Improving the goal difference

[Arky_R]

So we're looking pretty much certain to be staying in Championship for another year. I think most would say we have been fairly decent to very good but concede we're not quite there yet.

One thing which does concern me for next year is the huge goal differences we are seeing this year.

Watford 41
Bournemouth 47
Middlesbrough 31
Norwich 38
Ipswich 19
Derby 32

Now apart from Ipswich the top 6 teams have and are doing much better than ourselves in this respect. Yes they have had longer to make there teams in the most part....

How will next year be any better? A full year with Afobe will mostly certainly help but I do think we need more help from other areas. We will suffer further from the loss of Sakos goals and assists so where do we pick up the slack?

Do we put McDonald on an intensive shooting course for two months!?

Dare I say it replace either Batth or Stearman?

Obviously you have to stop them going in our goal also :wavey:

So what needs to happen next year for us to improve in this side of things? If we want to build on this year this needs careful attention IMO

The obvious answer is spend but how much will Kenny stick with what we have already?

Could you imagine if we were to miss out by goal difference!

 

[mikic]

The defence, for the main part, has been solid enough, albeit some un-forced errors and calamity defending. Not enough goals from midfield is the problem.

How many have Mac + 1 other scored this season?

 

[Erick1011]

Apart from our wingers and strikers, no one else in the team scores much. Arguably, they're not required to, but if we want to challenge for automatic promotion any time soon, everyone in the team will need to chip in with some goals.

 

[Ponty]

The contribution from central midfield has been woeful. Edwards scores when played behind the striker but not when played in a 442. Until we replace one of Price or KM nothing will change. KM is not good enough to be an advanced midfielder and not good enough defensively to play alongside a more advanced midfielder. I'd keep Price and look to bring someone in alongside him.

 

[mikic]

The contribution from central midfield has been woeful. Edwards scores when played behind the striker but not when played in a 442. Until we replace one of Price or KM nothing will change. KM is not good enough to be an advanced midfielder and not good enough defensively to play alongside a more advanced midfielder. I'd keep Price and look to bring someone in alongside him.

I love Macca, but I agree with you on this

 

[The Weasel]

Being harsh but we need to upgrade Kmac, we can't have someone in his position who offers pretty much zero goal threat (and yes I know he's got a few assists, but its not enough for where we want to be).

Clearly we need to replace Sako, as we'll miss his assists, and RVlP either needs to work on his shooting or be traded up for a more clinical player.

I'm tempted to say trade up Batth too but maybe with one more season's worth of experience and a better midfield in front of him, he'll be a more all-round player....similar could be said of Price but I have more hope there that his game will continue to improve as it has done this year.

 

[Sketchead]

If we had Afobe all season and didn't spend November lubing ourselves up for severe penetration, we'd be fine.

I don't trust our defence still to this day. Every goal conceded I can remember off the top of my head in the last month have been due to basic errors.

I love that Danny has a Wolverhampton accent and I love Stearman's hair and the fact he jumps in front of everything and clearly wants to win, but it's far from a perfect partnership.

 

[Mr Wolf]

It's quite simple really, McDonald, Price & the right winger need to score more.

 

[FLEET WOLF]

It's quite simple really, McDonald, Price & the right winger need to score more.

Indeed, that is it, in a nutshell. The number of goals scored by our central midfielders is really poor, in all honesty.

 

[Erick1011]

Personally, I think Henry scores enough. It's Van La Parra who is $$$$ing woeful at shooting.
The number of times that the ball is put on a plate for him and he $$$$s it up...

 

[Sammy Chungs Tracksuit]

I thought this was going to be a thread about going all out for big score on Saturday. If I was KJ, I'd be saying get an early goal so Millwall's heads drop and keep pushing on and try and rack up a 6 goal win. Then we could possibly catch Ipswich or Brentford on Goal Difference. OK it's a long shot but I think that Ipswich are likely to lose at Blackburn and racking up a big score and overtaking Ipswich is still the most likely way of us making the play offs.

 

[Matt]

Danny Batth (4) has more goals than McDonald (0), Price (1) and VLP (2) combined. That is abysmal from our midfield.

 

[Erick1011]

Danny Batth (4) has more goals than McDonald (0), Price (1) and VLP (2) combined. That is abysmal from our midfield.

Is that in all competitions? I only remember VLP scoring in a cup game.

EDIT: Nevermind, I forgot about his awful crosses going straight into goal.

 

[Sedgley Gold N Black]

The hammerings we took in November (Derby, Forest and Brentford) has massively skewed our GD with those three games not only knocking 12 goals off our total but boosting rivals Derby and Brentford too.

We struggled for goals at the start of the season where we were winning games 1-0 but thats changed second half.

Over the second round of games we stand at +18 at the moment with one more to go, if the first half matched the second half with Afobe our GD would be +36, right up there with those.

We need to replace Sako's goals and assists from set pieces though.

 

[Arky_R]

The hammerings we took in November (Derby, Forest and Brentford) has massively skewed our GD with those three games not only knocking 12 goals off our total but boosting rivals Derby and Brentford too.

We struggled for goals at the start of the season where we were winning games 1-0 but thats changed second half.

Over the second round of games we stand at +18 at the moment with one more to go, if the first half matched the second half with Afobe our GD would be +36, right up there with those.

We need to replace Sako's goals and assists from set pieces though.

Good points although i'd expect more from our midfield players and to cut out the silly mistakes at the back.

