STRIKING STATS: Current vs Targets

In all this clamour for a new striker, has anyone stopped to actually think about this, or have the "18 goals between them" statement clouded our rational thinking? Here I aim to explore the stats and draw some conclusions. If that sort of thing doesn't float your boat then look away now...

So let's just talk about the league as it's less complicated, and arguably more important. I've just taken a look at Crouch, Pav and Defoe's stats for 2011 vs 2010 season ends and what it shows is that Defoe's goals were the most sorely missed:

Player	goals/apps 2010	goals/apps 2011
JD	18/34	4/22
Beanpole	8/38	4/29
Pav	5/16	10/29

So, bearing in mind that Defoe was injured for a good chunk of the season, and then struggled with form, and that I think a fair few of these appearances would have been from the bench, can we forgive him? All 3 have had to adapt to a new system with the introduction of Rafa, but Crouchie's 4 in 29 is not far short of laughable! Pav seems fairly consistent at 1 in 3 - do we underrate him?

In contrast do we overrate Defoe? The problem with JD is that if you look at his earlier Spurs career as well you see he's only ever gotten himself into double figures in the league 3 times (04-05 with 13 and 10 in 06-07). Even if you factor in some squad rotation, you have to say that's poor.

What's worse is that Beanpole has only ever managed it twice - once for Liverpool and once for Portsmouth. 1 in 6 last year has actually shocked me a bit. I guess he had a fair few assists, but for me he has to be the first name out of the door. That is simply not good enough. Not to mention the negative affect his inclusion often has on our play (No Daws, please do NOT lump it up to Crouch!).

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect all your forwards to hit double figures. Just for completeness, Rafa managed 13 in 28 in his debut season. Robbie Keane managed double figures every year since 2003, right up until his "dream move" to Liverpool and Berba managed it both years he was with us.

So here's the number of league goals a few of our targets have managed over the last few years (goals/apps, again - league only):

Player	2011	2010	2009	2008
Gyan*	10/31	n/a	n/a	n/a
Rossi	18/36	10/34	12/30	11/27
Adebayor	6/22	14/26	10/27	24/36
Vucinic	10/28	14/33	11/27	9/33
Llorente	18/38	14/37	14/34	11/35
Falcao	16/22	25/28	13/32	11/27

* Wikipedia doesn't know more than this

I guess I'd better ramble towards a conclusion here...

I think what I'm saying is that double figures has to be the minimum requirement. Crouch and Defoe have proved time and time again that they are just not up to the task. Defoe had a great season 2009/2010 and we all hoped he'd push on from there. He didn't. Crouch has failed miserably to hit this target throughout his career. These 2 BOTH have to go.

As much as I'd like Falcao and Rossi, it's pie in the sky. So if you look at Gyan and Adebayor as the most plausible like-for-like replacements from the above list of candidates, then you have to say maybe they wouldn't be so bad - something I never thought I'd say about Ade in particular (I am a self confessed fan of Gyan though) - with the added bonus that I think both seem capable of mastering the one-up-front role that we are almost certain to persevere with.

I'm all for loyalty, and it pains me to advocate the ditching of loyal, if not overly accomplished servants, but, as Mr Levy will hopefully prove, football management has to be about keeping your best and ditching the rest. So with time running out and nobody "realistic" coming through on the ITK grapevine, it's time to start thinking about settling. With every passing day we get more and more likely to end up sticking with what we have.

If that ends up meaning Adebayor and Gyan you might be underwhelmed. I hope I've proved that if nothing else, they'd be an improvement on what we have right now.