Why Sordell must start...

Our strikers this season:

Klasnic scored: 9
Davies: 4
Ngog: 3

It makes for grim reading does it not?
For the full list of scorers see [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Steinsson, Kavies and Coyle have all said this week that we are creating plenty of chance but just not scoring from them. Let's put aside how accurate that is for a second and assume it's true (since that is what Coyle believes) - if it really is the case that we are creating ample good chances but we are not scoring them then the current crop of strikers need to step out and allow somebody else in.

Sordell, this season, contributed directly to 14 goals between August and December. He scored 10 himself and provided 4 assists. Ok it was only in the Championship - but he knows where the net is, and surely can't be any lazier than Klasnic. It's not as though he is some untested 16 year old kid. He played about 26 games this season before coming to us. And is an England U21.

Give him a go!

I agree but Coyle will probably start Davies and leave Sordell on the bench.

I don't agree one bit with people that think we're creating chances, just not finishing them off. We had tonnes of possession against Newcastle and only created two good chances. We also saw a lot of the ball against Fulham but could hardly get into the final third.
I think we need to worry about the number of chances we create over 90 minutes and then look to address any problems we have turning them into goals.
A good start would be to give Sordell a chance. He supposedly has pace, trickery and a good shot on him, three qualities the current team lacks.

We created three good chances against Newcastle - Eagles, Mark Davies and Pratley.

We didn't create much against Fulham, I agree there. That was a terrible performance all round.

We created many chances at Wolves. Besides the goals, there were close efforts from Reo-Coker and Wheater.

Creating chances doesn't win a game. We may as well see who had most corners.

How else do you score a goal without creating a chance?

The point is, in case you missed it, was that creating chances doesn't win games, scoring the goals does that. You can create as many chances as you like, but if they're not taken it doesn't make a jot of difference.

Well yeah, but obviously you can't score a goal without creating a chance, so, creating chances does win games...

Well Wigan go to Arsenal n Fulham next 2 away matches,then Newcastle H,Blackburn AWolves H.So Swansea is a must win match.If they play as shit as they did tonight their is still hope.Its gonna be a tight tight run in.Qpr last 3 away WBA Chelsea n City.Home matches Spurs n Stoke.Blackburn Swansea away next match then Norwich .H,Spurs A Wigan H,Chelsea A.We have Swansea H,Villa A,Sunderland A,Spurs H,WBA H,Stoke A.Cant call it although Wigan are firing.

Hipster_Nebula wrote:Well yeah, but obviously you can't score a goal without creating a chance, so, creating chances does win games...

I think this is the point.
Having a player who will score one in 5 or 6 chances created is better than having 20 chances and no player who can score a good proportion of them.

The argument is bigger than that however.

Coyle and others keep banging on about the chances we made at Newcastle. Let's get real. We made three ok chances. They were not absolute sitters by any stretch. That's my first point.

And secondly, keep going on about what would have been if we had scored one of those three chances is pathetic. To point the finger and say the problem is that chances being created are not being finished like they should be is unreal. To expect that we would score 1 out of three good chances is lunacy. If Man Utd or City scored one out of three good chances they would have scored about 700 goals this season.

The fact is we need to create more and better chances to really be able to point the finger and say the strikers are not putting them away. A top top striker probably only scores 1 in 4 or 5 when he is in good form at a top club.

Sordell was bought to help us leave the Championship next season. Otherwise he would surely have been given a chance by now.

Just to add to that. I looked at the opta stats briefly and discovered this.
From August to December Man City created 256 goalscoring chances.
They converted 20% of them, resulting in 53 goals.

If we work on Man City's conversion rate of 20%, in order to score one goal in a match we would need to create 5 goal scoring opportunities.

And we are not Man City.

So to keep going on about those 3 half chances V Newcastle is pointless. By that reckoning we needed at least 2 more good chances in order to score.

He must be praying we go down then or his career is fucked.

I think you're right though, I feel coyle brought him in for that reason just in case we did go down, he has a guy who knows the championship and has a proven goal scoring record.....would have been easier just to buy kevin phillips though.

And just for your information, we were converting chances at the rate of 17% at Christmas.
So our conversion of chances is not that far behind City, however our creation of convert-able chances for the same period was something like 40% less than City.

aaron_bwfc wrote:He must be praying we go down then or his career is fucked.

I think you're right though, I feel coyle brought him in for that reason just in case we did go down, he has a guy who knows the championship and has a proven goal scoring record.....would have been easier just to buy kevin phillips though.

Doesn't make sense though really. Surely if he will get picked ahead of Davies, Klasnic and Ngog in the Champs then why not in the Prem?

jayjay23 wrote:And just for your information, we were converting chances at the rate of 17% at Christmas.
So our conversion of chances is not that far behind City, however our creation of convert-able chances for the same period was something like 40% less than City.

And in conclusion, more chances for us will mean more goals.

For example. Liverpool only converted about 8% of chances (compared with our 17%), but still scored more goals than us because of the sheer number of opportunities they made.

Who knows what goes through Coyles mind, he was going on last week how Sordell was itching for a game in a busy 3 days, then when push comes to shove doesn't even put him on for a single minute.

He's probably scoared of upsetting the apple cart as they say by putting him on over Ngog or Klasnic.

Makes you wonder what Sordell is like in training though.

Keegan wrote:Sordell was bought to help us leave the Championship next season. Otherwise he would surely have been given a chance by now.

Absolute nonsense.

Hipster_Nebula wrote:

Keegan wrote:Sordell was bought to help us leave the Championship next season. Otherwise he would surely have been given a chance by now.

Absolute nonsense.

Care to elaborate?

The lad must be better than what we have, (Ngog apart), just by looking at his under-21 experience, and his market value of £3.2M (which OC is letting diminish by not using him... bloody wasteful)