Pascal Köpke

Kayode Odejayi was a target for abuse.

 

To be fair I loved it when we had Moore and yep I know he at times had the touch of a steam hammer. The use of Halme up top shows the gaffer also sees the use of a target man.

 

Last season, Jacob Brown won more aerial duels per 90 minutes than Aleksandar Mitrovic, Jordan Hugill, Benik Afobe, Lee Gregory & Chris Martin. Strikers you would class as 'target men'. Brown has come on a hell of a lot physically this season.

How consistent would you like?

 

Maybe, but what is more important is the impact of winning said header, not just the winning of it.

 

Someone who can stick the ball in the net.

 

Someone a little better than the jacab Brown and throwing Halme options yes..

 

Brown is awful as a centre forward.. almost embrassing at times ..
Decent wide putr in a decent ball andgrafts

 

Just because a striker is short doesn't mean they are not a threat in the air or a good hold up player. Falcao is one of the best headers of a ball I've seen in a long time and is only 5'9. He leaps like a salmon and his hold up play is good too.

 

Obviously.
We have 3 relatively small to average sized strikers.
Schmidt
Woodrow
Chaplin
(BTW - I don’t consider Brown on that list cos he just ain’t a striker / winger).

We need something different.
And that something has to be 6’2” tall or above with broad powerful brick shi.te house shoulders.

 

4 out of the top 5 Premier League top goal scorers last season were smaller than 6 foot. Height doesn’t matter anymore, football has changed.

 

Brown has had to play up front because he's the only one who can win a header. He's good in the air, but it's not an ideal fit. We need a combative striker who can win headers

(I really rate Brown btw, but that isn't his position really)

 

Apart from Chaplin I am at a loss about other headed goals from open play.

Countless times this season weve had the full backs regardless of who they are put in delightful crosses dying out for a striker to attack them.

A striker doesnt have to be a 'targetman' to be productive in the air.

Winnall wasnt a targetman ...

 

Agreed, but ........ 4 out of 5 central defenders in the Prem ain't giants either, they are 'ballers. Unfortunately, we are still one league down where they are still predominately all built like brick 5h17houses and love a good tussle.

I think a big target man should be an option for us, even if he is not an automatic starter. Just an option, for when the bigger sides are just too much for a Chappers / Woodrow starting two.

 

Woodrow scored a great headed goal at W.B.A & Scmidt got the winner at Millwall when the ball was returned into the box after the initial corner

 

You can definitely be a good striker and be short. Look at Chaplin!

But you do need players who can win aerial duels too. Our team is quite short - I think it'd be sensible to sign some taller guys in the midfield

 

I'm not sure what we mean by targetman in this discussion. For me it's someone with some physical strength, with the attributes to compete with the opposition central defenders and win some ball and hold the ball up. Imo throughout most of last season when we struggled to paly out from the back - think early season in particular when we desperately struggled at times to do that - we needed the option to play a bit longer to someone who would win and / or hold the ball. This was most evident to me from goal kicks when teams got wise to us wanting to play short and closed down very fast but we couldn't go long because 9 times out of 10 it meant we lost possession. We asked Browny to play that role virtually all season and tbf I thought overall he did quite well despite it not being his biggest strength, but it wasn't ideal.

The final few games of the season (Leeds, Forest, Brentford) we overcame this and played very well without a targetman and I'd even argue that Browny was used less as an outlet than previously but I'm not yet convinced that we don't even need the option of a bigger striker so that we have a plan b when it's not working. And the fact that Halme was used as a makeshift striker on a few occasions seems to suggest Struber may want that option too.

There's also the fact that we scored the fewest goals from corners than any other side in the division and I'd also guess that we scored fewer headed goals than most. We need to improve on both this season.

Re Winnall, I agree that he wasn't a targetman initially, but I think he developed his game and became one. In the first part of the season when he left I thought he was a good one actually and his overall play often as the focal point of our attacks was very good. Similarly Bradshaw after Winnall left. He became better at winning headers, playing with his back to goal, holding the ball up etc and has continued to do that at Millwall. A targetman doesn't necessarily have to be 6'2"+ to play in the role (which may be your point) but imo we lacked someone with the ability to do it throughout last season and I'd be much more confident about this season if we address that weakness. I've no idea whether Kopke is that person or not.

 

Do you think part of that is that they're sides who try to play in a vaguely similar way to us? Didn't catch the Forest game, but against both Brentford and Leeds I noticed that we were being given a lot more time to play it out. It's the teams with a completely different system which we seem to struggle against. I'd mostly put this down to inexperience, and I think we'll get better, but that doesn't make it any less true at the moment! Could maybe do with a Plan B for the meantime.

 

I think it's sides who are more open in the way they set up, because they are confident that they are better than us tbh. Agree that Brentford and Leeds press but Fulham don't, WBA generally don't and neither did Forest, but I'd argue they all thought that they were better than us and could beat us. Re Forest I think it also helped that they weren't at all ambitious as they came for a point and thought they could prevent us scoring (and nearly did tbf). Nevertheless I agree it's the different systems we struggle against, in particular where teams set out to stop us playing. You may be right that our ability to impose our style and play around teams like Stoke, Cardiff, Preston should improve with experience but yes, I think having a plan b would be valuable.

 

I think target men are good as a plan B but you need a focus and a way of playing. I think we have that already.

All we lacked during the run-in was proper competition to re focus Woodrow.

 

Strikers around the height of 6 foot are ideal, it's the deliveries into the box, area is what needs improving. We lacked quality corners freekicks, someone who can put it on a plate forever how tall you are.