Scored a great header and then……nothing.

There have been two recurring themes in conversation about him:

1. He isn’t getting the right kind of service. Well I’m still not convinced he’s that lethal when he does, although TBF his opportunities have been few and far between but it has to be a very specific kind of service as he’s not very mobile.

2. Get him on to hold the ball up when we need an outlet. From what I’ve seen he has the touch of a rapist and the ball just bounces off him or he misplaces the lay off. And he is slow  getting to the ball in the first place compared to Burstow. If Burstow is knackered and we’re under the cosh, wouldn’t we be better off sticking someone quick and annoying like ACD to chase down clearances into space rather than have Dalby get into a wrestling match on the few occasions the clearance actually comes in his direction? Or a combo player with a bit a pace and strength when required like Taylor?
 

There was a moment during McAtee’s cameo yesterday when we were defending our box and McAtee brought the ball down with an incredible touch, slipped it to Dalby and ran into space for the return - and Sam passed what should have been a routine ball straight to a Luton player. Frustrating.

So what’s the story? Do we change the way we play to suit him better? Does he need to improve his fitness, speed and touch to fit the way we play? Is he carrying an injury? Or do we write him off as a poor signing and move on?

1 hour ago, desperado said:

This ⬆️ 

Big week for Dalby - Bradford and Swindon will hopefully be productive for him. 

I’m with you, start him in both and tell Burstow to head off somewhere for a few days and get his feet up. Forss / McAtee can play back up striker in both games.

Hopefully Dalby gets a few across both games - I don’t like to make any kind of judgement on any player that’s getting 20 minutes here and there… but he doesn’t look much of a footballer at the moment 🥴

1 hour ago, Roger_Dubuis said:

 

I wasn't expecting Dalby to be good enough for Bolton if not good enough for Wrexham.

 

Having said that i like his attitude and effort ...

He was in Wrexham's 4th Division teams, but not in their 3rd. He was let go to Dundee Utd. & was anywhere near their thoughts for the current lot. Agreed that he seems an honest enough lad.

2 hours ago, Johnnyrotten said:

Not to turn it into a tallest dwarf competition, but Burstow had scored 5 goals in 78 games prior to coming here.  Nobody would look at either player's stats and think they're going to be full of goals.  At the moment they are both living down to the expectation in terms of looking like scoring, and Forss has gone from being a shoe-in championship standard striker to something a few pegs down.  If McAtee started the next game I'd feel like it was an improvement but that's not to say it won't change, that's for SS to sort out either within the squad or in January.

I’m not disputing they are similar regarding stats. 

dalby is 42 in 227 games 

Burstow 27 in 130 (think this is wrong mind as it included youth / prem 2 I think)

Burstow is better with forss imo. Likewise imo dalby hasn’t done anything of note bar the Huddersfield goal. 
 

ultimately it doesn’t matter what I think just trying to show folk don’t want him to fail but on evidence so far he’s not what we need. Fingers crossed a big week for him gets him firing. 
 

 

 

The best thing Dalby has done for us so far is get injured in pre-season.
Had he been fit for the opener, we wouldn't have signed Burstow.

The biggest problem with us in the view of many over the last few seasons is our high possession not leading to chances, partly due to not crossing enough having someone that can win headers in the box. I would rather watch that all day than hitting it to an absolute lump on the halfway line that can't run and isnt even that great at heading or holding it up.

One of the best things about us over the last few years, whether under Evatt or SS, is our ability to create chances when needing a goal second half. Since we've started using Dalby as a sub this has tailed off massively (best examples Bradford and Cardiff). Hes not only an awful player but he hinders our team massively and makes us awful to watch as well as ineffective. 

Bodvarsson was twice the player of him and Vic combined.

I'm happy to give a player lots of time to settle in (still haven't given up on Randall), but when its someone that cant even run or kick a ball properly there is no hope.

I'll be pleased for Dalby (or Forss or McAtee) if he scores a couple in the cup games, but he'll be on the bench at Mansfield whether he scores 5 or none.  And he'll come on at Mansfield for the last 15 or 20, and that's the football he'll be judged on.  Same as every other cup game v other teams reserves and/or L2 teams in the last few years, I'm sure it feels good for the players to have good games, but us fans will judge them on the games that matter in the weeks that follow.

1 hour ago, Traf said:

The best thing Dalby has done for us so far is get injured in pre-season.
Had he been fit for the opener, we wouldn't have signed Burstow.

 

We were planning to go through the season with Sam Dalby as the only centre forward?

He's very shit 

11 hours ago, TM Trotter said:

There's nothing about him that is an improvement on Vic.

Bitterly disappointing signing. 

When we were under the cosh at Luton, Burstow made a contribution by defending from the front and ran himself into the ground - exactly what Vic did pre- injury. Sam D did his best but he just can’t play that role - Vic can.

I know we don’t sign strikers to defend but sometimes they have to.

Here’s a novelty thought, why don’t we play two up top. Our best results came that way with McGinley, Blake or Andy Walker, Mixu or Coyle with one winger supplying in David Lee. Philiskirk and Reeves another good pair as were Davis and Dioufy. This one up top shit just doesn’t do it for me and when Vic’s back we’ll have four out and out front men plus McAtee so surely that’s enough fire power to do better than we are?

