Reply To: Goals!!

[SODIron]

I think the interesting thing with the goals discussion is that most people are understandably focusing on replacing Roberts, but for me the bigger issue is actually what happens in midfield if Roberts, Westbrooke and Ewing all leave.

Roberts is the obvious headline loss because you’re talking about goals, assists, set pieces and somebody who could win a game out of absolutely nothing. You don’t replace that easily at National League level.

But I’d argue Westbrooke and Ewing leaving together could be just as damaging to the overall team.

Westbrooke gave us control. Ewing gave us physicality and balance. One helped us play, the other helped us compete. Take both out and suddenly you’re not just replacing players, you’re replacing the platform the team was built on.

Looking at the season as a whole, I actually don’t think scoring goals was our biggest problem. We scored 77 in the league which is more than enough to be competing at the right end. The concern is we conceded 62. York and Rochdale were down around the low 40s. That’s a massive gap. We were already too easy to play against at times and too many games became basketball matches.

Roberts could get away with that because he could produce moments that won games. If he’s gone, you can’t just rely on having another shootout every week.

For me the recruitment priorities are:

1. A creative midfielder who can dictate games
2. A genuine goalscoring wide player
3. A defensive midfielder with legs and presence
4. A commanding centre-half

I actually think the central midfield rebuild is more important than replacing Roberts directly. Without Westbrooke and Ewing there’s a danger we become a side that works hard, runs around a lot and competes physically, but struggles to control games.

Butler deserves a lot of credit because a newly promoted side finishing 5th and reaching the play-off semi-final is a very good season. But if we want to move from being a play-off side to an automatic promotion side, we need to become harder to score against and better at controlling matches, not just find another winger and hope he scores 20 goals.

The positive is that I genuinely think we’re closer than some people think. The negative is that replacing Roberts, Westbrooke, and Ewing properly is probably the biggest recruitment challenge Butler has faced since taking over.