I will be the first!

[W12Allstars]

And the apparent lack of defensive coaching.

Surely that’s even more important if we’re on such a tight budget with limited players? Good coaching could be the one thing that should improve our chances.

[UxbridgeR]

Well, he picks the team - thankfully the Briatore days are behind us. He also makes decisions relating to the philosophy, style of play, formation and tactics.

We gave away another cheap penalty last night - our 6th of the season (all scored), and last season we gave away 11, with only Bamford missing his kick. That's 17 in one and a half seasons. I would expect the manager to be addressing that with the defence. Stay on your feet, don't give the forward the opportunity to go down, or the referee the opportunity to make the decision. This particularly when the forward is going nowhere, and therefore not posing a massive threat (as was the case last night). The Clint Hill article said MW didn't focus on defending at Glasgow Rangers. Well, I don't go to training sessions at QPR so couldn't say if that's the same for us, but the evidence on the pitch suggests it might be. In which case - on his own head be it.

This seems quite a stretch to me. How do you blame Warburton for Cantwell diving at the merest hint of contact, or for Masterson inexplicably throwing his arm in the air and handballing a routine cross in the Cardiff game ? Does 33 year old Lee Wallace really need to be coached not to hang his leg out in the penalty area twice in the same match ? I think it's fair to criticise how we defend as a unit, and how we set up and organise for set plays and the like, but not to blame the manager for poor decisions made by individual players who should know better.

[jimjams]

I don't think recruitment has been "a scandal,"

The recruitment has been a humungus scandal. Dykes & Bonne being the obvious culprits.

How can Dykes and Bonne be held responsible for our recruitment?

Besides, both were signed fairly cheaply for Championship level, one with a goal record of 1 in 3 games in a struggling side and the other with a strong reputation and assist record, and a strong scoring season that put him on the verge of the Scotland team. Kellman is a striker with obvious potential that we got for 300,000. I don't see how any of these are scandalous.

[Andy_N19]

I don't think recruitment has been "a scandal,"

The recruitment has been a humungus scandal. Dykes & Bonne being the obvious culprits.

How can Dykes and Bonne be held responsible for our recruitment?

Besides, both were signed fairly cheaply for Championship level, one with a goal record of 1 in 3 games in a struggling side and the other with a strong reputation and assist record, and a strong scoring season that put him on the verge of the Scotland team. Kellman is a striker with obvious potential that we got for 300,000. I don't see how any of these are scandalous.

What I meant is that Dykes and Bonne seem appalling signings considering they don't score goals
or do the basics anywhere near adequately. I have no interest in what Dykes does for Scotland.

The scandal is that they're so poor as a pair would you trust Sir Les to even assess a park player?
Kelman seems to have a bit more about him, only time will tell.

[QPR_John]

The recruitment has been a humungus scandal. Dykes & Bonne being the obvious culprits.

How can Dykes and Bonne be held responsible for our recruitment?

Besides, both were signed fairly cheaply for Championship level, one with a goal record of 1 in 3 games in a struggling side and the other with a strong reputation and assist record, and a strong scoring season that put him on the verge of the Scotland team. Kellman is a striker with obvious potential that we got for 300,000. I don't see how any of these are scandalous.

What I meant is that Dykes and Bonne seem appalling signings considering they don't score goals
or do the basics anywhere near adequately. I have no interest in what Dykes does for Scotland.

The scandal is that they're so poor as a pair would you trust Sir Les to even assess a park player?
Kelman seems to have a bit more about him, only time will tell.

Surely that is pertinent in assessing the player. He does it for Scotland, so he must have some talent, but not for us so where is the problem. I would suggest it is with whoever assessed the player as somebody that could do a job for us and not the player.

[Andy_N19]

How can Dykes and Bonne be held responsible for our recruitment?

Besides, both were signed fairly cheaply for Championship level, one with a goal record of 1 in 3 games in a struggling side and the other with a strong reputation and assist record, and a strong scoring season that put him on the verge of the Scotland team. Kellman is a striker with obvious potential that we got for 300,000. I don't see how any of these are scandalous.

What I meant is that Dykes and Bonne seem appalling signings considering they don't score goals
or do the basics anywhere near adequately. I have no interest in what Dykes does for Scotland.

The scandal is that they're so poor as a pair would you trust Sir Les to even assess a park player?
Kelman seems to have a bit more about him, only time will tell.

Surely that is pertinent in assessing the player. He does it for Scotland, so he must have some talent, but not for us so where is the problem. I would suggest it is with whoever assessed the player as somebody that could do a job for us and not the player.

If you examine what he does for Scotland and I saw the game against Serbia, he relieves their midfield and defence
of pressure, wins the odd (and I mean the odd) flick on and runs about (semi) energetically.
What he isn't doing is scoring goals (familiar?), how he got a full page write up in a broadsheet is beyond me.

When England play Scotland in the Euros, he'll be withdrawn by half-time; to play in the top 2 tiers of English football
you need basic technique and a turn of pace if even over 5 yards, ask Sheffield United who have McGoldrick and McBurnie
who are carbon copies of Dykes... and look how many goals they've scored.

[ZENITH R]

How can Dykes and Bonne be held responsible for our recruitment?

Besides, both were signed fairly cheaply for Championship level, one with a goal record of 1 in 3 games in a struggling side and the other with a strong reputation and assist record, and a strong scoring season that put him on the verge of the Scotland team. Kellman is a striker with obvious potential that we got for 300,000. I don't see how any of these are scandalous.

