For me, it's the fact that the criticism of Dinanga is disproportionate. Why do you not mention Jordan Hulme's 75 minutes on the pitch without a shot on goal, on or off target?
You could put a league 1 striker in the number 9 position in this system and they wouldn't be scoring.
Couldn't agree more.
It's telling really that no side in the bottom 10 has scored less than us but yet we can all agree that we don't have enough of a goal threat. 8 of the 23 goals have come against Torquay and Dorking. Take those games out of the equation and we're averaging a goal a game. Last night and the Torquay capitulation had the look of a side in serious trouble.
Say what you like about Dinanga's prolificacy but within 5 minutes of being on the pitch, he was, at the very least, in the right positions in the box.
Not a knock on Hulme, love the guy and am delighted he is at the club as one of the old guard who understands the journey the club has been on, but it was a stretch to expect him to be the answer up front this season. Safe option for a club in transition, as you know what you're getting. I must say he was excellent out on the wing at Gateshead and Torquay last week, which leads me to consider that the striker might not be the problem.
Look back at all iterations of Parkinson's Altrincham and there has never been a reliance on the striker to be prolific. We've seriously regressed at full-back which has always been an integral part of how we play. Barrows is miles off Senior's level and the Brockbank gamble hasn't paid off, prompting us to go back in for Eddie Jones who has been steady enough, but does not look the player he did last season when playing against teams who were winding down at the end of the campaign.
Our two central midfielders offer very limited goal threat and creativity. I'm going to hazard a guess that Lundstram and Osborne's 2 goals in 17 league games is well below average for central midfield partnerships. I am not sure what they have provided in terms of assists but it is all very sidewards and backwards from them. I appreciate this is not Lundstram's role and I think he has been excellent all season. We need more from Osborne, or whoever is in that position. I'm not sure Marriott is going to be the player to fix this, either. How we could do with Alistair Smith.
That leaves Conn-Clarke, Colclough and whoever is on the right to make it all happen - which is easy to defend against. Conn-Clarke is quite mercurial and has a tendency to overplay, particularly from outside of the box, where Hancock was a serious threat coming into the box late, which is what we are so obviously missing. The amount of times Colclough puts a low ball into the six-yard box to find no one running onto it is a joke. He was being triple-teamed all game, and he still managed to run past them all and put it on a plate numerous times. I'm amazed he's still here.