Pars v Wasps (League)

[rosythpar]

6 hours ago, Secure Par said:

Well if you look at the squad we have most have played championship level and as I said a few loan signings and we will be ok.

A squad that got relegated from the championship. Hamilton and Benedictus will be good signings but we realistically need 4/5 more if we want to win the league. 

[Berry]

17 hours ago, the saline hill puma said:

McCann is terrible. Other than working hard he is shocking imo 

Honestly couldn’t disagree more, he’s only 21 and has done well since he got a place in the team. You have to accept this is the clubs strategy, to bring on the youngsters and then look to offload them.

For him to improve, you need to give him game time and there’s no better time to do it than now when we’re in League One.

Thought he played well against Alloa as well, winning plenty of balls in the air and disrupting play. I’m not sure I agree with the point that he’s not a natural goalscorer, yes his stats point towards that but come on, the scraps he’s had to work with, he’s done no better or worse than some our more experienced players.

 

[DA-go Par Adonis]

Really?  I can remember a bunch of chances that he's missed. 

As I said, he's featured 54 times for us and his tally of 4 doesn't represent a reasonable conversion rate for the opportunities that he's been presented with - even if it has been a pretty grim set of team performances that he's been involved in.

[kelty_par]

43 minutes ago, DA-go Par Adonis said:

Really?  I can remember a bunch of chances that he's missed. 

As I said, he's featured 54 times for us and his tally of 4 doesn't represent a reasonable conversion rate for the opportunities that he's been presented with - even if it has been a pretty grim set of team performances that he's been involved in.

Missed an absolute sitter Saturday, 6 yards out free header right at the keeper 

[parsforlife]

2 hours ago, kelty_par said:

Missed an absolute sitter Saturday, 6 yards out free header right at the keeper 

That wasn’t an absolute sitter at all, lucky if it had an xG more than 0.3

Edited August 1, 2022 by parsforlife

[Secure Par]

14 hours ago, rosythpar said:

A squad that got relegated from the championship. Hamilton and Benedictus will be good signings but we realistically need 4/5 more if we want to win the league. 

Well we will just wait to see how McPake deals with last seasons players.

But I have no doubt with 1 or 2 loans and 1 signed we should be winning this league.

 

[kelty_par]

58 minutes ago, parsforlife said:

That wasn’t an absolute sitter at all, lucky if it had an xG more than 0.3

Go watch it back, a striker getting a free header 6 yards out should be scoring 

[parsforlife]

1 hour ago, kelty_par said:

Go watch it back, a striker getting a free header 6 yards out should be scoring 

I’ve had a look from the highlights, maybe missed a chance as I skipped through, but are you talking of the 2nd half corner which was headed into the ground? If not can you point me In the right direction please

You say should be scoring, but headers from that distance are roughly 0.25 xG, that may increase a bit being unchallenged but even so I highly doubt they will be near the higher end of xG, and very very few strikers a good enough finishers to outperform xG.  In the most part they get the goals by being in the right places to take shots on.    Be a long time before I criticize anyone for missing a chance they have less the 50/50 chance on scoring, especially if they put it on target.

[kelty_par]

5 minutes ago, parsforlife said:

I’ve had a look from the highlights, maybe missed a chance as I skipped through, but are you talking of the 2nd half corner which was headed into the ground? If not can you point me In the right direction please

You say should be scoring, but headers from that distance are roughly 0.25 xG, that may increase a bit being unchallenged but even so I highly doubt they will be near the higher end of xG, and very very few strikers a good enough finishers to outperform xG.  In the most part they get the goals by being in the right places to take shots on.    Be a long time before I criticize anyone for missing a chance they have less the 50/50 chance on scoring, especially if they put it on target.

Aye that was the chance I was on about, and if we can’t expect strikers at any level to be scoring from 6 yards out then im not too sure what to expect. All the talk of xG sounds like too much football manager lol 

[parsforlife]

7 minutes ago, kelty_par said:

Aye that was the chance I was on about, and if we can’t expect strikers at any level to be scoring from 6 yards out then im not too sure what to expect. All the talk of xG sounds like too much football manager lol 

We live in a data driven world and football doesn’t escape that.

One the first part, If we look at the data then it’s true, we can’t expect players to score those chances, as they fail more often than they succeed.   I think also the data has shown that many people (including those that work in the game) vastly overestimate how likely goals are to be scored. Probably depends on your definition of expect, 90%?, 60%, 30%? Remember even penalties fail more than 20% of the time. 

Now I don’t have access to McCann career stats, they aren’t publicly available as far as I can see, but they probably are if anyone has a wyscout subscription(which every pro club will) then they’d be able to do that analysis, and compare his xG vs actual goals,  but if your a manager or scout looking at his game you would also be looking other data points such as aerial dues won where he does well.

[Digs]

From a purely technique point of view, he heads the ball down into the ground a lot. You are always taught to head down the way, but I don't know if it's timing or poor technique but he has a habit of smashing headers directly downwards, like he's jumping too high, and over the ball. 

