with a recurrence of his hamstring injury. With Somma on crutches with a knee injury this leaves us with only Paynter & McCormack up front. Suddenly our attack is looking very weak. Its makes it all the more important we hang on to Gradel as he can play in the second striker role should he need to. Unfortunately it looks as though we'll be relying on Billy to step up to the plate even more so as he's our only target man left,but if he's not doing the business he needs to be drooped. We'd be better of playing Gradel alongside Ross.
He's tweaked the injury that kept him out at the end of last season and they're not taking any chances, hardly out for the season.
Damn you and your suggestive headlines! I still think he'll be back, he'll probably play in the Sheff Wed and Newcastle games. Either way Ross and Billy are a perfectly capable partnership as they showed at the end of last season.
he had an op at the end of last season, so will just be precaution i think. i agree, think he'll be back after scotland
Edited it now,though couldn't change thread title. Somma's injury sounds a bit more worrying with him being on crutches. Hope he's not out for too long as I think this season will see him become a more integral part of the team. Even if Becchio recovers swiftly we still look a bit light up front. It leaves whoever is alongside Paynter having to shoulder much of the goalscoring responsibilities. I know we won the last two games with Paynter starting but how much were the victories down to him? Sorry but he doesn't fill me with much confidence.
nunez, max and snoddy can all play up front. im not too worried about it really, weve players like sam and white who can drop in and do a job on the wings too. or even one up front with howson just behind, it worked well last season
McCormack and Paynter (as crap as he is) worked well together in the last couple of games of the season. But Becchio will probably be back for the start of the season.
Paynter and Rm only managed 2 goals between them last season, thats excluding the own goal against QPR. We need another striker, I always said if we lost either Becchio or Somma we would be weak. Nunez, Snoddy and Gradel can play there yes, but it'll disrupt the system and they are not center forwards
McCormack and Paynter ar both good strikers. Paynter was injured for much of last season and couldn't get into his stride. Same with McCormack. What we should pay attention to is the partership they seemed to strike up in the last two games of the season that looked very dangerous. Paynter holding it up and doing the donkey work with McCormack buzzing around making runs into space. Don't forget Paynter was denied by a couple of great saves against Burnley and would have been clean through had he not been hacked down against QPR.
All strikers get denied goals by great saves & last ditch tackles,not just Paynter,so that's no excuse. Somma would have scored even more goals than he did had he not had a couple of goal bound efforts saved,& I'm sure as hell know he'd have buried that open goal header that McCormack missed. You seem to value the likes of McCormack & Paynter above a natural predator like Somma,& I find that very strange. Surely you find a system to suit your best strikers,not play a formation to include a donkey like Paynter.
No, but Somma has proven that he is best as a sub, and I don't see anything wrong with having a player who can come on and score when we need goals. I'm saying I think Paynter and McCormack are also very good and were unlucky last season. I think they both have a lot more to give, especially going on their showings from last season. There is no particular formation that suits Somma, he always seems to do well when he comes off the bench and (with the exception of 1 or 2 games) looks lost when he starts. Natural predators don't always work to the best interests of the team, they may score loads but sometimes that's at the expense of more goals for the team, which is what counts.
Paynter looks lost from start to finish I don't think Somma has been given enough opportunities to start whereas Paynter has shown us to be awful. I don't know where you get this idea from that the team score more goals with Paynter in from the start ahead of Somma,I can't think of any goals we scored as a result of Billy's magnificent hold up play. Playing Somma from the start is not detrimental to the team,playing Paynter is.
It was nearly detrimental against Brizzle City last season, until Becchio replaced him in the second half.
Well I have only been a member here for a month but so far worse headline and my OTT statement I have read so far...
sory guys i think paynter is well out of his depth, if i were grayson i would be giving him away and paying half his wages, he is terrible, hate to be negative but he's nowhere near good enough to be a sub for becchio, mccormack on the other hand i have high hopes for, i think he will step up and play really well, his movement is very good and finishing not too bad either and he is stillrelatively young
I'm not being funny guys....but Christ u make me want to slit my wrists..... Why all the doom and gloom .... Nobody know ...who's injured ..how long they will be out... Get a grip...