A couple of non league snippets

[Grant Brown]

6 minutes ago, BFR said:

In the last 20 years, I'd put Ian Hodges and Eddie Smith as prolific strikers for Slough Town

Danny Burnell, Chris Flood

[Reading Rebel]

13 minutes ago, BFR said:

In the last 20 years, I'd put Ian Hodges and Eddie Smith as prolific strikers for Slough Town

Eddie Smith was arguably the most clinical finisher we've had in the last 20 odd years.

Just a shame he was a bit of a nut job who could have changed our whole course in history if the Ref had done his job properly and sent him off for a dangerous challenge on the Rugby keeper after a few minutes in the play off semi final against Rugby Town.

Edited April 12 by Reading Rebel

[Reading Rebel]

2 minutes ago, Grant Brown said:

Danny Burnell, Chris Flood

Danny Burnell was a top goal poacher for us and Chris Flood was decent on his day as well.

But Eddie Smith's record speaks for itself.

He is our 10th highest record goal scorer with 95 goals in 149 games

[Reading Rebel]

33 minutes ago, Grant Brown said:

Prolific strikers aren’t easy to find at this level, and I’ll be honest, we wouldn’t be able to afford one either… If we did the rest of the squad would suffer! 
 

You would be looking to pay 1 player £1500-£2000 a week!

You're right prolific strikers aren't cheap but i'm not sure even Ollie Pearce at Worthing or Shaun Jeffers at St Albans would command those sort of insane wages.

In fact I doubt even the top strikers in the NL would get anywhere near those sort of figures.

Edited April 12 by Reading Rebel

[Grant Brown]

2 minutes ago, Reading Rebel said:

You're right prolific strikers aren't cheap but i'm not sure even Ollie Pearce at Worthing or Shaun Jeffers at St Albans would command those sort of insane wages.

I doubt even the top strikers in the NL would get anywhere near those sort of figures.

You’d be surprised, very surprised at what some earn!!

10 years ago, it was a well known fact that Stefon Moore was on £1100 a week at St Neots. 2 leagues below the NLS and wages have only increased.

12 minutes ago, Reading Rebel said:

Danny Burnell was a top goal poacher for us and Chris Flood was decent on his day as well.

But Eddie Smith's record speaks for itself.

He is our 10th highest record goal scorer with 95 goals in 149 games

Not saying they were better than Smith or vice versa. They were both prolific, and so was Smith

Edited April 12 by Grant Brown

[Reading Rebel]

Just now, Grant Brown said:

You’d be surprised, very surprised at what some earn!!

I'm sure some earn ridiculous money but 2,000 a week???

[Grant Brown]

2 minutes ago, Reading Rebel said:

I'm sure some earn ridiculous money but 2,000 a week???

Yes, it’s been known.

[Curtis]

Apparently the average weekly wage in the National League is £1,000, so I have no doubt a reasonable striker would be earning £1,500-£2,000.

[Kaiser Gibbs Batman (KGB)]

The list of all-time goalscorers on the website makes interesting reading, particularly in relation to the goals per appearances ratio. Clearly the game is altogether different now but some of us were lucky also to have seen Peter Lowen (59 in 52), David Kemp (36 in 48) and John Connell (32 in 56) do their stuff in amber and blue.

[Rebellier]

Where does Micky Kiely come in the list of our goalscorers?

[Grant Brown]

1 hour ago, Curtis said:

Apparently the average weekly wage in the National League is £1,000, so I have no doubt a reasonable striker would be earning £1,500-£2,000.

Yep, think a lot of fans need to tone down their expectations when it comes to signings of that ilk, it simply will not happen. If it did, we’d lose 3 players to make up the budget for 1 player. This season has proved, it’s about team/squad, not marquee signings.

[Reading Rebel]

15 minutes ago, Grant Brown said:

Yep, think a lot of fans need to tone down their expectations when it comes to signings of that ilk, it simply will not happen. If it did, we’d lose 3 players to make up the budget for 1 player. This season has proved, it’s about team/squad, not marquee signings.

Grant, no one was talking about signing a striker costing 1,000 to 2,000 a week, far from it.

Apart from the club not being able to afford it those strikers will be mainly full time playing for the big clubs in the NL.

Good strikers who can score 20+ goals won't be cheap but not impossible to recruit.

Pre season, scouting, local talent etc can sometimes un-earth a gem or even a player that wants to get back on track with their career.

[Irishadrian]

Nobody mentioning Bernie Gogan?

[Grant Brown]

2 hours ago, Reading Rebel said:

Grant, no one was talking about signing a striker costing 1,000 to 2,000 a week, far from it.

Apart from the club not being able to afford it those strikers will be mainly full time playing for the big clubs in the NL.

Good strikers who can score 20+ goals won't be cheap but not impossible to recruit.

Pre season, scouting, local talent etc can sometimes un-earth a gem or even a player that wants to get back on track with their career.

What you are referring to is a needle in a haystack, and yes I have spoken to supporters who think the club’s budget is capable of affording the impossible signing without realising what a lot of players demand these days.

When everyone talks about a striker, they are doing Nathan a disservice. He has scored goals on a par with strikers earning double, maybe treble, what he does.

[Curtis]

22 minutes ago, Grant Brown said:

When everyone talks about a striker, they are doing Nathan a disservice. He has scored goals on a par with strikers earning double, maybe treble, what he does.

I agree 100%, and I think Nathan could score 20 league goals next season.

If we are talking about a second 20 goal striker, Slavi Spasov has effectively scored 6 goals in the equivalent of less than 12 matches, or we would need to look to a loan deal for the likes of another George Alexander or Trae Cook-Appiah.

If it’s goals in general, I would expect David Ogbonna to score something closer to 10 next season.

[Curtis]

Quite surprised though that there is so much discussion about scoring goals when we are the second highest goal scorers in the league.

[Sir Rebel1965]

49 minutes ago, Curtis said:

Quite surprised though that there is so much discussion about scoring goals when we are the second highest goal scorers in the league.

So should we be focusing on a different keeper and defence then?

[GlenSTFC]

18 minutes ago, Sir Rebel1965 said:

So should we be focusing on a different keeper and defence then?

It’s a dilemma… on paper our keeper and defence are decent but we’ve let in far too many goals. I know it’s not just the defence’s fault but the majority would be. But would you drop/release any of them? Obviously if someone proven became available then you’d be silly not to add them. Hopefully we can learn to cut out a few of the silly goals we’ve let in this season next.

[Curtis]

2 hours ago, Sir Rebel1965 said:

So should we be focusing on a different keeper and defence then?

Dan Lincoln has conceded 28 goals in 21 league matches, but we have conceded 40 goals in our other 23 league matches.

It would be great if we could have him for a full season….. in theory we could concede 9/10 less goals. 

[Sir Rebel1965]

Its questions like that and ensuring the right players are on contracts (which are upheld) to ensure there is a strong team for next season.

As it has now been proven how costly the games like Dover home & away have been, along with others where points were too easily lost due to naivety.

The basic structure is there, it now needs refining to make the team a true playoff quality side.

It's now over to Scott to work on this in the close season - I think he already is on the job.