Goal stats

Is it twelve games and thirteen different goal scorers?

I’m not sure I can remember a time supporting Town where we had a team/squad with so many goal threats, plus such a balanced centre midfield, and quality set piece delivery! Kerr’s team that won Div 3 in 80/81 had plenty of players who scored regularly and some of Buckley’s too, but I feel very fortunate to be seeing that again because it’s rare and we’ve endured an awful lot of the opposite. There’ll be some Town fans who have maybe never seen anything like a GTFC squad with this amount of depth and quality so they must be buzzing!

We can field an outfield 10 who have all scored now. 12 games into a season. Most of the bench of that have also scored too!

We've also  got a fairly settled first 11....only problem is how good the fringe players are!

Amazing what happens when you actually pay people their worth

Quoted from chaos33

I’m not sure I can remember a time supporting Town where we had a team/squad with so many goal threats, plus such a balanced centre midfield, and quality set piece delivery! Kerr’s team that won Div 3 in 80/81 had plenty of players who scored regularly and some of Buckley’s too, but I feel very fortunate to be seeing that again because it’s rare and we’ve endured an awful lot of the opposite. There’ll be some Town fans who have maybe never seen anything like a GTFC squad with this amount of depth and quality so they must be buzzing!

I'm 36 years old, have been following Town regularly since I was 5 and based on what I've seen so far, I think this is the best Town side I have seen, pound-for-pound for the level we're playing at. That's not entirely fair on some of the teams I watched in my formative years as we were playing at a much higher level against clubs with far greater resources than our own, however it's worth nothing there are a minimum of four sides in this division with bigger playing budgets than ours and thus far we're comfortably ahead of all of them.

In my 30+ years watching Town I can never remember us really challenging for a league title. The only two sides that would even come close to arguing otherwise were Slade's team in 2005/6 and Scott & Hurst's team of 2012/13. In both cases we were pretty horrible in the new year and ended up some way off the pace in the end.

That's a reminder that this is a long season, but also raises an interesting point. In both of those seasons we did quite a lot of business in January, and in all fairness signed some decent players. We went into 2006, having just beaten Wrexham on NYE in that Glen Downey game, in second place and in touching distance of Wycombe with a game in hand. We then made a number of signings including Ben Futcher, Curtis Woodhouse and Marc Goodfellow - all good players in their own right but I don't think any were totally necessary (Junior Mendes certainly wasn't), and I feel actually detracted from rather than added to what we were as a team.

The window in 2013 was pretty exciting in fairness, as January windows go for Town. With so much focus on whether or not we'd re-sign Ross Hannah, who'd been on fire, from Bradford, we ended up signing Richard Brodie and Jamie Devitt one Friday out of absolutely nowhere. Eventually Hannah did sign, and then if memory serves a couple of hours later we announced the signing of LJL from League One Bury. That one in particular was a strange one, as his manager at Bury at the time was Kevin Blackwell, who days earlier had tried to pull a fast one with his old mates at Luton who thought they'd signed Marcus Marshall, only to then realise they weren't allowed to. Town duly re-signed Marshall.

The other big story of that window is that we lost Nathan Pond, who had been imperious, but regardless I think the big takeaway that sometimes less is more when it comes to adding to a good, or even great squad of players. A few weeks ago I was gagging for us to sign Bogle when it became clear he was finished at Donny. I still think he's a great player at this level, but would I now want him to sign tomorrow? Nope. It's just too big a risk - we seem to have a team that is greater than the sum of its parts, and adding the wrong ingredient to that mix could spoil that.

I think we have a management team that very much get that though, and the fact we've ended up in such a rosey situation is absolutely no accident. We've signed 15 players since the end of that last season. At this level, I'd argue a success rate of 50% is pretty good going. I've now seen 14 of those 15 and I'd grade all of them somewhere from 'good' to 'fùcking dynamite', with several close to the more explosive end of that scale. Grant obviously has something to prove in terms of fitness, but honestly, that kind of success ratio is absolutely off the scale. How does that compare, say, to Manchester United's in recent years, with all their money and resources?

As I said earlier, long way to go this season, but ultimately the most compelling characteristic of this team is that I literally don't want to change anything. There are no boo-boys, just a team of likeable, talented, hard working, professional players who appear to be being very well managed.

In that sense at least, this is pretty much uncharted territory for me as a Town fan.

"Slade's team in 2005/6 and Scott & Hurst's team of 2012/13. In both cases we were pretty horrible in the new year and ended up some way off the pace in the end.

That's a reminder that this is a long season, but also raises an interesting point. In both of those seasons we did quite a lot of business, and in all fairness signed some decent players. We went into 2006, having just beaten Wrexham on NYE "

Interesting you should mention the Wrexham game in 2005-06. We had also just beaten Wrexham too at Christmas 2012 (22 Dec if I remember right) in a televised game in a battle at the top.

Quoted from KingstonMariner

"Slade's team in 2005/6 and Scott & Hurst's team of 2012/13. In both cases we were pretty horrible in the new year and ended up some way off the pace in the end.

That's a reminder that this is a long season, but also raises an interesting point. In both of those seasons we did quite a lot of business, and in all fairness signed some decent players. We went into 2006, having just beaten Wrexham on NYE "

Interesting you should mention the Wrexham game in 2005-06. We had also just beaten Wrexham too at Christmas 2012 (22 Dec if I remember right) in a televised game in a battle at the top.

We had indeed; Ross Hannah with the goal. What's remarkable about the video below is just how empty BP looks by comparison with recent games, despite the fact we would overtake Wrexham to go top of the league with a win that night.

