Do we have our 20 goal striker?

[YouRams]

Didzy at the mature age of 34/35 had his FIRST 20+ goal season last year, even in league 1 I'm sure you'd of got some bookie bashing odds placing that bet.

I keep seeing people mention the goals need replacing and we must sign a 20+ goal striker.

James Collins at the slightly less mature age of 32 already has 3 20+ goal seasons to his name, does he have another one in him? Maybe with a good pre season and a bit of confidence behind him he could find that form again, scoring 12 last season still wasn't a terrible return.

Would you be worried if we started the season with him as our main striker or is he potentially our 20 goal man?

[GenBr]

I think Collins is a useful squad player. I do not think he'd be prolific enough to pull the team through on his own though. Wouldn't be worried if we started with him, but also dont think wed get promoted

[Srg]

No, we don’t. 

Not that I think the 20 goal mark is imperative. But relying on Collins to play the bulk of the minutes as our striker wouldn’t fill me with confidence. 

I don’t think that’s Warne’s plan either, thankfully. 

[alram]

it's okay people saying spread the goals out to replace the 20+ from a striker, but you have to add relative quality elsewhere to actually spread the goals out.

 

as things stand we are much weaker than last year, lets hope we have a busy few weeks. it doesnt have to be a striker it could be wingers or midfielders capable of getting into double figures. at the moment we just dont have it both upfront or behind the striker

[Rich3478]

Yeah, very little I saw last season convinced me Collins should be our first choice. 
 

did have a good spell early on under warne, think could be a good third striker. Main issue is a lack of excelling at anything. Seems ok at most things without being great at any of them.

Pace would be a nice change up front too

[Rich3478]

Just now, alram said:

it's okay people saying spread the goals out to replace the 20+ from a striker, but you have to add relative quality elsewhere to actually spread the goals out.

 

as things stand we are much weaker than last year, lets hope we have a busy few weeks. it doesnt have to be a striker it could be wingers or midfielders capable of getting into double figures. at the moment we just dont have it both upfront or behind the striker

Would be nice having decent options to change things this season too.

Agree we currently seem much weaker than last year, and that ultimately wasn’t enough for top six. We’re now edging towards the season without much activity. Heard many times how we were behind others last season in terms of prep and fitness. Doesn’t seem we’ve done much in the time this year we’ve “gained back”.

[alram]

3 minutes ago, Rich3478 said:

Would be nice having decent options to change things this season too.

Agree we currently seem much weaker than last year, and that ultimately wasn’t enough for top six. We’re now edging towards the season without much activity. Heard many times how we were behind others last season in terms of prep and fitness. Doesn’t seem we’ve done much in the time this year we’ve “gained back”.

obviously still plenty of time to change things but im a little worried so far, our best players are leaving and not sure we are replacing them adequately as things stand. next year is a weaker league, no ipswich or sheff W, the teams coming down are weak.

 

we need to take advantage of it

[KBB]

Early prediction.

Collins 25 goals and player of the season.

[Topram]

Collins has a good finish on him, poor touch etc if we had someone or a couple of players to do the donkey work let him stay in the box he’d score for fun 

[CBRammette]

I am not a huge Collins fan so far but most of our crossing into the box (where he is and should be) was beyond woeful last season so not fair to write him off and not criticize that. Didzy is a totally different sort of player who relied less on that due to his creativity. I also think last season we sometimes didnt always play the simplest or best ball as everyone was so keen to find Didzy, understandably and he/we reaped the rewards. Who knows we may be more balanced as a team even if less fun to watch. we will miss the joy to watch that was Didzy. We need better balls into the box full stop

Edited July 2, 2023 by CBRammette
Last thought

[jimbobram]

Collins got 11 goals last year despite no consistency in the team. He is a very frustrating player, however if he is the main man for the season, I think he will get goals. He isn’t as bad as has been made out. 
that being said, I really hope we sign an exciting attacker or 2. 

[Bris Vegas]

What is the point of having a 20-goal striker if he only scores in 12 games and the bulk of those 20 goals are against cannon fodder we would have beaten anyway?

You’d rather have somebody like Steve Howard who scored less but made significant contributions across the board, against the better teams when it mattered.

