Squad for 2025-2026

[andrew1957]

I am not one to panic and there is still time, but we do desperately need at least one proven striker. It is rumoured that Cole is going to Luton, so doubt that will happen.

Last season we scored 68 league goals as follows:

Knibbs 14*
Smith 11*
Wing 9
Savage 5
Wareham 5*
Campbell 5*
Ehib 4
Camara 3
Own goals 3
Craig 2*
Bindon 2*
Elliott 2
Bodin 2 *
Mbengue 1 *

I have marked all those who have gone, plus assumed Knibbs also goes, in which case the current players only scored 23 of those goals (+ 3 own goals) last season.

I hope he comes good but in the pre season games O'Mahony has looked like a big step down from Wareham, let alone Smith. Tuma looked better in the one half of game he played, but then disappeared (injured or being loaned?) and is very inexperienced.

Think we ideally need two central strikers before deadline day, or scoring could be a struggle.

Kyerewaa scored 11 goals the last time he played much iirc.

O'Mahoney and Ehibhatiomahn should be targetting 10+. You'd expect Bowler to get more than 5. And he currently seems as likely to sign as Knibbs is to go.

Ehib scoring 10 is stretch when he has managed 1/5/4 the last 3 seasons and in any case he is in the main on the left and didn't play the central striker role particularly well. Much more effective out wider. If Bowler scores 5 that would just replace Campbell's 5. Kyerewaa is also more of a Campbell replacement than a central striker.

Last season we had Smith 11, Wareham 5 and Bodin 2 - that is 18 goals from the main central striker. Time will tell, but I have seen nothing so far to suggest that O'Mahony will score 18 and that assumes he plays every game uninjured.

[WestYorksRoyal]

Kelvin is capable of a big season if it clicks. He's also capable of going 20 games without any G/A. Hopefully this is the year it comes together.

[Snowflake Royal]

I am not one to panic and there is still time, but we do desperately need at least one proven striker. It is rumoured that Cole is going to Luton, so doubt that will happen.

Last season we scored 68 league goals as follows:

Knibbs 14*
Smith 11*
Wing 9
Savage 5
Wareham 5*
Campbell 5*
Ehib 4
Camara 3
Own goals 3
Craig 2*
Bindon 2*
Elliott 2
Bodin 2 *
Mbengue 1 *

I have marked all those who have gone, plus assumed Knibbs also goes, in which case the current players only scored 23 of those goals (+ 3 own goals) last season.

I hope he comes good but in the pre season games O'Mahony has looked like a big step down from Wareham, let alone Smith. Tuma looked better in the one half of game he played, but then disappeared (injured or being loaned?) and is very inexperienced.

Think we ideally need two central strikers before deadline day, or scoring could be a struggle.

Kyerewaa scored 11 goals the last time he played much iirc.

O'Mahoney and Ehibhatiomahn should be targetting 10+. You'd expect Bowler to get more than 5. And he currently seems as likely to sign as Knibbs is to go.

Ehib scoring 10 is stretch when he has managed 1/5/4 the last 3 seasons and in any case he is in the main on the left and didn't play the central striker role particularly well. Much more effective out wider. If Bowler scores 5 that would just replace Campbell's 5. Kyerewaa is also more of a Campbell replacement than a central striker.

Last season we had Smith 11, Wareham 5 and Bodin 2 - that is 18 goals from the main central striker. Time will tell, but I have seen nothing so far to suggest that O'Mahony will score 18 and that assumes he plays every game uninjured.

You're hung up on where people play, which is irrelevent to the number of goals scored.

Knibbs didn't play as a striker and got 14 last year.

And then adding the goals of three strikers (one who often played wide anyway) to what one striker needs to get is just a bit mad andrew.

[andrew1957]

Kyerewaa scored 11 goals the last time he played much iirc.

O'Mahoney and Ehibhatiomahn should be targetting 10+. You'd expect Bowler to get more than 5. And he currently seems as likely to sign as Knibbs is to go.

Ehib scoring 10 is stretch when he has managed 1/5/4 the last 3 seasons and in any case he is in the main on the left and didn't play the central striker role particularly well. Much more effective out wider. If Bowler scores 5 that would just replace Campbell's 5. Kyerewaa is also more of a Campbell replacement than a central striker.

Last season we had Smith 11, Wareham 5 and Bodin 2 - that is 18 goals from the main central striker. Time will tell, but I have seen nothing so far to suggest that O'Mahony will score 18 and that assumes he plays every game uninjured.

You're hung up on where people play, which is irrelevent to the number of goals scored.

Knibbs didn't play as a striker and got 14 last year.

And then adding the goals of three strikers (one who often played wide anyway) to what one striker needs to get is just a bit mad andrew.

