I am not an admirer. I would ideally like to see our strikers upgraded, I said that last season as well. But his record by the end of last season as a starter for us wasn't a bad one. I have been asked by another forum member to show the stats again. I will try and find it, feel free to view it if I do find it.
I found my stats post. Took a bit of digging. And yes you're right he is not at his best up front on his own. All 3 of our strikers are a limited threat without a striking partner tbh. 14 goals. And had started 36 games. So in just under 1 season worth of starting appearances in the Premier League he had scored 14 goals.
Yes this is true, Pedro isn't really a striker. He would be more suited to the role that Sema has at the moment, but I'm not sure he is disciplined/mature enough yet to help out the LB like Sema has been doing. Troy will play whilst he is here due to his 'club status' its just a case of who the manager chooses to partner Troy, whether its Gray or Perica. I don't have a problem with either at the moment, whichever the manager prefers after the training sessions. I also think we need to give whoever the 2 strikers are some more time to gel this season under the new manager if we don't buy in January. Deeney missed a lot of the earlier matches, Gray did as well, came back for a bit, got injured, and has came back again. And Perica has an opportunity to impress as a sub if he doesn't start and give the manager something to think about. I am aware of their limitations but they are the players up front that we have at the moment. I just hope Xisco continues with 2 up front.
Best goal he's ever scored for us but if you watch closely, he very clearly shins it, and was almost certainly aiming for the other corner. If I'd never seen him kick a ball apart from that goal, I'd probably give him the benefit of the doubt.
And competence! But he does frequently make the runs and get into goal-scoring positions. We have to play with two central attackers. Deeney plus Gray/Perica. Gray is no good on his own.
Here are Gray's entire striking stats with us: As you can see, it reveals that he has scored 15 league goals for us ever. As you can also see in the bottom right-hand corner, overall he has scored 17 goals in 103 games for us across all competitions. This season, he's currently running at a goal every 426 minutes, though that could increase exponentionally as it stands. Last season it was one every 372 minutes, whilst in 18/19, his ratio was roughly a goal every 200 minutes; in 17/18 it was roughly one every 300 minutes. When looking at these stats, we also have to bear in mind that those who insist on crediting Gray for being picked as a starter/earning playing time for what he theoretically/supposedly does in training, also have to recognise therefore that Gray has to bear responsibility for any lack of minutes, so the 'what about when he starts' defence doesn't necessarily quite hold up. It also, of course, fails to account for the 'eye' test, in which it is clear to anyone watching him as a player through his abysmal trapping of the ball, shameful passing/giving away of possession and extremely wayward shooting, that those fundamental aspects of being a striker are things that he is not gifted at whatsoever. As Talk has already pointed out, even his one spectacular finish was a bodge/mishit that happened to come off just as the stars aligned and the cosmic convergence took place. That aspect quite strongly subverts the 'he was on as a sub' excuse, because what minute he is taking those opportunities and ruining them so spectacularly in relation to the overall game clock is strikingly irrelevant. The reality is that he, sadly, does not become Sergio Aguero when he is given the opportunity to stand on the pitch before a whistle blows, as evidenced by his attempts last night.
Ivan Toney has a goal every 112 minutes this season, just by the by, and more league goals for Brentford in four months than Gray has for us in three and a half years.
If he’s barely played how do we know if he’s any good. From what I’ve seen he doesn’t look an upgrade on what we have
Quite. Perica is Pozzo bargain bin tat. Might still be better than 150k per week of Deeney and Gray though of course!
Again, we’re talking least worst here. Just like Gray nobody actually rates him. One thing you can say about Deeney and Gray though is that they have now both built up a very large and very significant body of work confirming they definitely are rubbish. Whilst Perica may not have played enough to prove he’s any good, Deeney and Gray have unfortunately done the opposite.
I dont think goals per minute stats are a fair reflection on players' ability to score who are/were playing second fiddle to another striker with periods of warming the bench whole game or coming on to do something between 1 and 20 minutes. Not just Gray but strikers in general. In the shoutbox last season, to those that do remember, when manager did bring him on with, say, 10 or 15 mins i used to say Gray needs more time than that to make an impact, a Solskjaer type super-sub he aint. And before anyone accuses me of being an admirer a brother a wife and all that nonsense again, i would like to re-iterate that i would prefer an upgrade of strikers at the club.