What I meant is that Dykes and Bonne seem appalling signings considering they don't score goals
or do the basics anywhere near adequately. I have no interest in what Dykes does for Scotland.

The scandal is that they're so poor as a pair would you trust Sir Les to even assess a park player?
Kelman seems to have a bit more about him, only time will tell.

Surely that is pertinent in assessing the player. He does it for Scotland, so he must have some talent, but not for us so where is the problem. I would suggest it is with whoever assessed the player as somebody that could do a job for us and not the player.

I've said this before:

There are two types of footballers ...

The naturally gifted player who performs well whichever team he is in, be that his club side or at International level, and when he moves elsewhere (because he performs well) he does well at his new club as well. Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney spring to mind as good examples.

Then there are 'system players'. These are the ones who do well either playing in a certain way (tactics, formation etc) or playing with certain other individuals. Take them out of the system, and suddenly they look very ordinary. Lots of examples of this type of player - we seem particularly to have a knack of finding them.

Dykes in particular would appear to be a 'system player'. I'm not advocating a complete change of tactics, but playing to Dykes' strengths would seem to be a way of improving our goal return. Put simply, how many times have we put a ball into the box for Dykes to attack? We did at Brentford and he scored. We haven't done it again since then. Too often the ball sails over his head, or he is outnumbered by defenders.

It's not rocket science, and we have the players to provide the ammunition. So, I think it comes down to work on the training ground and putting it into practice on match day.

[Andy_N19]

He is a "system" player, but if we place 10 chances on his bonce, I suspect he'll
only finish off 2 at most.

[QPR_John]

He is a "system" player, but if we place 10 chances on his bonce, I suspect he'll
only finish off 2 at most.

It would be interesting to see how many chances Hugill got and what his conversion rate was.

[ZENITH R]

He is a "system" player, but if we place 10 chances on his bonce, I suspect he'll
only finish off 2 at most.

It would be interesting to see how many chances Hugill got and what his conversion rate was.

Or indeed any of the current Championship strikers. I seem to recall Nakhi Wells missed a few for us. I have a friend who is Blackburn fan (and a former season ticket holder) he tells me Jordan Rhodes needs a good few chances before he'll score. We are apparently interested in signing Rhodes, according to some sources.

Players like Harry Kane and a fit Sergio Aguero will have a better strike rate, but even they have missed what might be considered 'sitters'. Other factors like, not having a regular run in the side (or being subbed after 60 minutes) will also affect the conversion rate. As someone else pointed out, it took Les Ferdinand a few games to get going, and the quality in the team alongside Ferdinand at that time was much better than what we have now.

[jimjams]

The recruitment has been a humungus scandal. Dykes & Bonne being the obvious culprits.

How can Dykes and Bonne be held responsible for our recruitment?

Besides, both were signed fairly cheaply for Championship level, one with a goal record of 1 in 3 games in a struggling side and the other with a strong reputation and assist record, and a strong scoring season that put him on the verge of the Scotland team. Kellman is a striker with obvious potential that we got for 300,000. I don't see how any of these are scandalous.

What I meant is that Dykes and Bonne seem appalling signings considering they don't score goals
or do the basics anywhere near adequately. I have no interest in what Dykes does for Scotland.

The scandal is that they're so poor as a pair would you trust Sir Les to even assess a park player?
Kelman seems to have a bit more about him, only time will tell.

Bonne had 11 goals from 33 Championship appearances last season, while Dykes had 12 from 33 in Scotland.
1 in 3 is a perfectly decent scoring rate.

[Andy_N19]

Dykes has a 1 in 5 strike rate this season, Bonne 1 in 10
Not good enough, Dykes played league 1 standard last season and Bonne is nowhere
near good enough for the Championship.

Anything less than a win at home to Wycombe will see heads roll and I bet that neither
of the above mentioned will get on the score-sheet that day.

It would be interesting to see how many chances Hugill got and what his conversion rate was.

Would be a better rate since he was a better player, I'm sure he'd have nabbed more than 5 goals
this term.

[ZENITH R]

Dykes has a 1 in 5 strike rate this season, Bonne 1 in 10
Not good enough, Dykes played league 1 standard last season and Bonne is nowhere
near good enough for the Championship.

Anything less than a win at home to Wycombe will see heads roll and I bet that neither
of the above mentioned will get on the score-sheet that day.

It would be interesting to see how many chances Hugill got and what his conversion rate was.

Would be a better rate since he was a better player, I'm sure he'd have nabbed more than 5 goals
this term.

Well now ...

Hugill is playing for a team that is comfortably top of the table, so it is reasonable to assume he has better players around him at Norwich. This season he has started 5 games and been a sub on 12 occasions, and so far he has scored just one goal.

The facts or stats don't actually support your argument there Andy.

Maybe Hugill, who failed at West Ham, is a system player, and he isn't suited to Norwich's system.

Just a thought.

[UxbridgeR]

Dykes has a 1 in 5 strike rate this season, Bonne 1 in 10
Not good enough, Dykes played league 1 standard last season and Bonne is nowhere
near good enough for the Championship.

I'm not sure where you're getting those strike rates from. Dykes has played 20 games and scored 5 goals. Bonne has only started half a dozen games, most of his appearances being off the bench. His strike rate isn't that much worse than Dykes if you look at actual minutes played.