Best Of

I don't understand why so many people can't see what a good player Hanlan is

Crikey you will have 4 ex-Wycombe players in - Pierre, Blackman, Gape and Taf.

Mind you we have 2 or 3 ex Salop players so good linkage between our clubs and there is Gaz and Dobbo as well.

Shrewsbury definitely my 2nd EFL club. 👍👍

I thought Blackman looked very solid the other night... I forgot how big he was as well !

He does have the turning circle of an oil tanker though

All we'll need really is 10 games from Tafazolli with Pierre being rotated.

Gape signing tomorrow as is Blackman is the word.

Proper reunion at Salop!

My understanding is the timing wasn’t great for Dan Rice, since he was focused on the transfer window, but he’s been speaking to a number of potential candidates. There will be an interview process, although that may have concluded by now. From everything I’ve heard I can’t see Sam Grace being offered it as an interim but it’s football so anything could happen.

He's kept the faith well, put the hard yards in and hopefully gets a deserved spell of luck now.

Cut and paste the comments for Gape. Good when fit, which sadly hasn't been anywhere near enough. Wrap him in bubble wrap and you might get 10 games out of him during the second half of the season

Exactly this

I think he is just hot-and-cold for me. Not clinical enough to be a 9, does not create enough consistently to be out wide. I posted something similar recently, but here is the strike rate (at least per appearance, not sure of the per 90) for our main goalscorers:

Kone: 20 in 55 appearances - 0.36 goals per appearance.

Lubala: 12 in 38 appearances - 0.31 goals per appearance.

Vokes: 30 in 139 appearances - 0.21 goals per appearance.

Udoh: 6 in 31 appearances - 0.19 goals per appearance.

Hanlan: 16 in 110 appearances - 0.14 goals per appearance.

I am sure there is some context if you get into goals per 90, or how often someone has played the 9 v wide, but I would guess the above stats would mostly bear out what we have seen with our own eyes bar Udoh, who I think is more clinical than the numbers give him credit for, owing to playing out wide an abnormal amount for his skillset.

Hanlan actually has the same strike rate as Kieran Sadlier, who exclusively plays out wide. I think Mustard was good as a second option in the prime Vokes years, but with the quality we have now, the stats above would put him as our 5th option to play as a striker.

The above is also the reason I keep banging on about Lubala being our backup 9 - he is more clinical than anyone bar Kone, but does not offer anywhere near as much out wide. There is a pretty significant caveat of him feasting for 4 goals in one game against kids in the Pizza McCheckatrade, but that is probably balanced out by how often he has been played out wide recently.