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Dusic

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Anyone else feel we are very weak up front at PL level?

 

Excluding the attacking midfielders (none of whom have proven PL goal records) we have:

 

Austin - Ageing carthouse with dreadful injury record, has missed big chunks of each season he has been at Saints. Wasn't sharp when returning from injury at the end of last season and doesn't suit playing as a lone striker.

 

Long - good at running, terrible at scoring goals, will do well to get 5 or 6 in the league.

 

Gabbiadini - by a mile the best technically but flaky as **** and has zero physical presence. Has long runs without scoring and also isnt really a lone striker.

 

Gallagher - unproven, possibly in last chance saloon at Saints...if he even gets that chance

 

Not exactly options that scream top 10 challengers, and there was a reason we panic bought Carrillo...

 

Clear to me that the next striker we sign has to be a starter and has to be a success.

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who do you suggest?

 

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Happy to leave it to the Scouts and Recruitment team. If they can't find better than Long and Austin then we might as well scale back the worldwide operation we have.
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Happy to leave it to the Scouts and Recruitment team. If they can't find better than Long and Austin then we might as well scale back the worldwide operation we have.
they didnt with Carillo....just wondered if you had anyone in mind

 

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Tend to agree with the OP, we do look weak up top. Perhaps we're thinking that if we shore up well at the back we'll be difficult to beat and only need to score the odd goal to take the points. Risky strategy, need another Pelle type player up top and hope that we are more creative in midfield than the last two years.

 

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Anyone else feel we are very weak up front at PL level?

 

Excluding the attacking midfielders (none of whom have proven PL goal records) we have:

 

Austin - Ageing carthouse with dreadful injury record, has missed big chunks of each season he has been at Saints. Wasn't sharp when returning from injury at the end of last season and doesn't suit playing as a lone striker.

 

Long - good at running, terrible at scoring goals, will do well to get 5 or 6 in the league.

 

Gabbiadini - by a mile the best technically but flaky as **** and has zero physical presence. Has long runs without scoring and also isnt really a lone striker.

 

Gallagher - unproven, possibly in last chance saloon at Saints...if he even gets that chance

 

Not exactly options that scream top 10 challengers, and there was a reason we panic bought Carrillo...

 

Clear to me that the next striker we sign has to be a starter and has to be a success.

 

You have a real problem with Austin did he knock you of your bike or something?

 

As for not screaming top 10. Burnley finished 7th scoring one less goal than us last season and Newcastle 10th scoring a whole 2 more goals than us last season if our defence had been better last season we would have been fine.

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Tend to agree with the OP, we do look weak up top. Perhaps we're thinking that if we shore up well at the back we'll be difficult to beat and only need to score the odd goal to take the points. Risky strategy, need another Pelle type player up top and hope that we are more creative in midfield than the last two years.

 

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worked for Burnley last season

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You have a real problem with Austin did he knock you of your bike or something?

 

As for not screaming top 10. Burnley finished 7th scoring one less goal than us last season and Newcastle 10th scoring a whole 2 more goals than us last season if our defence had been better last season we would have been fine.

Sorry Les, we've desperately needed a frontman who can score for 2 seasons now. So stop making excuses and go out and get one please. Ta!

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Sorry Les, we've desperately needed a frontman who can score for 2 seasons now. So stop making excuses and go out and get one please. Ta!

 

 

Have I said we shouldn't sign another striker? I've been saying we need a proper CF since Pelle left.

 

I'm just pointing out that teams finished in the top 10 scoring a similar number of goals as us last season. Had our defence been more Burnley like last season we could have finished Top 10.

 

My big concern is we get the defence sorted for this season the first pre-season games still suggest our defence is a mess. If we can be solid at the back it gives us a platform to be more adventurous going forward.

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Hopefully Sparky gets a more consistent tune out of Gabbiadini. Having attacking midfielders providing some proper support behind him will obviously help that. It will be hard to upgrade on him when shopping in the £15m - £20m bracket.

 

Happy to move Austin and Long on. Agree with the OP comments about those two, and would like to see Gallagher given a chance as our no. 3 striker. He is still developing, but in terms of power, pace and mobility he has everything you would want physically in a target man. His finish yesterday bodes well for his inclusion this season.

 

Difficult to say about potential new strikers as not a lot of obvious names out there, beyond the lazy links to Ings. Alcacer is the one name that won’t go away and I can see us going back in for him once our other business is done. Whether he is the right profile of striker we need is another debate.

