Trafford

Does the lack of comment during and after yesterday's game indicate that we have given up on the playoffs?

Essentially the play-offs were a "bridge too far."

It seems clear that if we are ever to make a realistic challenge for promotion we will need a proven goalscorer who can actually convert all the chances we are creating. We are certainly suffering from a lack of goals this season. However, such a player would not come cheap.

We'd have to create some chances for someone to convert initially. Yesterday we created only one chance against a very well organised Trafford side who ran out deserved winners

Tobycarvery wrote:It seems clear that if we are ever to make a realistic challenge for promotion we will need a proven goalscorer who can actually convert all the chances we are creating. We are certainly suffering from a lack of goals this season. However, such a player would not come cheap.

Goalscoring clearly seems to be the major problem: against Farsley we missed three one-on-ones and whilst I didn't see the Trafford game, well organised they may be, but the table tells us that they are a lower mid table side. Finding a regular goalscorer is one thing, then hanging on to them is another! We had just one full season of Connerton  (the play off year), then a brief return until he went to Australia, in 2011-12 we had a 23 goal season from Danny Hattersley until he went to play at higher levels and around the same time we had Joe Bunney, who yesterday scored two goals for a League One side. Unless we can get more finance we just can't pay this sort of player the kind of money he can get elsewhere.

Despite our quite healthy league position, in our nine years in this league, the only time we have had fewer points than at this stage of the season, (45 from 31 games) was in the Stringfellow/Wainwright season, so talk of a play off bid seems very fanciful.

As Keith pointed out in Friday's bulletin, we could only afford to drop 4 or 5 points in the last 12 games to be in with a chance and dropping 3 yesterday wasn't in the plan. Looking at our run in, I thought Warrington and possibly Mossley would be the most tricky games. Hopefully we'll up our game on Tuesday.

The point being that currently being well organised is all a side needs to be to defeat us. Trafford are one of the sides that are genuinely below us in the league table going on games played & we were able to fashion only one opening in 90 minutes against them which would seem to indicate that we too are a lower mid table side

I'm amazed that some people still, having watched football at this level for so long, go on and on about finding a prolific striker. We know they're like rocking horse shit and you'd think we'd have accepted this by now. The problem has to be solved elsewhere

How elsewhere? If you mean getting goals from midfield, that's not going to happen often enough. If you mean growing our own, it's already been pointed out that we can't hang on to them e.g. Hattersley,Bunney.We have had plenty of prolific strikers in the past. I could name a dozen at least in the last 20 years. Maybe we will need to pay a bit more than at present. How many people in the fans'fund would be prepared to pay more? If you look at the list of leading scorers in this division, they are in the top teams,and the top teams have scored 70+ goals so far this season.

Where are the goals going to come from at Leyland? Please don't say "Padiham".