Season after season we have relied on a central striker to score a good number of our goals.
23/24 Ballard 3 Smith 15 - total 18
22/23 Jaoa 7 Meite 4 Carroll 9 Long 1 - total 21
21/22 Jaoa 10 Puscas 1 Carroll 2 Hoilett 3 Clarke 2 - total 18
20/21 Jaoa 19 Meite 12 (some scored wide/some central) Puscas 4 - total 35
19/20 Meite 13 (some scored from wide/some central) Jaoa 6 Puscas 12 Baldock 5 - total 36

And we haven't had much league success over that period! You are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think we can replace all these plus Knibb's 14 from midfield and wide players.

[Sutekh]

Ehib scoring 10 is stretch when he has managed 1/5/4 the last 3 seasons and in any case he is in the main on the left and didn't play the central striker role particularly well. Much more effective out wider. If Bowler scores 5 that would just replace Campbell's 5. Kyerewaa is also more of a Campbell replacement than a central striker.

Last season we had Smith 11, Wareham 5 and Bodin 2 - that is 18 goals from the main central striker. Time will tell, but I have seen nothing so far to suggest that O'Mahony will score 18 and that assumes he plays every game uninjured.

You're hung up on where people play, which is irrelevent to the number of goals scored.

Knibbs didn't play as a striker and got 14 last year.

And then adding the goals of three strikers (one who often played wide anyway) to what one striker needs to get is just a bit mad andrew.

Season after season we have relied on a central striker to score a good number of our goals.
23/24 Ballard 3 Smith 15 - total 18
22/23 Jaoa 7 Meite 4 Carroll 9 Long 1 - total 21
21/22 Jaoa 10 Puscas 1 Carroll 2 Hoilett 3 Clarke 2 - total 18
20/21 Jaoa 19 Meite 12 (some scored wide/some central) Puscas 4 - total 35
19/20 Meite 13 (some scored from wide/some central) Jaoa 6 Puscas 12 Baldock 5 - total 36

And we haven't had much league success over that period! You are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think we can replace all these plus Knibb's 14 from midfield and wide players.

Depends totally on the formations and tactics the club opt to use doesn’t it? We all know we just need that striker to cap things off though and we should be doing quite well thank you very much.

[Crusader Royal]

If only we had a manager with some sort of understanding of what it takes to score goals….
I suspect Hunt has completely missed this part of the game in his squad building process.
Anyone got his number ?

[Snowflake Royal]

Season after season we have relied on a central striker to score a good number of our goals.
23/24 Ballard 3 Smith 15 - total 18
22/23 Jaoa 7 Meite 4 Carroll 9 Long 1 - total 21
21/22 Jaoa 10 Puscas 1 Carroll 2 Hoilett 3 Clarke 2 - total 18
20/21 Jaoa 19 Meite 12 (some scored wide/some central) Puscas 4 - total 35
19/20 Meite 13 (some scored from wide/some central) Jaoa 6 Puscas 12 Baldock 5 - total 36

And we haven't had much league success over that period! You are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think we can replace all these plus Knibb's 14 from midfield and wide players.

24/25 - Knibbs (14) not a striker
23/24 - Smith (15) striker (Knibbs 11, Wing 10 - not strikers)
22/23 - Carroll (9) striker
21/22 - Swift (11) not a striker
20/21 - Joao (19) striker (Meite 12 not a striker)
19/20 - Meite (13) not a striker.

It's almost like you don’t need to rely on strikers to be topscorers and score lots of your goals.

[Armadillo Roadkill]

We haven't relied on a striker to score the goals because, with the exception of one season with Joao, we've not had a good goal scoring forward.

We desperately need someone who can score 20 or more goals a season, and those kind of numbers usually come from the guy up top.

I note we've not had a player scoring over 15 goals most seasons; this just happens to coincide with us being shít, getting relegated, and staying in league 1.

I'm not convinced by the argument Hunt feels a goal scorer up front isn't necessary - if he could sign someone like Noel Hunt I'm pretty sure he would.

[Snowflake Royal]

We haven't relied on a striker to score the goals because, with the exception of one season with Joao, we've not had a good goal scoring forward.

We desperately need someone who can score 20 or more goals a season, and those kind of numbers usually come from the guy up top.

I note we've not had a player scoring over 15 goals most seasons; this just happens to coincide with us being shít, getting relegated, and staying in league 1.

I'm not convinced by the argument Hunt feels a goal scorer up front isn't necessary - if he could sign someone like Noel Hunt I'm pretty sure he would.

20 goals a season players are incredibly rare. There'll be a small handful in a division in any one season, and you don’t need one to be successful.

A not insignificant % of our players with 20+ goals in a season were not strikers. Caskey and Sigurdsson for example.

We won the league with McDermott with a topscorer on 12 goals (ALF). We finished 7th last season with a topscoring midfielder with 14.

But the argument is that we've lost loads of goals from the squad and not replaced them. Which simply isn't true.

And we havent finished our signings yet. And we aren't realistically trying for promotion this season.

#back the squad, trust Noel.

