Do we need another striker?

At the moment we have
Scotland
O'Grady
Dagnall
Cofie
Jennings
Lazarus
Rose
Clark

Do we really need to be spending money signing another?

Towards the back end of last season Flitcroft was making a big deal out of our lack of cover at LB/LWB when Golbourne got injured, since that time I don't think we've signed a LB/LWB have we? So surely we have just as big a problem there now as we had 6 months ago yet there seems to be no intent or desire to strengthen there. Or am I, as usual, missing something?

 

So the first 3 are strikers, Cofie unknown/ useless at the Blunts last season and the rest not even strikers, (apart from Rose who's still developing)
The answer is yes, desperately.

 

I am not certain what we need TBH

everyone has an opinion here, but I will say one thing.I will at this present moment trust/back Flitcroft and his management team in whatever they decide.

 

Ok I'll reword it, do we need a ninth striker as badly as we need as second LWB?

 

RNL is a striker
Rose is a striker
Clark is a striker/midfielder
Jennings is a striker/midfielder.

Even the official site lists them all as strikers.

 

Clark will play as an attacking midfielder/winger same with Jennings, rose is a striker, RNL is the LWB you've been looking for

 

RNL is a striker not a defender and no amount of forcing him to play the LWB role will make the naturally right sided striker any good at the job.

 

The manager wishes to bring in an experienced striker who can fit straight into the starting line up, which would give us four. The lack of cover at LB/LWB last season created a problem, as we were also struggling at times with injuries in other areas, too. Kennedy had to be moved away from the central role where he'd been playing extremely well. Unfortunately, we were then missing through injury (at various stages towards the end of the season) Foster, Hassell, McNulty & Edwards in central defence. He moved RNL back to cover. Now we have all our defenders fit, it means we have the option of Golbourne, Kennedy, Nyatanga, McNulty, RNL, Hassell and even Perkins all of whom have played in the Championship for Barnsley at left back.
Flitcroft's pursuit of a striker and not a left back makes perfect sense.

 

He was amazing there end of last season

 

It's OK saying a certain player can play up front, it's scoring goals that's the problem which is really what a striker is there for...if you look at the top scorers in the Championship over the years few could be described as 'team players', they have scored so many simply because they get in the right places at the right time and know where the net is.

For me a good alternative would be having Mellis playing off O'Grady, he's possibly our best finisher. Maybe even Cwyka playing off O'Grady.

 

If we want to push on this season then yes. There's not enough goals in our front players at present to lift us away fromthe bottom half in my opinion.

 

We already have two players that can play LWB and we can't afford to have 3 for every position. Naturally, the positions that you cut back on first are those that are unlikely to be used all the time. We may only play 3-5-2 every now and again and we already have plenty of cover at LB. Golbourne, Kennedy and McNulty and RNL is more than enough.

We're in exactly the same situation at RWB if not worst. We have one specialist player in Wiseman and a converted winger in O'Brien. We also have less cover at RB than we do at LB.

A striker is of a much higher priority in my opinion. We have O'Grady and Dagnall as our first choice strikers and Scotland as back up. We then have Cofie and Rose in the development squad. If either of O'Grady of Dagnall get injured we're left with Scotland as a first choice striker who can't last 90 minutes. We'll have to rely on players from the development squad to play in every game.

 

Last season, well from January onwards, Flicker had O'Grady, Dagnall, Scotland and Harwood available. Harewood was released, so we are now left with O'Grady, Dagnall and Scotland (with Cofie and Rose as future prospects) Flicker knows that if we can replace Harewood with a better striker, then the striker department will be improved for this season. Obviously Higdon and Stead decided to join other clubs, maybe even Chopra, but it shows you that he is maybe looking at an experienced striker who could score goals at this level.

 

But at the point last season when Flitcroft was 'stepping up his efforts' to get a left back after recieving a lot of no's from other clubs we had Delap, Foster, Cranie, Kennedy, Wiseman, McNulty, Hassell, RNL all fit and playing. In fact the only defender injured was Golbourne I believe.

I just think it is a little foolish to go into the season without trying to strengthen the one position that we had a huge crisis in just a few months ago when we have 8 strikers on the books (whether they are good enough or not is a different matter).

It's up to flitcroft of course and whatever he chooses to do is up to him, I'm just saying that personally I think only one dedicated lwb and going for a 9th striker is the wrong priority in my eyes.

 

9 strikers?

O'Grady
Dagnall
Scotland

Strikers who could be described as 'for the future' (e.g. not ready to go straight into the team and play 90 minutes at Championship level):

Cofie
Rose

 

What's it gonna take to get into your head we don't have 8 strikers.

 

Personally think we've dodged bullets with Chopra and Stead...Really not enamoured with McLean. Give it a couple of weeks, when the Prem clubs announce their squads, pretty sure there'll be decent options.

 

No he wasn't. For example, McNulty wasn't available after the Bristol City game in February, which was a week after Golbourne's season was finished. As I said, we have EIGHT players (I'd forgotten Wiseman had played left back in the cup at Rochdale) who've played for the first team at left back. I've no idea why you claim we have only one. Yet we have only three experienced strikers to call on.
Sorry mate, but I see no logic in your argument.