[Nuwtfly]

2 minutes ago, Bris Vegas said:

What is the point of having a 20-goal striker if he only scores in 12 games and the bulk of those 20 goals are against cannon fodder we would have beaten anyway?

You’d rather have somebody like Steve Howard who scored less but made significant contributions across the board, against the better teams when it mattered.

Also worth noting a point made by another poster the other day: did any of PW's promotion teams have a striker that scored 20+ goals?

I think we will see the building of a team that functions across the board, as opposed to one built around one or two players

[Electric Ram]

I'm a fan of Collins workrate and general graft off the ball, but he is definitely not a 20 goal a season man for us. 

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, Bris Vegas said:

What is the point of having a 20-goal striker if he only scores in 12 games and the bulk of those 20 goals are against cannon fodder we would have beaten anyway?

You’d rather have somebody like Steve Howard who scored less but made significant contributions across the board, against the better teams when it mattered.

Won't quibble over the virtues of Steve Howard, and my praise for McGoldrick never reached the heights of other fans, but I think you might be doing the latter a disservice with that appraisal. 

If it's possible to make this as simple as just deducting his (McGoldrick's) goals from the scoreline, we would have won the games against FGR (home and away), Morecambe (home) and Accrington (home) without his goals (8 in total). In all the other league games we'd be losing points without his goals.

I'm inclined to agree with @CBRammette that the way we played last year was far more geared towards McGoldrick than Collins, and while I haven't put in the hours watching every goal he (Collins) scored in various promotion seasons, I would venture to guess that the style of play which resulted in his hitting 20+ a season was somewhat different to ours in 22-23.

Edited July 2, 2023 by Guest
too many pronouns!

[Millenniumram]

No, we don’t. McGoldrick and Collins aren’t comparable. Didzy spent the best part of his career playing at a level higher than League One, that’s why his goal scoring record wasn’t that great. The last time he played in League One before joining us, he hit 16 goals in half a season - that showed he was eminently capable of being a goal scorer at this level. Last season didn’t “come out of nowhere” for him, as some may believe.

Collins, on the other hand, has spent much more time in the lower leagues. Where he has been very successful of course, hitting 20 goals plus on multiple occasions. But last season showed us he’s not the same player anymore - he looked poor and ineffective the vast majority of the time, very much what Cardiff fans thought of him as well. At his age, he’s not going to all of a sudden become good enough to fire a team to promotion again.

If we start next season with Collins as our first choice striker, you can look forward to another season in League One. He’s backup at best. The plan has to be (and luckily, I believe is) to sign at least one striker better than Collins, to replace McGoldrick as first choice. We may even sign a second player better than him and relegate him to emergency cover.

[Dean (hick) Saunders]

Getting 30 goals out of two or three players as massively better than getting 25+ from. McGoldOne. 
Being reliant on one player like we did is just a huge gamble for no injuries, suspension, form loss.

So… Didzy may have done us a massive favour by going to Notts, if it results in us building a more balanced team…

Cheers McDick. 👏⚽️ But it was necessary to replace you with a spread of goals, even if none of the players will be your calibre..

Edited July 2, 2023 by Dean (hick) Saunders

[SK47]

Nope.

Seeing someone snap their little toe close up.

Seeing someone rip their nails and teeth out with a pair of pliers.

These are just 2 of the things I consider less painful to see than watching Collins 1 on 1 with a defender. He can finish on his day but LORD JESUS, he is constantly running in sand.

 

Edited July 2, 2023 by SK47

[YouRams]

2 hours ago, KBB said:

Early prediction.

Collins 25 goals and player of the season.

This is my point from the thread, he's clearly had it in him, one average season with us should we be writing him off? Strikers pull wonder seasons from nowhere sometimes. I do agree with others I'd like to see us with a pacey striker that can play through the middle, but could that be a partner of Collins?

[RoyMac5]

13 minutes ago, YouRams said:

This is my point from the thread, he's clearly had it in him, one average season with us should we be writing him off? Strikers pull wonder seasons from nowhere sometimes. I do agree with others I'd like to see us with a pacey striker that can play through the middle, but could that be a partner of Collins?

It could just as easily be a dustbin, hit it in off it, as much as it needs to be Collins! Might even get more from the dustbin. 😄