 

 

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Edited by Toon Saint
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We know he will miss at least 15 PL games so will need more.

 

If Pellegrino hadn't sat him unused on the bench for first 10 games last season he would have played around 30 league games last year and probably had 11-12 goals at least.

 

I am confident that with a more positive and confident team Gabbi and Austin will score plenty of goals.

 

As others have pointed out who outside the top 6 actually has a good striker?

 

Last year aside Vardy, the next best goalscorers at non-top 6 clubs were -

 

Mahrez - 12

Murray - 12

Arnautovic - 11

Rooney - 10

Wood - 10

Milivojevic - 10

 

 

A non-top 6 club finding a 15 plus goal a season striker is rare, we will be lucky to find one better than Austin or Gabbi IMO and would have to spend £40 million plus which is not going to happen.

 

If we concentrate on making less mistakes at the back (IIRC we made more mistakes leading to goals than most last year), playing more positive football and winning more home games we'll be fine.

Edited by tajjuk
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If Pellegrino hadn't sat him unused on the bench for first 10 games last season he would have had played around 30 league games last year and probably had 11-12 goals at least.

 

I am confident that with a more positive and confident team Gabbi and Austin will score plenty of goals.

 

As others have pointed out who outside the top 6 actually has a good striker?

 

Last year aside Vardy, the next best goalscorers at non-top 6 clubs were -

 

Mahrez - 12

Murray - 12

Arnautovic - 11

Rooney - 10

Wood - 10

Milivojevic - 10

 

 

A non-top 6 club finding a 15 plus goal a season striker is rare, we will be lucky to find one better than Austin or Gabbi IMO and would have to spend £40 million plus which is not going to happen.

 

If we concentrate on making less mistakes at the back (IIRC we made more mistakes leading to goals than most last year), playing more positive football and winning more home games we'll be fine.

 

 

If Glen Murray can get 12 Austin certainly can with a run in the team. As you say Mope wouldn't even play him early last season despite the fact he is our best striker (even though he looks slow, overweight, unfit and incapable of doing a lot of the basics of football) through his career he has averaged a goal every two games.

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There's been a ton of rumours about the toxic atmosphere at sporting with a load of players wanting to get rid of their contracts due to feeling unsafe at work after being attacked by fans. One of those who was gonna be leaving for free was bas dost. Been linked with him in the past. At one point they said he was worth 50 odd million but doesn't look like any big clubs are coming in for him. The rumour I saw said he was going to Newcastle. Surely we should be interested in a cheap ex target who's strong and has 61 goals in 61 games for them.

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Dost has looked decidedly average against quality opposition when I have seen him.

 

Can't see him being any better than what we have plus as others have noted in the other thread the whole Sporting players issue looks like it's going to be very messy, Sporting are basically suing Wolves over Patricio, claiming like another £30 million, asking for the player to be banned and Wolves to be banned from signing players.

 

Don't think its worth the hassle.

 

Patricio doesn't seem to be free either, says Wolves have paid about £15 million for him already. So I doubt Bas Dost would be either.

 

All the other players who 'quit' seem to be going for big fees, like Carvalho is going to Inter for 25 million Euros.

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worked for Burnley last season

 

It did, and god they were boring. I remember being at SMS watching them beat us 0 - 1 with an 80 odd minute goal, their only attempt on target and actually feeling sorry for their fans...!!

 

It worked for us the season before and god we were boring, got to eight, a cup final and sacked the manager.

Edited by Micky
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If Pellegrino hadn't sat him unused on the bench for first 10 games last season he would have played around 30 league games last year and probably had 11-12 goals at least.

 

I am confident that with a more positive and confident team Gabbi and Austin will score plenty of goals.

 

As others have pointed out who outside the top 6 actually has a good striker?

 

Last year aside Vardy, the next best goalscorers at non-top 6 clubs were -

 

Mahrez - 12

Murray - 12

Arnautovic - 11

Rooney - 10

Wood - 10

Milivojevic - 10

 

 

A non-top 6 club finding a 15 plus goal a season striker is rare, we will be lucky to find one better than Austin or Gabbi IMO and would have to spend £40 million plus which is not going to happen.

 

If we concentrate on making less mistakes at the back (IIRC we made more mistakes leading to goals than most last year), playing more positive football and winning more home games we'll be fine.