[Stranded]

Todd's tweeting again - so may well be something in the pipeline this afternoon/evening - or not.

[linkenholtroyal]

Kelvin signs. Appears the Club don't want to tell us how long for.

Might only be till the first game of the season and then we start this all over again….

No one has detailed how long WiFi’s deal is for

Morell released as “not what we need right now”.

Abraham Kanu has joined FGR on loan for the season.

2 years now on social media

[andrew1957]

Season after season we have relied on a central striker to score a good number of our goals.
23/24 Ballard 3 Smith 15 - total 18
22/23 Jaoa 7 Meite 4 Carroll 9 Long 1 - total 21
21/22 Jaoa 10 Puscas 1 Carroll 2 Hoilett 3 Clarke 2 - total 18
20/21 Jaoa 19 Meite 12 (some scored wide/some central) Puscas 4 - total 35
19/20 Meite 13 (some scored from wide/some central) Jaoa 6 Puscas 12 Baldock 5 - total 36

And we haven't had much league success over that period! You are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think we can replace all these plus Knibb's 14 from midfield and wide players.

24/25 - Knibbs (14) not a striker
23/24 - Smith (15) striker (Knibbs 11, Wing 10 - not strikers)
22/23 - Carroll (9) striker
21/22 - Swift (11) not a striker
20/21 - Joao (19) striker (Meite 12 not a striker)
19/20 - Meite (13) not a striker.

It's almost like you don’t need to rely on strikers to be topscorers and score lots of your goals.

Hi Snowflake. I realise after following your posts on here for many years that you struggle to understand even basic points, but just for clarity, I never said that a midfielder couldn’t be top scorer in any given season. What I pointed out was that in each of the last 6 seasons a significant number of our goals have come from a single central striker or combination of such strikers. Meite also scored a good deal of his goals when called upon to occupy the central role and so as I rightly pointed out some of his goals came from wide and some central.

Nor am I in any way blaming Noel or the club. I am sure they are doing all they can to fill this obvious void. My only slight criticism would be not retaining Wareham, who reputedly left because we wouldn’t offer a 2 year deal. I thought he was growing into the role towards the end of last season and could have done a job for us. My guess is we had a replacement lined up and then they reneged on the deal - hence Noel’s comment about seeing the set up and asking for more money.

Our recruitment team have done a stellar job the last few seasons and so I am hoping they can find a suitable striker option in the next few days/ weeks.

[morganb]

Our recruitment team have done a stellar job the last few seasons and so I am hoping they can find a suitable striker option in the next few days/ weeks.

I guess our recruitment team may not be the problem - they will have their targets but it's convincing them to come to us rather than going elsewhere.

Then you have their agent and possibly their current club if we're buying rather than after a loan/free agent.

If we miss one target it all starts again with the next option which all takes time

[rabidbee]

To state the bleeding obvious, to do well we just need to score one goal more than our opponents in most games. There’s lots of ways we could do that, no need to get hung up on a big goal-scorer. We could have a couple of top strikers, or we could have a bang average front line with the best defence in the league, or we could have five or six players each in low double figures. Obviously, combine two or more of these features and you’ll probably be champions.

We could spend loads of time/money chasing a top goal-scorer, when we might actually have the means to do well already in the club.

[PieEater]

Some clubs seem to have a talent for spotting strikers repeatedly over many seasons, I'm thinking of Peterborough and Brentford.

We could do with their scouts.

[Hound]

Some clubs seem to have a talent for spotting strikers repeatedly over many seasons, I'm thinking of Peterborough and Brentford.

We could do with their scouts.

Well we did get Smith who was pretty much an unqualified success and sold at £2m profit

Really good strikers obviously either very easy to find (ie just look at goal scoring charts) or very difficult to find/sign/afford

I do find it a bit weird that O’Mahony seems to have been written off. He’s pretty well rated and I reckon he’ll do well

[Snowflake Royal]

Some clubs seem to have a talent for spotting strikers repeatedly over many seasons, I'm thinking of Peterborough and Brentford.

We could do with their scouts.

Well we did get Smith who was pretty much an unqualified success and sold at £2m profit

Really good strikers obviously either very easy to find (ie just look at goal scoring charts) or very difficult to find/sign/afford

I do find it a bit weird that O’Mahony seems to have been written off. He’s pretty well rated and I reckon he’ll do well

He's not really had a sniff of goal in preseason, but he looked pretty good leading the line, and he's been up against a PL defence with a third string attack supporting him, so it's hardly surprising he hasn’t banged them in. Yet

[Elm Park Kid]

Well, Knibbs won't be scoring any goals for us this season . . . . .

[WestYorksRoyal]

Well, Knibbs won't be scoring any goals for us this season . . . . .

Cryptic. If we get get a good fee I'm happy tbh. Fee could be used to (finally) sign Bowler and Cole, plus we could get a loan replacement too.

[Sutekh]

Will Kyerewaa receive international clearance in time to get a game Saturday?