Just listened to a bit of Chris Wilder on Radio Sheffield

........ saying he has FIVE strikers out injured and had to play his only other striker.
That's SIX strikers at Sheffield United.
We have THREE strikers at Barnsley.
Bradshaw, Ugbo, Thiam.
Most other teams in the Championship have more than 3 strikers in their squad.

In view of this - would you agree that the summer transfer window failed to achieve what it set out to achieve?
There has been good requirement in other areas of the squad - but the recruitment of a strike force that would have provided options for Hecky has not been secured.

We know that the McBurnie deal fell through - but there should have been at least another 2 strikers in as well as McBurnie.
The lack of options in the strike force is likely to bite us in the butt during the first half of the season.

 

Oh you don't think we have enough strikers? Why didn't you say something earlier?

More repetitive than Gareth gates trying to say his own name

 

Their 6th striker is one from the academy. If we're counting them, and the fact that McBurnie had signed, that's only 1 less.

I think Hecky will be disappointed that he's having to start the season with 3 senior strikers, but I don't think we didn't try to bring in at least 4.

Oh and one of United's is Ched Evans, who I am certain hasn't been signed for footballing reasons. He's league 2 standard at best.

 

Maintain 100% payne should have been kept.

 

Unless I've missed it - I have yet to see the lack of striker options discussed.
Seen plenty of comments saying we have enough players/strikers.
Even seen a few suggesting that we only need 11 players.
And also seen it suggested that we can make do and mend with regards to the strike force - which is a sure fire remedy for relegation in this very competitive league.

 

Barnsley have three strikers.

Erm...

 

Maybe the McBurnie signing would have been the last piece of the striking jigsaw who knows but the lads here now I think will do a job if we can get a midfield together that will provide the ammo and a defence that can defend and a keeper that can keep goal with more consistency
61% possession yesterday and got precisely nowhere we can only hope that in January we have a plan in place to rectify these problems I would argue strikers are well down the list of player requirements

 

Do you get some sort of commission every time you write the word "McBurnie"?

 

Yes. I get a fiver every time I type "Another 5 goalkeepers". Ker....ching...

 

It was only last week that you were saying we had three strikers in our squad but that the three were Bradshaw, Brown and Ugbo. Now you're including Thiam but not Brown, why's that? You've emphasised that Sheff United have six strikers including those that are injured but you've compared that with our three. Surely at the very least it's four strikers at Oakwell, that's before you look at Hedges as an alternative option.

We can only have 18 players in a match day squad and yet you're saying we should've signed another three strikers (McBurnie and two others), so that would be seven strikers plus Hedges.

How do you suppose that PH or anyone else would convince a striker of sufficient Championship quality to come in and compete with five or six other strikers for often one and at best two place(s) in the starting XI?

 

I was told in that post that Brown is injured and just a young lad.
I was also told in that post that Thiam is a striker.
Keep up!!!

In saying this, I still don't think Thiam is what people would describe as a striker - the clips I've seen of him indicate he's an attacking midfielder/winger type of player.
So to be fair I'd say there's actually just TWO proper strikers at the club Bradshaw and Ugbo.
Which dosent bode well for the foreseeable future.
No surprise then when Hecky said after the Villa match 'we offered no strike threat'.

 

Contradiction.com

 

So Chris Wilder is a worse manager because he only has one striker at the club while we have three.

 

What direction is the wind blowing today?

 

Ah okay, so you've made a comparison between us and SUFC but you've included their injured players and not ours?

 

How can you have possibly missed it? as you mention it about every 10 minutes

 

Yes they have 7 strikers with 6 injured so they have 7.
We have three but the fourth who is injured can't be included because he is injured.

7-3 against us is actually 1-3 in our favour if he wasn't hypocritical

 

No, we let a striker go in Payne, we have young Brown to come into the scene & I know we draw the occasional blank but we have goals throughout the team

 

Well, his post effectively says that they have five injured so have had to play their only other striker, i.e they have six in total.

By that reckoning it's 6-4 against us when all players are fit and 1-3 in our favour as things stand. Throw Hedges in and it's 6-5 against us when all players are fit and 1-4 in our favour as things stand.

 

The point being made here is this.
Using Sheffield United as an example (and as one of the poorest teams in the Championship) most (all?) teams in the Championship have 5 or 6 strikers.
Barnsley has two - three at the most.

Firstly - from this I would suspect that Barnsley went after more strikers this summer than what has been released to the media.

Secondly - the lack of different types of strikers (e.g. tall, strong) is going to really hamper the type of formation Hecky is able to apply.
With only two small/slightly built strikers - what is the point - as we have already witnessed - of launching the ball up field to a single small/slight striker only to see that player continually bundled off the ball by taller stronger centre backs?

Mark my words on this - striker options could really scupper our progress up until January - when one hopes that the problem will be remedied.

In the meantime we are going to be very reliant on midfielders scoring the goals.
But how does this equate to playing two defensive holding midfielders in Williams and Gardner?

We could see umpteen games where we get 61% of possession - but don't offer a goal threat.
Let's hope not.