And he wouldn’t be here very long, because he’d be snapped up by the top six

Edited by Wrensup
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All he's done is bang in a few in the Championship. That is it. We already wasted 20m on a striker. If we can't aim higher than that just give Gallagher a chance and save the 20m.

 

He’s done a bit better than that mate.

 

Also, give us an example the mighty Saints should be aiming for?

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If Glen Murray can get 12 Austin certainly can with a run in the team. As you say Mope wouldn't even play him early last season despite the fact he is our best striker (even though he looks slow, overweight, unfit and incapable of doing a lot of the basics of football) through his career he has averaged a goal every two games.

 

Yep. Fine if people want to get someone else in for if/when Austin gets injured or he's struggling for form, but seems crazy to be desperate to offload someone who knows where the back of the net is.

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Yep. Fine if people want to get someone else in for if/when Austin gets injured or he's struggling for form, but seems crazy to be desperate to offload someone who knows where the back of the net is.

 

14 league goals in 2.5 years here seems to be 'knowing where the back of the net is' these days, whilst 2-3 goals a season is seen as acceptable by many and 6 goals in the Championship is seen as 'promising'.

 

I don't get how the bar has been dropped quite so low. The likes of Pelle, Lambert, J Rod, Beattie and Pahars could all find 10-15 goals a season and were seen as being about our level. Why is it so hard to find a couple more like that.

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14 league goals in 2.5 years here seems to be 'knowing where the back of the net is' these days, whilst 2-3 goals a season is seen as acceptable by many and 6 goals in the Championship is seen as 'promising'.

 

I don't get how the bar has been dropped quite so low. The likes of Pelle, Lambert, J Rod, Beattie and Pahars could all find 10-15 goals a season and were seen as being about our level. Why is it so hard to find a couple more like that.

 

 

Isn't that the point about Austin though in a full season he'd be more than capable of 10-15 goals the reason he has managed only 7 the last two seasons has been injuries (and even then he has still been our top scorer). The issue isn't is he capable of 15 goals in a full season but can he we get a full season out of him.

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Isn't that the point about Austin though in a full season he'd be more than capable of 10-15 goals the reason he has managed only 7 the last two seasons has been injuries (and even then he has still been our top scorer). The issue isn't is he capable of 15 goals in a full season but can he we get a full season out of him.

 

He hasn't been consistently fit since he moved here. I agree, if he was fit he'd score goals and if I was a foot taller I'd be a Harlem Globetrotter.

 

The 'Why' does matter, all that matters is how many you score.

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He hasn't been consistently fit since he moved here. I agree, if he was fit he'd score goals and if I was a foot taller I'd be a Harlem Globetrotter.

 

The 'Why' does matter, all that matters is how many you score.

 

 

He was fit at the beginning of last season and MoPe didn't start him for 10 games those extra games would have been enough to get him into your magic 10-15 bracket last season imo.

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He was fit at the beginning of last season and MoPe didn't start him for 10 games those extra games would have been enough to get him into your magic 10-15 bracket last season imo.

 

Austin is as bad as Clasie when it come to being dragged off, knackered, after 70 minutes. MoPe clearly preferred bringing him on against tired defenders later in the game, rather than starting him and seeing him chase much fitter defenders around for 70 minutes.

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Austin is as bad as Clasie when it come to being dragged off, knackered, after 70 minutes. MoPe clearly preferred bringing him on against tired defenders later in the game, rather than starting him and seeing him chase much fitter defenders around for 70 minutes.

 

 

Well to use your argument the why doesn't matter MoPe ****ed up not starting Austin right from the start of the season because he will get you goals.

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Martial, Tammy Abraham or Wilf Zaha are the names to look

at if your banding that sort of money about

All fit the bill and would give us a new attacking dimension.

It depends how close we are to financial fair play budgets and squad size

 

only 1 of those would sign for us. delusions of grandeur tbh

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Austin is as bad as Clasie when it come to being dragged off, knackered, after 70 minutes. MoPe clearly preferred bringing him on against tired defenders later in the game, rather than starting him and seeing him chase much fitter defenders around for 70 minutes.

 

He didn't bring him on for 20-30 minutes, he barely brought him on at all.

 

His first start was against Everton at home 26/11/17, before that we played 12 league games.

 

Charlie Austin was available IIRC for all 12 of those games (transfermarkt lists no injuries for that period), yet only played 138 minutes of football and only appeared in 9 of those games so didn't play in 3 at all.

 

Last season int he 10 games he started, he scored 5 goals.

