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Really hope we can move him on in Jan and bring in one or two players who can really help the reshaped project, starting with breaking with years of tradition and actually investing in a striker who scores goals. He's going nowhere at QPR and just doesn't, and never will, cut the mustard. I'm afraid. He's a ram that doesn't batter, his buckle doesn't swash, and his goalscoring instincts are not so much predatory as borderline nugatory. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if Millwall, say, came back in for him, he'd miraculously metamorphose into a 1 in 3 merchant who plays every week, but hopefully we'd by then be past caring. I don't want a player leading our line who scores the odd header from an occasional Chair cross but who seems mainly to care about playing for Scotland.
All being well, MC will have sussed this out in double-quick time and will be reshaping our attacking line with Smyth, Willock and Chair, and a new pivot.
On basis Dunne & Cook won all their aerial duels, likely giving City's forwards a 0 out of 6 return, I think that's a good effort from Dykes, and in losing nearly half of his, not what I would describe as a dominant performance by Dickie.
Having played both positions, the two Centre Halves are usually starting favourites to win the ball in these battles, so they're decent stats for Dykes and reflect the game I watched.
Dykes had an average game but was still imo the most effective forwards on the pitch, was isolated compared to City's front 3, but his pressing allowed Smyth in particular and Willock to double up and support our full-backs, nullifying the Bristol City front 3 until the last 15 minutes when they opened the game up.
Just a shame the wrong subs led to our losing control of the game in the last 15 when EDB for Dozzell and Sinclair (or Richards) for Smyth may have been the better options.
"Match Report photo's show Dykes dominating Dickie in the air"
Come on that is an absolute stretch. Two still photographs, from the 60 we published, from the 120 we got sent, from 95 minutes of football? Pretty desperate if that's your evidence that Dykes was anything other than complete sht on Saturday.
Northern, I get you don't rate Dykes (and Dunne for that matter) and you now struggle to say anything positive about Dykes (fair enough, you're a fan first and foremost), but my statement was 100% factually correct.
The photo with Dickie, and the one with the other Centre Half show Dykes out-jumping and beating them both, so must have been 2 of the 5/11 aerial duals he won.
Saying Dickie was dominant however is an absolute stretch as the match photo's, match stats (compared to Duune & Cook's) and highlights show, which was the game I watched. In a game of very few chances, Dickie arguably created the best one, albeit for us.
Why do fans think we can sell Dykes, then after allowing for any player or agent fees plus tax etc, get a better player for 3/4 the money? Expect someone in in January as the recent book cooking hasn't been for nowt.
I've got a bad idea that the "recent book cooking" scarcely covered our change of Manager, and isnt going to extend to a striker likely to be any better than who we have now.
I've got a bad idea that the "recent book cooking" scarcely covered our change of Manager, and isnt going to extend to a striker likely to be any better than who we have now.
For me there is a worryingly deep-seated problem at QPR.
Firstly, how far back do we have to go before we recall a really good striker that we've developed from our youth ranks? Off the top of my head, I can only really think of Gallen - admittedly his injury will deny us knowing what he could have been - and that was nigh on 25 years ago!
Before Gallen you're pretty much gong back to Allen and Goddard in the late-70s. So much of what we have developed has been poor and just not up to it. So, whatever scouting, nurturing and coaching we're doing, it's a bit rubbish!
Secondly, in terms of unearthing strikers from lower down the food chain and polishing up into striking gems, we've got an equally poor record. If we treat Eze as an 'attacker', then he has been the one outstanding gem in the last what, 30 odd years? However, there haven't been many rushing to my mind to get anywhere near him. So, our ability to identify raw talent and develop it into a potent striker is equally poor.
Finally, aside of Chubby Austin's first arrival, we've also been pretty rubbish spending our money on bigger buys. Over the last few years: Dykes, Bonne, Washington, Sylla, the other African bloke, have all proved to be poor returns in the goal scoring department. So, you've got to look at whatever our scouting and acquisition set-up is, because it's as poor too.
For a club now somewhat down on it's uppers, my worry is that unless the beautiful one has something under his sombrero, then I am not overly confident based on historic performance, that we'll bring in a bloke who can stick the effing ball in the onion bag with the regularity our position requires.
'Always In Motion' by John Honney available on amazon.co.uk
I've got a bad idea that the "recent book cooking" scarcely covered our change of Manager, and isnt going to extend to a striker likely to be any better than who we have now.
Northern, I get you don't rate Dykes (and Dunne for that matter) and you now struggle to say anything positive about Dykes (fair enough, you're a fan first and foremost), but my statement was 100% factually correct.
The photo with Dickie, and the one with the other Centre Half show Dykes out-jumping and beating them both, so must have been 2 of the 5/11 aerial duals he won.
