We all know that goals win games, and it is precisely because we are not scoring enough of them that we are dropping valuable points right now. If we had won our last two league encounters against Cheltenham and Morecambe, we would be just one place off the top-six, but drawing games is almost as bad as losing them, so instead of six points, we sadly end up with two. This is not promotion form.
Town boss Kieran McKenna broached this subject in an interview with the local press and said that he fully understood why supporters were frustrated, “Probably over the last couple of games, that’s been the final piece. We had two games last week, where performances were very good, and that wasn’t matched in terms of conversion of chances. We’ve worked again this week on little details in the final third. Things to improve in terms of movement and in terms of execution of the final pass, execution of crosses, execution of finishes, and that’s something we want to continue to get better at.”
What we must accept is that our strikers are struggling to score frequently enough. Macauley Bonne is a pale shadow of his former self and badly needs another goal, and the same could be said of James Norwood and Joe Pigott. Any chance of Tyreece Simpson getting the nod has been scuppered by an injury he suffered in an under 23 game in midweek, and we cannot perpetually expect our midfield, or defence, to wade in with our goals, just because our forwards cannot score.
The next question we should ask is, are our strikers getting the service they need to produce an end product? Is our midfield creative enough, and how much are we missing Lee Evans? It could just be that the opposition has worked out our style and have managed to negate our attacking intent? Does Mckenna need to change the system so that we can convert the massive amount of possession we have into clear goal scoring opportunities? Mckenna believes that it is only a matter of time before his strikers start finding the net again. “If we continue to perform how we have in the last couple of games and fight to those performance levels, then I think goals will come.” He is right, of course, but will they come too late?