The question is will the players in these positions improve enough over next year / 2 years to warrant keeping in the first team?!

Next year will be the year for me where we need to make headway and push on.

 

[Big Saft Kid]

I thought this was going to be a thread about going all out for big score on Saturday. If I was KJ, I'd be saying get an early goal so Millwall's heads drop and keep pushing on and try and rack up a 6 goal win. Then we could possibly catch Ipswich or Brentford on Goal Difference. OK it's a long shot but I think that Ipswich are likely to lose at Blackburn and racking up a big score and overtaking Ipswich is still the most likely way of us making the play offs.

I agree, absolutely nothing to lose, everything to gain. But does KJ have it in him to set up for that? I don't think so. Mark my words, he'll go for the 1-0 win and hope the others completely $$$$ it up.

 

[Essex Wolf]

It was the poor run in November 2014 that has so severely dented Wolves +GD. In the 5 games played Wolves conceded 14 goals and scored just 1. Even if the results had stayed the same, IE 4 losses and a draw, had the defeats not been so heavy then maybe just maybe Wolves GD right now would be half a dozen goals better of for arguments sake.

Taking into account of those 5 games played 3 were against sides that currently occupy a PO spot then those sides GD wouldn't be as high either.

It has often been said on the Mix that the poor November could come back to haunt us and so it seems.

 

[Big Saft Kid]

IMO November cost us auto. Even an average haul of 7 or 8 points out of 15 instead of 1 out of 15 would have seen us challenging for the top 2 spots without a $$$$ GD.

Then mid-April 1 point out of 9 cost us a place in the POs.

 

[Essex Wolf]

IMO November cost us auto. Even an average haul of 7 or 8 points out of 15 instead of 1 out of 15 would have seen us challenging for the top 2 spots without a $$$$ GD.

Then mid-April 1 point out of 9 cost us a place in the POs.

Can't really argue with that although the November set back was the one that meant Wolves were always playing catch up.

 

[Oh When the Wolves]

McDonald's goal scoring is whats stopping him becoming a top championship player . Got shot down for saying it last time but if he doesn't improve this aspect of his game we need to move on and find better . Would still use him in the squad but you want your centre mids to contribute at least 5 goals a season imo

 

[kennyB]

I still want the Bournemouth 3 points back!

 

[Essex Wolf]

I still want the Bournemouth 3 points back!

With the luck they've had mate you have no chance.

 

[JOSWolf]

We need more goals from central midfield and another striker who will score goals to compliment Dicko and Afobe.
We will also need to sign a goal scoring winger to replace Sako.

 

[Essex Wolf]

We need more goals from central midfield and another striker who will score goals to compliment Dicko and Afobe.
We will also need to sign a goal scoring winger to replace Sako.

Sako might stay.

 

[NewarkWolf]

Danny Batth (4) has more goals than McDonald (0), Price (1) and VLP (2) combined. That is abysmal from our midfield.

McDonald's shooting is $$$$ing abysmal!!

 

[Smithy]

McDonald has by far and away our most assists though especially compared to the other centre mids Price and Edwards. They've got one between them, K.M has 12.

Also Batths the only one of our back 4 to score this season, which isn't great.

 

[Oh When the Wolves]

McDonald has by far and away our most assists though especially compared to the other centre mids Price and Edwards. They've got one between them, K.M has 12.

Also Batths the only one of our back 4 to score this season, which isn't great.

Still dream of Hause shot at Watford going in.

Poor from defenders too but hardly a criticism , more the quality of corner affecting that stat .

 

[paddy]

Kiteley

 

[northnorfolkwolf]

It's the GD that will do for us. I'm convinced Ipswich will $$$$ up at Blackburn and had we a better GD we could have gone above them with a win on Saturday (and above Brentford as well). Unfortunately they will not lose by much and we will win by a goal or 2 - not enough regrettably.
It's the subject of another thread but our GD would be considerably better had we not screwed up quite so badly in November and with hindsight shame we didn't have Afobe in August?!

 

[Ponty]

By all means blame the bad run but that doesn’t change the fact our CMs don’t score enough.

Price tends to hold more leaving KM to go forward. I would guess he has at least one shot a game on average. That makes over 40 shots this season with one goal. That frankly is beyond pathetic. If he’d scored one in 10 that would almost certainly render goal difference irrelevant as we’d have enough points to be in the POs already!

 

[Padraig]

Only two players in the league have more assists than McDonald and one of them won't be in it next year, so if you want to improve our goal difference you're going to have to find a bloody good replacement.

But yes, his shooting is $$$$. Genuinely think mine is better.

 

[Deleted member 4456]

McDonald's shooting is utterly dreadful. Whenever I see him shape to shoot from any position, even a centimetre away from the line, my first thought is:

"Just don't do it..."

We need a better CAM and a replacement for Sako. Then we can think about scoring more goals.

 

[Deleted member 3604]

I would imagine KJ would be in absolutely no doubt where our deficiencies lie. For me Price and Mac actually strengthened us defensively and they were much needed - too busy shoring us up to get forward. The emergence of Iorfa also tightened us. When we were leaking goals it was because Sako and VLP weren't disciplined defensively and Stearman and Baath were way off the requirement. When we set up with five in midfield we had too many samey players. We were the best of the rest but despite the margins there has to be big changes in the Summer. A fantastic core of a squad to build around. Better wide players and central defenders will improve the games of Price and Evans. I would back Lee Evans to be a major player next season.