6 hours ago, DirtySanchez said:

Stats wise 

Burstow has scored 7 goals 

Dalby has scored 1

I’ve yet to be convinced by Dalby, but if you’re going down the “stats wise” at least present them appropriately.

Burstow has had 1,351 minutes 

Dalby has had 305 minutes

Yes, Burstow still has the batter goals per minute ratio, but it’s much less of a gap.

And stats wise, Dalby has received one decent aerial ball … and scored from it: 100%.

7 hours ago, Rival Son said:

I’ve yet to be convinced by Dalby, but if you’re going down the “stats wise” at least present them appropriately.

Burstow has had 1,351 minutes 

Dalby has had 305 minutes

Yes, Burstow still has the batter goals per minute ratio, but it’s much less of a gap.

And stats wise, Dalby has received one decent aerial ball … and scored from it: 100%.

Stats out of context don’t tell the story though do they? - otherwise Kyle Dempseys goals per minute strike rate would make him the best central option.

As for Dalby receiving one decent aerial ball a) it’s not true - he’s only connected with one and b) we mix the game up so he needs more than one attribute

 

7 hours ago, Rival Son said:

I’ve yet to be convinced by Dalby, but if you’re going down the “stats wise” at least present them appropriately.

Burstow has had 1,351 minutes 

Dalby has had 305 minutes

Yes, Burstow still has the batter goals per minute ratio, but it’s much less of a gap.

And stats wise, Dalby has received one decent aerial ball … and scored from it: 100%.

Thats true if you believe that any chance he doesn't score is due to it not being a decent pass/cross. Which is bollocks.

11 hours ago, Tombwfc said:

 

We were planning to go through the season with Sam Dalby as the only centre forward?

I'd hope not, but he was our no. 1 target.

We’d all love him to improve, and it’s perfectly reasonable to expect him to need a bit more time given the injury & adjusting to the new squad.

 It can’t just be that he needs better service though. Has to be more to him than he scores great headers. Would like to see better link up play & scoring goals with his feet as well. 

1 hour ago, Traf said:

I'd hope not, but he was our no. 1 target.

Along with the Celtic substitute.

1 hour ago, Traf said:

I'd hope not, but he was our no. 1 target.

We were always talking about the need for more strikes. 

1 minute ago, Dr. Feelgood said:

Along with the Celtic substitute.

Kenny would have been a good signing 

13 hours ago, Wanderlust said:

When we were under the cosh at Luton, Burstow made a contribution by defending from the front and ran himself into the ground - exactly what Vic did pre- injury. Sam D did his best but he just can’t play that role - Vic can.

I know we don’t sign strikers to defend but sometimes they have to.

Good to hear that about Burstow.  Physically Burstow and Dalby are an upgrade on Vic, who looks like a unit but doesn't play like one IMO.  His "defending" involved running in the general direction of the ball or defender, but not actually contributing if there was a chance of retaining possession.  It bounced off him far too often, reducing our chances of defending not increasing it.  Whatever their other strengths and weaknesses, these 2 at least compete physically with the CBs and win far more headers/scraps.

To be fair to Dalby if you look at his goals up in Scotland they come from 2 places, right through the middle and from a high cross into the box. Neither of which we really do and on the maybe 2/3 times we've done it, he scored. The way we play rn it doesn't really matter how good of a target man you are, we could play SKD up there and he'd struggle. 

Burstow's stopped scoring because he's dropping too deep because Dempsey is dropping too deep, it's that simple. 

10 minutes ago, Zog1 said:

To be fair to Dalby if you look at his goals up in Scotland they come from 2 places, right through the middle and from a high cross into the box. Neither of which we really do and on the maybe 2/3 times we've done it, he scored. The way we play rn it doesn't really matter how good of a target man you are, we could play SKD up there and he'd struggle. 

Burstow's stopped scoring because he's dropping too deep because Dempsey is dropping too deep, it's that simple. 

That's only been the last two games.  Plenty others he's played with Dalby (Burton), Forss (a few times) and Randall.

Not having a dig at him BTW, its not like he's been missing chances lately, but he seems to have lost a bit of the swagger he had with those cracking goals v Wigan and Posh for eg.  

Dempsey has dropped so deep that he's only scored in two of his last three games.

25 minutes ago, Traf said:

Dempsey has dropped so deep that he's only scored in two of his last three games.

whilst Burstow hasn't scored in 6, Dempsey didn't play in 3 of those, and against Port Vale, they were on the pitch together for 3 minutes

It was a mixed bag the summer signings; so far Taylor, Dalby and Cissoko have been very disappointing but ACD, Burstow(albeit he is having a bad run of form) and Simons have looked good. The others haven’t really impressed though as well

5 hours ago, Traf said:

I'd hope not, but he was our no. 1 target.

 

The other strikers at the time were Charlie Warren and Big Dave. It's inconceivable that we weren't going to sign anyone else until Dalby got injured.