News

Leeds the Line – evaluating our strikers

|

So yet another winter transfer window has come and gone just over halfway through the season and Leeds have scored 30 goals in the league level with Brighton (21st) and five teams with less goals (Blackpool 22 (24th), Millwall 26 (22nd), Charlton 25 (18th) , Wigan 26 (23rd) & Sheff W 21 (10th) All teams are around the bottom apart from Wednesday who bar Middlesbrough have the best Goals Against record and level with Derby County. Both teams looking like they will be shoe ins for the promotion race. Goals win you games, Leeds United need to score more goals so far this season we have scored 1.07 goals per game and conceded 1.39 leaving a difference of 0.32 per game. That got me thinking how do we score more goals. We seem to have the style and way of playing set up for us to do well, from here on it’s about personnel. For me we have a good range of strikers that offer different things and apart from the new lad Cani who I can only go by what has been said about him it will come down to who we pick on the day vs the opponent, playing strengths against weaknesses. Ideally we need to score more and concede less. What are the strengths of what we have and where are these goals going to come from should we get out of the relegation battle.



ANTENUCCI

Mirco Antenucci – 23apps (8 Goals) 0.35 Goals Per Game
Our top goalscorer so far, and at one point in the season looked like he maybe he was the replacement for Ross McCormack’s goals sadly that flurry of goals seems to have dried up. Mirco frustrates me as a striker, he’s the best finisher we have but spends a lot of time too deep and not enough in a scoring position, getting in that position I have no question he will put the ball in the net. In that respect Mirco is a player who is great if you get the right service. With his pace he’s got the beating of a slow defender but on the other hand he’s not necessarily strong and struggles to beat a man.
Rating for season so far – 6


Souleymane+Doukara+Brentford+v+Leeds+United+4WeCBJGslU7l
Souleymane Doukara – 21apps (5 Goals) 0.24 Goals Per Game
Souleymane Set off with a bang the ball stuck to his feet like he had superglue on his feet, sadly like Mirco his form has dipped and is limited to substitute appearances. He’s very much a confidence player and it has shown in the early games when he started to lose his form, it got to half time and he looked fed up and frustrated by himself, this was a hindrance to the side, it was like giving the opposition an extra player. Pre Christmas Redfearn questioned his and Adryan’s attitude I don’t think there has yet been and improvement. Yet he’s a young lad with scope to learn but needs to improve attitude and self belief in his own ability should he have a poor spell of form.
Rating for season so far – 5



Sharp

Billy Sharp – 19apps (3 Goals) 0.16 Goals Per Game
I feel sorry for Billy, he’s never really got into the starting line up for 11 of the 19apps have been from the bench. Billy has always looked good when he’s come on, looking busy and keen to get things done but without showing any specific areas of key performance. He’s your do everything decent type of guy rather than excelling in certain attributes apart from work rate. This is why I can see he has been on the bench more than starts other players can contribute more specifically to a game plan. Billy has contributed with goals that have effectively won us 7 points with winners against Middlesbrough and Huddersfield, he also scored in the away draw at Nottingham Forest albeit a penalty but you’ve still got to score them. For me warrants a few games in the starting line up.
Rating for season so far – 7


Steve+Morison+Leeds+United+v+Peterborough+MwQLkWPO4oql
Steve Morison – 11apps (0 Goals) 0 Goals Per Game
Personally I don’t think this was the move Steve wanted, it wasn’t the move we as Leeds fans wanted, being the replacement for at the time free scoring Luciano Becchio was always going to be hard. So not only did he have a year or so not playing, a few injures on top of that he had to replace one of the highest scoring Leeds players in the last few years. Steve has had a few good games for us the rest have been very huff and puff and very much looking uninterested cue a lot of abuse from the fans, in my opinion rightly so as well at times. Recently he’s been picked in the side and has shown more of the workman like performances we were promised from him the only thing lacking for the past few weeks has been the odd goal. Just like our season. Steve is you no-nonsense striker that will bring others into the game as I touched on earlier picking the right player for the right game is key for the rest of the season.
Rating for season so far – 6



With Lewis Walters, Edgar Cani & Brian Montenegro without a league appearance I wouldn’t really like to comment on them much but breaking down the type of players they are from what I have seen
Walters – I was very impressed with him pre season, he’s the striker with the lightning pace we’ve been missing since Jermaine Beckford
Cani – 6ft4 you’d expect an aerial presence and Redfearn said he’s good with the ball hopefully the better footballer version of Matt Smith.
Montenegro – Ive seen him play twice, I thought he was ok but I don’t see him getting in the first team soon.

To wrap this up its simple to say, we need to score more and concede less in January we did this with 5 Goals in 4 games (1.25 GPG) For and 3 Goals in 4 (0.75 GPG) Against. These games producing 2 wins and two draws in games where the two draws it would be said that we were unlucky not to win. I think more effort is required from Antenucci and Doukara who have shown they can do it, they have to start doing it. They need to be ready to be called upon should be needed.

Share this article