Saying Dickie was dominant however is an absolute stretch as the match photo's, match stats (compared to Duune & Cook's) and highlights show, which was the game I watched. In a game of very few chances, Dickie arguably created the best one, albeit for us.
It's fck all to do with whether I like or rate Dykes, Dunne or anybody else. It is the entirely non-controversial point that you cannot judge a football match, or somebody's performance in it, from two still photographs. It is astonishing that this should need explaining.
Dykes is limited at this level, he's shown little or no sign of improvement since he signed and is unlikely to now. And he's the best striker we have. If the club isn't stretching everything it's got to bolster our sorry strike force in January then I don't know WTF they're doing.
It's fck all to do with whether I like or rate Dykes, Dunne or anybody else. It is the entirely non-controversial point that you cannot judge a football match, or somebody's performance in it, from two still photographs. It is astonishing that this should need explaining.
I saw 3 still photographs, I think 5 were included within the Match Report?
Of course I am not judging an entire football match on those 5 photographs posted on the Match Report, although for those who posted Dykes never wins headers, those photographs and the match stats since posted ironically prove otherwise.
I get we all see different things at the game but I saw Dykes lose his footing once, whereas you saw umpteen times, so I'll defer to you on that one as you take crib-notes at games and I rely on my sketchy memory.
I would argue that those stats reinforce what I saw on Saturday that Dykes was more effective in his role for the team on Saturday than others, and arguably more effective than any of City's forwards.
As I said in in an earlier post Dykes lacks the goalscorers instincts but that is not to say he could not be coached to improve lay off skills and drawing in others to deliver goals. The trouble is none of our other attacking players are usually close enough to feed off any passes or hold up he could create . If you compare him to say Jordan Hugill sort of similar player, he had the ability to hold off the defender lay ball off and win important advantage when going forward, not a prolific goalscorer but effective. To be honest him and Nakhi Wells were a very decent strike force shame they were never our players.
Northern, I get you don't rate Dykes (and Dunne for that matter) and you now struggle to say anything positive about Dykes (fair enough, you're a fan first and foremost), but my statement was 100% factually correct.
The photo with Dickie, and the one with the other Centre Half show Dykes out-jumping and beating them both, so must have been 2 of the 5/11 aerial duals he won.
Saying Dickie was dominant however is an absolute stretch as the match photo's, match stats (compared to Duune & Cook's) and highlights show, which was the game I watched. In a game of very few chances, Dickie arguably created the best one, albeit for us.
Beginning to remind me of...
Frame 161 - Dykes jumps above Dickie. Frame 193 - Dickie jumps above Dykes. Frame 225 and 232 - Dickie jumps twice more above Dykes. Frame 238 - Dykes out jumps Dickie. Frame 313 - The last shot. Dykes takes it. Dykes misses.
'Always In Motion' by John Honney available on amazon.co.uk
I saw 3 still photographs, I think 5 were included within the Match Report?
Of course I am not judging an entire football match on those 5 photographs posted on the Match Report, although for those who posted Dykes never wins headers, those photographs and the match stats since posted ironically prove otherwise.
I get we all see different things at the game but I saw Dykes lose his footing once, whereas you saw umpteen times, so I'll defer to you on that one as you take crib-notes at games and I rely on my sketchy memory.
I would argue that those stats reinforce what I saw on Saturday that Dykes was more effective in his role for the team on Saturday than others, and arguably more effective than any of City's forwards.
fair play to you for keeping this going but it's ok for people to disagree on if a player played well or not, I don't think looking for photographic evidence is going to change anyones mind.
for me it looked like Dickie had Dykes in his pocket all game, if Dykes did win headers I don't recall many of them going to a team mate. Bristol City having nothing up front either doesn't really matter
Dykes has 11 goals in the last 24 months over 3 seasons., 4 this calendar year, that's nowhere near good enough. Fact no one is doing any better here is not an excuse. Too often he goes 3/4 months without a goal. Currently on a run of 2 months without a goal, your senior striker has to offer a lot more than closing down. It's an absolute damming indictment on our recruitment of strikers which has been abysmal since Hugil left.
fair play to you for keeping this going but it's ok for people to disagree on if a player played well or not, I don't think looking for photographic evidence is going to change anyones mind.
for me it looked like Dickie had Dykes in his pocket all game, if Dykes did win headers I don't recall many of them going to a team mate. Bristol City having nothing up front either doesn't really matter
Dykes has 11 goals in the last 24 months over 3 seasons., 4 this calendar year, that's nowhere near good enough. Fact no one is doing any better here is not an excuse. Too often he goes 3/4 months without a goal. Currently on a run of 2 months without a goal, your senior striker has to offer a lot more than closing down. It's an absolute damming indictment on our recruitment of strikers which has been abysmal since Hugil left.
