davep
Semi-Pro
Posts: 103
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Post by davep on Jun 2, 2023 9:37:58 GMT
I've had a quick look at his career stats and he's scored about 1 in 3, which is impressive. His best ever season being the 28 goals he got for Eastleigh. Obviously he benefited from Yeates quality but I would also say that team had a lot of width with a 532, and Green/Hare getting forward a lot ,playing to McCallums aerial threat..LB's team last season was more narrow in attack...wonder if he will change style to get the best out of McCallum?
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Post by hantslondoner on Jun 2, 2023 9:54:59 GMT
Best crossers we've got are Rutherford and Harper (maybe Hill, if fit), so we need to get them more involved. Plan B (the big hoof down the middle) will now also be more effective.
We also need a partner for McCallum (in the past we had players like Williamson, Zebroski), unless he will be the only striker, as we had sometimes last season.
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davep
Semi-Pro
Posts: 103
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Post by davep on Jun 2, 2023 14:39:58 GMT
Hopefully I'm not being too naive but I would hope with SD's money we will be bringing in a couple more strikers before the season starts - back up/strike partner types. Preferably someone pacy, we looked better last season when we had players who could stretch the game out on the break.
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Post by unknownquantity on Jun 4, 2023 20:23:10 GMT
2018/19 was the first season in which Paul McCallum scored a double figure number of league goals, but he also did so in each of the next three seasons. When he first joined the club at the start of the 2017/18 season Andy Hessenthaler who had also been his manager at Leyton Orient said that if we could get balls into the box he would score goals. In his first season with the club he only scored 8 goals, but he really came into his own the following season which remains comfortably his best season from a goalscoring point of view.
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Post by usspitfire on Jun 5, 2023 0:07:02 GMT
His success/failure will depend if LB wants to play to win, or play not to lose like he did last season. There is no doubt that given the service. he will give us goals.
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Post by spiritofeastleigh on Jun 5, 2023 8:40:51 GMT
The minimum target next season would be 86 points for a top three place, so either go on to automatic promotion or a home game semi-final to get to Wembley for PO final. No pressure then!!! Requires a minimum of 25 wins, 11 draws, 10 defeats to hit 86 points. And you have to play to WIN, not play to lose, otherwise even a PO spot may be out of reach. If that's not LB's target then he can toddle off somewhere else, we want a manager with a winning mentality that makes the players think they are unbeatable, go out and win games, that's the attitude we want, we ain't rolling over for you, we're Eastleigh and we're coming for you.
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Post by hantslondoner on Jun 5, 2023 8:48:12 GMT
Nothing like being ambitious!
I'm expecting/hoping for a push for the playoffs.
You could argue that run of 1-0 home wins against lower opposition we had was 'playing to win'.
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Post by unknownquantity on Jun 5, 2023 19:50:24 GMT
I do not agree that Lee Bradbury's primary objective is to not lose. Last season our record of 14 home wins was better than any club outside the top three and at the start of 2023 we won four away games out of five.
One game I saw was York at home which was a fairly dull game enlivened by an excellent free kick to win the game. After scoring we never looked like conceding, but I expect that some people would have preferred to see a more enntertaining game.
Interestingly enough Grimsby were promoted in 2021/22 after finishing 6th and in 2018/19 we were only a penalty shoot out away from the playoff final after finishing 7tth, so although a home playoff is preferable to an away one it is no guarantee of success.
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Post by spiritofeastleigh on Jun 6, 2023 8:55:22 GMT
Home form is not the problem, away form is where he plays not to lose. Of the top 7 for the PO spots Barnet had the worse away return of 33 points, while Eastleigh picked up only 20 points on their travels. If we had matched that we would have finished with 80 points and 5th place. That's where the team needs to improve, away form, and playing not to lose won't get us to around the 35 points mark we'd need, he has to target a minimum of 9 away wins because 5 does not hack it.
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Post by unknownquantity on Jun 6, 2023 22:02:37 GMT
I think that what cost us last season was getting only 6 points from the 12 away games before Christmas and the spell of 4 games in 8 days later in the season which yielded just 1 point.
Although we lost both away games in the latter period our away record after Christmas was W4 D2 L5, which was certainly an improvement. It was felt at the time that the 0-0 draw at Boreham Wood was a better result for us than them.
I also think that whereas in the run of 4 matches in 8 days we made a mistake of resting players due to this schedule I think that we were a bit unfortunate to be given this run of fixtures when he had no fixture backlog.
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Post by usspitfire on Jun 14, 2023 9:18:36 GMT
You could argue that run of 1-0 home wins against lower opposition we had was 'playing to win'. You could argue that - But you'd be wrong. We were lucky on several of those 1-0 wins not to concede. As soon as we scored, we parked the bus. Away from home was even worse. We parked the bus during the warm up at most grounds, and made no attempt to move it at all during the games!
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Post by hantslondoner on Jun 14, 2023 9:43:26 GMT
Parking the bus when we went 1-0 up was indeed 'playing to win' - 'playing to win 1-0'. :-) Yes, we were lucky to hold on sometimes.
I think the away performances will be key this season, and still wonder why the away form was so different from the away form last year. Not the first time it had happened, either. Mindset change needed!
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