out a bit.