 

Stretching that to starting all those 12 games he sat on the bench, often coming on for 5 minutes, he would have had 11 goals in 22 starts, with another 2 from sub appearances that is 13 goals for the season.

 

So even missing 3 months of the season he would have comfortably been one of the top goalscorers out of the non-top 6 clubs.

 

Of course I am only speculating that he would have maintained his 1 in 2 ratio but considering in those 12 games we played Swansea, Huddersfield, Crystal Palace, Stoke, West Brom, Newcastle, Brighton and Burnley I'd reckon he would have scored 6 goals in those games given starts.

 

Also important to note in those 8 games against teams that were (Burnley aside) bottom half teams, we managed just 6 goals and 10 points, you'd think having a guy with a 1 in 2 record in the PL sat on the bench was not the best idea.

 

Especially when he scored two in his first start.

 

Shows how our manager f*cked up.

 

If Austin plays like 2/3rds of the season he'll get 12-15 goals.

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All 3 potentially available was my point

Which one would you sign is the next question?

 

Abraham scored 5 goals for Swansea last season and wasn't even in the team by the end of it. The other two - dream on.

 

Tajjuk - Just because he wasn't injured, doesn't mean he was fit enough to start. No amount of 'if he had started X games he'd have scored Y goals' will cover up the fact he has never looked fit enough to consistently start games, so it's a moot point.

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All 3 potentially available was my point

Which one would you sign is the next question?

 

They are pretty much available in the same way that any footballer it - certainly noone is looking to get rid of zaha surely - just he wants a bigger club (and thats not us really). Martial wantsa games i agree but he wants them in teh champions league and will get them (and thats not us). Abraham isnt a bad shout - questions about gallagher but my preference would be to bring him through wit hwhat we have rather than pick up abraham (not the same as saying hes as good at this stage as abraham). Would be a reasonable signing for us im sure though

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I don't work in the Saints scouting department. Where does this logic come from? If you don't rate a player, a better choice would be not spending the money at all. Mitrovic is a big slow forward half decent in the air who has only done it in lesser leagues. We signed one of them in January and people didn't like it.

Wasn’t Mane, Pelle, Tadic, Rodriguez from lesser leagues? Elyounoussi is too?

 

Oh wait, Lovren, Wanyama, Clyne, Credic, Van Dijk, and Davis all were as well.

 

Grant you’re not a scout, but you seem so sure who we shouldn’t sign, I thought you might have an idea on who we should?

That’s where the logic comes from.

 

And you contradicted yourself when comparing Carillo to Mitrovic... Carillo haven’t even done what Mitrovic has done, ie actually score goals regularly at a level.

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Tajjuk - Just because he wasn't injured, doesn't mean he was fit enough to start. No amount of 'if he had started X games he'd have scored Y goals' will cover up the fact he has never looked fit enough to consistently start games, so it's a moot point.

 

B*llocks.

 

He had a full pre-season and was perfectly fine to start all those games, we just had a muppet in charge.

 

It's not a 'moot point' you just got proved wrong, his lack of games was not down to injury or fitness last year, it was down to our inept manager not playing our clear best goalscorer.

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Austin is a terrible striker in my opinion. A poor finisher, can’t hold the ball up, chase into the channels, press defenders. His fitness even when he isn’t injured is terrible. He would be a reasonable striker if it was 2004 and strikers just had to try and score, but if we go into the season with the strikers we currently have we’ll struggle.

 

 

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Austin is a terrible striker in my opinion. A poor finisher, can’t hold the ball up, chase into the channels, press defenders. His fitness even when he isn’t injured is terrible. He would be a reasonable striker if it was 2004 and strikers just had to try and score, but if we go into the season with the strikers we currently have we’ll struggle.

 

Well that is nonsense.

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Well that is nonsense.

 

Austin has a shooting accuracy of 43%, only just higher than Shane Long on 40%. His finishing was especially poor after coming back from injury at the end of last season also, when he scored 0 goals. His style of play isn’t suited to the premier league anymore where strikers have to hold the ball up and bring other attacking players into play, which Austin doesn’t do.

 

 

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Austin is a terrible striker in my opinion. A poor finisher, can’t hold the ball up, chase into the channels, press defenders. His fitness even when he isn’t injured is terrible. He would be a reasonable striker if it was 2004 and strikers just had to try and score, but if we go into the season with the strikers we currently have we’ll struggle.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

 

252 appearances as a professional footballer a 131 goals which is roughly a goal every two games...poor finisher my arse.

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