Overall, I think he's got something to offer. He works his socks off and bullies centre backs, and holds the ball up reasonably well. I do think he lacks a bit of composure in his finishing, but that could also be symptomatic of how poor his service is. When you're up front and you're working your backside off and not getting a sniff, you end up trying to hard to do something with any chance you get. I think his goalscoring record is not really any worse than any other striker that's featured in the time he's been first pick. The service to the strikers has to be improved in terms of creating clear cut chances for them (rather than half chances) as they are still low, before he can properly judged. If he was missing sitter after sitter week in, week out, I think criticism would then be justified. As it is just now, I think its wee bit harsh.

[DA-go Par Adonis]

His scoring record is worse than that of both O'Hara and Wighton though.

Re xG, I take it we're not actually suggesting that over 54 games, it would total less than 4?

Another query, for all our strikers really but McCann specifically.  Over the two games against Alloa, we put a ton of crosses into the box - granted more of them stayed within the boundaries of the pitch in the League Cup match.  The vast majority were hoovered up by the Alloa centre halves with, what looked like to me, our players lining up behind them. 

Given 3 of McCann's league goals have been headers and (I think) all have been from a near post run, should we not have done more to get in front of the centre backs and attack that area?   

Edited August 2, 2022 by DA-go Par Adonis

[Digs]

2 hours ago, DA-go Par Adonis said:

His scoring record is worse than that of both O'Hara and Wighton though.

Re xG, I take it we're not actually suggesting that over 54 games, it would total less than 4?

Another query, for all our strikers really but McCann specifically.  Over the two games against Alloa, we put a ton of crosses into the box - granted more of them stayed within the boundaries of the pitch in the League Cup match.  The vast majority were hoovered up by the Alloa centre halves with, to me, our players lining up behind them. 

Given 3 of McCann's league goals have been headers and (I think) all have been from a near post run, should we not have done more to get in front of the centre backs and attack that area?   

I don't think it's ever fair to compare strikers solely on their goals. They are all completely different from each other. Absolutely, that is what a striker is ultimately judged on but you could flip it and ask how he compares in other areas, hold up, defending from the front, running channels to make space for others, winning headers, etc etc. Every player should be looked at in the round and they all have attributes the others don't. O'Hara may have been top scorer but if you look at the context of his goals, they usually come in bunches, and Wighton barely featured last year. None of the strikers are what you could call consistent and that is down to the consistently poor service. If they were all missing chance after chance but the most they work off in the most part are half chances. 

I personally don't think any of the strikers could have done that much better with what they've had to work with for the past year or so.

[DA-go Par Adonis]

For the record, I also think O'Hara is pretty useless unless he is presented with a chance that requires an instinctive, one-touch finish.  I guess he does have a bit of pace also and keeps defenders occupied if we play the ball down the channels for him to chase. 

Wighton is just frustrating - plenty of ability, not sure about the heart/appetite.

I understand that there is more to it than just goals.  I just don't think McCann does much of the other stuff particularly well either, although he was much better on Saturday once we went a goal up.

On a sort of related note, given the lack of creative options at the moment, I wonder if we would be better inviting teams on to use and trying to counter-attack.  It's difficult to do at home but maybe we'll see something like that on Saturday.    

[Rossmcno1]

4 hours ago, DA-go Par Adonis said:

His scoring record is worse than that of both O'Hara and Wighton though.

Re xG, I take it we're not actually suggesting that over 54 games, it would total less than 4?

Another query, for all our strikers really but McCann specifically.  Over the two games against Alloa, we put a ton of crosses into the box - granted more of them stayed within the boundaries of the pitch in the League Cup match.  The vast majority were hoovered up by the Alloa centre halves with, what looked like to me, our players lining up behind them. 

Given 3 of McCann's league goals have been headers and (I think) all have been from a near post run, should we not have done more to get in front of the centre backs and attack that area?   

Scoring record wise, I suppose it depends how you cut the data and when you select the data sets when comparing and contrasting.

Bearing in mind Wighton scored the complete total of ZERO last season, over 28 appearances between his spell here and loan.  Also, interesting fact, you have to go back to December 2020 to see a goal scored by Wighton for his parent club (at the time, Hearts v Ayr.   Wighton frustrates the life out of me and I’m not sure if anyone will see the best out of him.  Hear so much about his talent and sure you can see it in flashes.  But see if he had a quarter of the effort and guile of McCann, there would be a 20 goal striker there.

O’Hara is another who just frustrates the utter life out of me.  With him I’m slightly more prepared to give him leeway as so many times he is played out of position and in result his final ball is horrendous.  Stats wise he probably has the best (still pitiful) return out of all of them. But again he disappears in games or loses impact, give him credit tho, he tries.

McCann would still be my first pick every single time and the manager needs to take responsibility to give him best chance of success.  I think Hughes put far too much responsibility on his shoulders, and far too many previous managers played him on the wing or out of position so his scoring stats are totally skewed by the conditions he’s played under in his career. With his power, strength and raw quality, he will make mistakes and miss a few, but at least he will get there and add into his game with the right coaching.

Todorov in my opinion is a backup version of McCann.  His miss on Saturday sums him up for me, and far too often also goes missing in games and doesn’t have the effort levels of McCann.

All 4 of them though, deserve a chance.  Imagine how they would all do with the service at this level provided by the likes of Cardle, Paton and Moffat for Faissal…!   That has to be the focus for McPake.  Looks like he has a wealth of Strikers, but shoehorning them into a formation is not the answer.  Finding creativity for the wings and midfield is.