These are special times right now. Hopefully they are just the beginning and there will be many more, but let's not take them for granted either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAofjD9xL9w

Quoted from Poojah

In my 30+ years watching Town I can never remember us really challenging for a league title. The only two sides that would even come close to arguing otherwise were Slade's team in 2005/6 and Scott & Hurst's team of 2012/13. In both cases we were pretty horrible in the new year and ended up some way off the pace in the end.

That's a reminder that this is a long season, but also raises an interesting point. In both of those seasons we did quite a lot of business in January, and in all fairness signed some decent players. We went into 2006, having just beaten Wrexham on NYE in that Glen Downey game, in second place and in touching distance of Wycombe with a game in hand. We then made a number of signings including Ben Futcher, Curtis Woodhouse and Marc Goodfellow - all good players in their own right but I don't think any were totally necessary (Junior Mendes certainly wasn't), and I feel actually detracted from rather than added to what we were as a team.

The window in 2013 was pretty exciting in fairness, as January windows go for Town. With so much focus on whether or not we'd re-sign Ross Hannah, who'd been on fire, from Bradford, we ended up signing Richard Brodie and Jamie Devitt one Friday out of absolutely nowhere. Eventually Hannah did sign, and then if memory serves a couple of hours later we announced the signing of LJL from League One Bury. That one in particular was a strange one, as his manager at Bury at the time was Kevin Blackwell, who days earlier had tried to pull a fast one with his old mates at Luton who thought they'd signed Marcus Marshall, only to then realise they weren't allowed to. Town duly re-signed Marshall.

I've always thought this, but in 2013 both Kidderminster and Mansfield went on ludicrously good runs post-Christmas and I'm not sure we ever stood a realistic chance. I actually think 2014/15 was a bigger opportunity, we were 1 point off top after we won at Welling in early to mid-April and were in terrific form until we tailed off towards the end of the season a little bit.

Even still, I expect Hurst will have learned his lesson and won't want to disrupt the side very much at all in January. Although I suspect he'll still probably want to sign a striker and central midfielder as cover, especially if Grant and Scannell's current fitness records continue. Similar to Pond though, his hand may be forced a bit if Towler and Hunt go back to their parent clubs. Having both been allowed to play this weekend though I think there's half a chance we'll get to keep them.

We do have goals coming from all over the pitch and that is preferable to being reliant upon one player for goals as you can't double up on everyone. I, like others have said, can't remember a Town team looking so threatening and confident going forward, nor can I remember us being such a threat from set-plays. We are able to win games in different ways and score a plethora of different types of goals, hopefully, this bodes well for the winter when sides get more injuries and games perhaps become tighter.

Some really good points poojah and I had the exact same thought about Bogle the other week - a couple of months ago I'd have thought it'd be a risk worth taking on him. Now no chance, could easily upset the apple cart. I do however think yesterday underlined the importance of getting in that other striker as backup to taylor, I.e  replacing lennie rather than taylor. Lennies lay off and hold up play is still good but his finishing this time around is even worse than  last time. Lennie is great if we already have a lead but being without taylor for more than a game or two gives me the shivers.

As far as Hursts comments after the game about if he was an attacking player who ended up without a goal he'd be disappointed cos they should all have scored - people have assumed that was lennie but technically he did score. Yeah I'm sure he meant lennie too but I think he was referring to sousa as he was the only attacking player who played the majority of the game who didn't score. He has mentioned him needing to score more before as well. I would have been amazed at myself saying this just a month ago but possibly bapaga has just nudged ahead of sousa in the battle for the first eleven spot.

I feel they are different kinds of players and are better under different circumstances. For a team that parks the bus and defends deep I think bapagas trickery inside the box from a standing start and better eye for goal is best suited. For a team were more evenly matched with or against a team pushing forward sousas faster pace with the ball, his more direct running and better crossing seems better suited. He would scare any team leaving space in behind them. Its a fantastic pair of options to have on that right side. Perhaps bapaga can also be the mcatee position option too.

Quoted from toontown

Some really good points poojah and I had the exact same thought about Bogle the other week - a couple of months ago I'd have thought it'd be a risk worth taking on him. Now no chance, could easily upset the apple cart. I do however think yesterday underlined the importance of getting in that other striker as backup to taylor, I.e  replacing lennie rather than taylor. Lennies lay off and hold up play is still good but his finishing this time around is even worse than  last time. Lennie is great if we already have a lead but being without taylor for more than a game or two gives me the shivers.

As far as Hursts comments after the game about if he was an attacking player who ended up without a goal he'd be disappointed cos they should all have scored - people have assumed that was lennie but technically he did score. Yeah I'm sure he meant lennie too but I think he was referring to sousa as he was the only attacking player who played the majority of the game who didn't score. He has mentioned him needing to score more before as well. I would have been amazed at myself saying this just a month ago but possibly bapaga has just nudged ahead of sousa in the battle for the first eleven spot.

Equally, I think there are several teams in this league where we need to play them both, pace and trickery on both wings will be too much for some of the more typical non-league type defenders.

I feel they are different kinds of players and are better under different circumstances. For a team that parks the bus and defends deep I think bapagas trickery inside the box from a standing start and better eye for goal is best suited. For a team were more evenly matched with or against a team pushing forward sousas faster pace with the ball, his more direct running and better crossing seems better suited. He would scare any team leaving space in behind them. Its a fantastic pair of options to have on that right side. Perhaps bapaga can also be the mcatee position option too.