I think he is better than Gray but I reckon I’m better than Gray. Not much in it between Deeney and Perica
'Outstanding' though? I mean, what you've described is the bare minimum of contribution from a workmanlike starting player. A captain and striker to be labelled 'outstanding' surely has to do more than win a couple of flicks and free kicks and get away with a couple of borderline challenges.
My assessment of Perica is that he's a 4-5/10 in many of the key areas of being a striker, based on what I've seen so far. He looks basically competent but without any outstanding quality in any area. That makes him better than Gray who is a 0-2/10 in everything apart from getting into scoring positions.
A fair assessment. I think the problem we seem to have on this forum is that as soon as you suggest any one of our three strikers someone pops up and says “OMG you rate [insert name of rubbish Watford Striker here]? But he’s terrible, and here is why [insert long list of faults of rubbish Watford striker] The reality is it really is least worst, nobody actually rates any of them and are blind to their many and varied faults. The problem is it looks like 2 out of 3 of them need to be on the pitch at the same time, so going round in circles regarding all of their faults doesn’t really help the situation. The solution is simply we need another one.
Indeed. We have done for 3 years now. It's been apparent. Frankly, we should have cut our losses on Gray ages ago. We would probably have got half our money back 2 years ago and shifted his wages. That's not hindsight either. The fact is, we have spent tens of millions over those 3 years yet we have failed to improve on the two weak areas of the team, ie defence and strikers. It's unforgivable negligence. Signing the likes of Sarr for a team which started with Deeney, Cathcart and Gray in the Premier League was pure hubris. We won't recover from the mismanagement of the past 3 seasons for another 3 at least.
Did more than Pukki, who is an excellent striker at this level. So he 'stood out' in that regard. No player on the pitch made more tackles than Deeney, and no player on the pitch won more aerial battles. Only Buendia won more free-kicks. I think it was a very good all around performance, and perhaps would have been more appreciated with fans in the stadium. It's a performance that I've seen maybe a dozen times from Deeney, where he decides he's up for it, and leads by example. He set the standard along with Sarr for workrate and tracking back, and by actually getting stuck in (something we haven't seen much from anyone in the squad this year), he seemed to unsettle a youthful Norwich side. He mentioned post-match that Xisco said something along the lines of '**** 'em up' pre match and Deeney followed that instruction to a tee. Again I'm not his biggest fan, and wouldn't mind if he moves on in January, but if he plays like he did against Norwich for the rest of the season, I think he could play a big part in any success. Needs to remember how to shoot when the ball is moving though.
I hope you have the vocabulary to find superlatives to use if one of our strikers actually contributes to or scores a goal.
It's not impossible for a striker to have a very good performance without directly contributing to a goal. We've been starved of positive displays from forwards this season, so I'm taking what I can get.
I suppose you're entitled to your opinion, but personally I find it a bit strange as goals per minute in that context would be a more forgiving measure of a striker's actual striking ability than goals per appearance, and based on what we have all seen and know to be true about Gray, there are periods where his goals per minute are indeed very generous/forgiving. We have of course, as I originally said in my post, seen him come on and be given whole games and still manage to be dreadful at all major aspects whilst failing to score, so as I also said, in my opinion the excuses are really running dry.
Have to completely disagree. As you have pointed out from time to time Andre has scored 14 in 36 starts. However this stat does not tell the whole story . How many goals were scored when coming off the bench?. A stat which is not mentioned in "36 starts" . So we can either take off the goals scored when coming off the bench I.e. 14 - x = y from 36 starts or we can go goals per minute .
Wow ! 67 sub apps. zero goals. It's worse than I thought However I remember a goal against Everton and Norwich off the bench
I took the stats off a footy stats website at the time. It was 36 starts and 14 goals in them starts. I doubt people who say he's cr*p will care anyway.
Scored against both Leicester and Everton after coming on as a sub in the 18/19 season: Also against Norwich last season: This would mean that 3 of those '14 in 36' would be from non-league/cup games, which is somewhat pertinent information in itself to be left out.
Well, yeah. It really doesn’t matter how you try to spin the stats when we’ve all seen him try to control the ball, and his touch end up playing an opposition striker through on goal. For every goal he’s managed to scuff in, he’s stopped countless more attacks from developing into an opportunity because he is physically incapable of bringing a ball under control. Whichever stats you try to manipulate in his favor, nothing escapes the fact that we’ve all seen with our own eyes how incompetent the man is as a professional footballer.