[Post edited 14 Nov 2023 18:54]
Not keeping anything going just responding to posts directed to me,
I can assure you I was'nt looking for photographic evidence, just ironic 3 of the 5 photographs included within the Match Report showed Dykes either beating Centre Halves in the air with a couple of impressive leaps or being on his toes as opposed to being on his heels, as was the case a season or two ago. Also fairplay to Northern's journalistic integrity that he did'nt leave these on the Cutting Room floor.
I'd argue the reason you won't recall headers going to a team-mate is despite likely having the beating of Dickie in the air, we did'nt have a player likely within 20 yards of Dykes - this is where Warnock is so good in the Championship - and I really fear him going to Rotherham - especially as Hugill is his type of player.
I agree about our Recruitment (Charlie Kelman, really, in the Championship?) and agree we needs goals from our forwards (as we did from Hugill) and not just pressing (as I derided Chelsea fans when they championed Mason Mount for this very reason) but like it or not, Dykes is the best striker we have by some distance.
The False 9 is just not an option imo, both in the Championship and with the players at our disposal.
So the only question for me is how do we get the best out of Dykes and our entire attack.
I think 4-2-3-1 best suits our players with Smyth & Chair inter-changing and Smyth when central playing as a 2nd striker. Alternately EDB could play the advanced CAM role as a 2nd striker (in effect a false 9).
I think 4-3-3 as Saturday invariably ends up as a 4-5-1, good defensively but unlike Scotland, we just do not have a mobile or creative midfield who can get up and support Dykes, let alone play give & go's and run on to his knockdowns.
We have the players to stay up and I just hope Marti is pragmatic and not tied to a system that works well in the Premier League with quality players but has its obvious shortcomings in the Championship, especially given our squad.
For me there is a worryingly deep-seated problem at QPR.
Firstly, how far back do we have to go before we recall a really good striker that we've developed from our youth ranks? Off the top of my head, I can only really think of Gallen - admittedly his injury will deny us knowing what he could have been - and that was nigh on 25 years ago!
Before Gallen you're pretty much gong back to Allen and Goddard in the late-70s. So much of what we have developed has been poor and just not up to it. So, whatever scouting, nurturing and coaching we're doing, it's a bit rubbish!
Secondly, in terms of unearthing strikers from lower down the food chain and polishing up into striking gems, we've got an equally poor record. If we treat Eze as an 'attacker', then he has been the one outstanding gem in the last what, 30 odd years? However, there haven't been many rushing to my mind to get anywhere near him. So, our ability to identify raw talent and develop it into a potent striker is equally poor.
Finally, aside of Chubby Austin's first arrival, we've also been pretty rubbish spending our money on bigger buys. Over the last few years: Dykes, Bonne, Washington, Sylla, the other African bloke, have all proved to be poor returns in the goal scoring department. So, you've got to look at whatever our scouting and acquisition set-up is, because it's as poor too.
For a club now somewhat down on it's uppers, my worry is that unless the beautiful one has something under his sombrero, then I am not overly confident based on historic performance, that we'll bring in a bloke who can stick the effing ball in the onion bag with the regularity our position requires.
Furlong, Helgesen, Austin as you say were all decent, Sylla had a good scoring rate per minutes played but we preferred to give Washington hours and hours. Sylla was best as a sub anyway. Since then we've had Hugill and Wells on loan who were ok, but we couldn't afford to buy them and probably can afford even less now. Hopefully Marti and his coaches can get more goals out of who we have.
It's fck all to do with whether I like or rate Dykes, Dunne or anybody else. It is the entirely non-controversial point that you cannot judge a football match, or somebody's performance in it, from two still photographs. It is astonishing that this should need explaining.
My personal view is Dykes isn't good enough at this level. He's very limited and is not gonna get the goals to keep us in the division
You might be right. My expectations of him haven't been high for a while now.
I don't mean that in a snarky way - he seems to be from an athletic family and has used that to get himself where he is. He was playing rugby league in his teens and came to football really quite late, so fair play he managed to turn his hand to that and has made a career out of it.
But the late start, I think, often shows, especially in front of goal where things seldom look natural - at 28 he can't have much more than 10 year's worth of muscle memory scoring goals at any level including his back garden. So we've got what we've got. Would be interesting to see what he could produce at League 1 but hopefully not with us. Think we'll be very open to offers in January and he may move back to Scotland for a mediocre fee.
And Armstrong is a winger. Came up as a winger, scores the same (or less) amount of goals as a winger. He's just a massive winger - we should look at him in that way more rather than trying to make a forward out of him.
Let him thunder down the touchline at Pring and co for the last 25 minutes of games causing mayhem, rather than pretending he might come on and coolly slot one into the old onion bag.
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