Greenacre to go?

[Ian]

I've been reliably informed that Greenacre's house is up for sale. Make of that what you will.

It may mean he's moving round the corner, or it may mean he's looking to move away..

Thoughts/comments?

 

[roverstillidie]

hopefully! He's been very poor this season and we could use the money from his wages to get a better player.

 

[Tartantranmere64]

I agree. I like the guy and he's done really well, but he seems to be going a bit stale. With Ian Moore around, I think money from his sale could be used to buy something different...... Still, always sad to see someone like that move on, if he does move on that is.

 

[Boz]

If so we'd need to get a new striker in. Neither Zola nor Moore prolific enough and Curran doesn't get enough outings. One below par season after two good ones, on balance would prefer he stayed.

 

[Joe_TRFC]

I'd like him to stay as I feel he'd do well in a team with a fit Davo and Shukes. But if he does move on we need to get someone just as good if not better in.

 

[Luke trfc 4 lyf]

I don't really think greeny played well this season his control on satdee was poor to say the least an all he done was dribble the ball to the half way line!!
Joe Kuffour would be a great partner with moore or zola!!
I also thing he should take a gamble with young Terry Gornell!!!
Heard he's ment to be better than Curran an Currans one of the plays that should ave a start on satdeee as were not going to make the play offs so why not play Curran and Gornell togethor??

 

[Ian]

I have to disagree with those saying he hasn't had a good season. We can mention certain games we're he hasn't played particularly well, but you can do that with any player at the club.

If you look at this season, he's scored 14 goals in 38 starts and 4 sub apps. Last season, he scored 19 goals in 43 starts and 6 sub apps. And in 05-06, 18 goals in 49 apps.

Goal ratio:
05-06: 2.7
06-07: 2.6
07-08: 2.7

So his goal ratio is consistant with previous years. Greenacre is there to score goals and he does. He's done so for the three seasons he's been with us and has been our top goal-scorer. Which brings me nicely to my next point.

I think we're looking in the wrong place here. The problem isn't with Greenacre, it's with the rest of the squad. Our top five goalscorers this season:

Chris Greenacre: 14
Antony Kay: 6
Calvin Zola: 5
Paul McLaren: 4
Shane Sherriff: 4

Apart from the usual double figures from Greenacre, look at the other figures! That's awful. Second top scorer is a defender/midfielder with just 6! Below that 5 for Zola. I mean, that makes awful reading.

We should be pointing the finger at the rest of the squad for not contributing more goals.

It's clear we need to score more goals than we do, but you can't rely on one man to do it.

I'll end this post with an interesting stat. One of our other main striker's this season, Calvin Zola has a goal ratio of 7.0! 1 goal every 7 games..

 

[bring back the cowshed!]

Spot on, Ian. An interesting analysis. The contribution from the rest of the team is embarrassing. In my view, the only other players on our books capable of scoring double figures in a season are perhaps Davies and Curran. Stevo may be off at the end of the season and Curran never gets enough opportunity.

You don't want to get rid of a proven goalscorer who gives his all for the club. I agree with Ronnie that we were 10 goals short of a play-off place. Without Chrissy's goals we'd probably be fighting off relegation.

 

[roverstillidie]

Without Chrissy's goals we'd probably be fighting off relegation.

His goals have only won us 4 points this season, the rest are when were already winning. Zola has a ratio of a goal every 7 games, but whenever he hits any form he gets dropped, so it's not very surprising really.

However players such as McLaren, Jennings, Goodison (From set pieces) and Moore should be scoring alot more goals. McLaren should be trying to get at least 10, because he gets the ball alot around the edge of the box and shdoesn't shoot when he could.

That's one of the main problems with the team, they very rarely have a crack from long range/outside the box - anything could happen deflections, handballs etc but if you don't shoot, you don't score and thats a key problem!

The other reason why the team don't score enough goals, is that they never get around the backs of defences. The vast majority of our attacking play is in front of defences with deep crosses/hoofs. Which is easy to defend against especially with 2 strikers who can't head the ball. Surely it would make sense to get the ball behind the oppositions full backs and feed in crosses/through balls to utilise Moore's pace and Greenacres predator instincts rather than just aimless hoofs.

You could say we haven't had Shuker/Davies to do this, but Jones and JMW are perfectly capable of getting past people but Moore doesn't play them. Instead he plays a centre/left back and a half fit shuker or JMW on his wrong side where he just a one trick pony - cut inside blast it wide! (except Leeds of course\\/)

 

[NeverBeatDaveHiggins]

I'll end this post with an interesting stat. One of our other main striker's this season, Calvin Zola has a goal ratio of 7.0! 1 goal every 7 games..

I'd be interested to see the opta, or whatever the stats are called these days, for Calvin's miss-per-game score. I'm guessing it's very very high. Most of the time he's out injured, but when he does play he does tend to miss a number of sitters.

Basically he's just not a goalscorer, the best thing it's possible to say about Calvin is that he's an awkward player for defenses to know what to do with.

 

[Ian]

Yes, I'd agree 100% that's Calvin's role. Even so, he's never been past five goals since he's been at Prenton Park. No matter what reason, it's still a very poor return. Ronnie needs to address these type of problems.

I think instead of looking at our top goalscorer, we need to be pointing the finger in other directions..

 

[evo_trfc]

exactly, So people want to get rid off the clubs top goal scorer for whats going to be the last 3 seasons.

IMO shuker kay greenacre jennings davies curran coyne goodinson zola taylor thats all that i would keep get rid of the rest and start a fresh, Our squad this year has over-acheieved and im glad we have but if we really want to challenge for promotion next season we need better players. If not then keep the squad and languish around mid table.

Im gutted we didnt make the play offs but saying thats its been a good season. Now i know financially we aren't the best, but surely you have to take risks!