Fair enough but the fact is he’s cost more than most forwards in the division this season.
In fact if you believe the figures quoted close to £1 million has been spent on 3 forwards - none of whom I’d bet my mortgage on scoring double figures this season
Hiwula, JCH and Chaplin are all projected to hit double figures. Chaplin hasn’t really set the world alight yet but it’s a case of being patient, like with McNulty. Hiwula, Chaplin and Bakayoko are all young men with a lot developing left to do so their prices are probably a bit inflated because we’re paying for potential. Hiwula scored 12 last season in all competitions so it’s reasonable that he’ll score about 10 league goals he scored 8 in 43 apps (21 starts, 22 off the bench).
It’s clear that Robins has a lot of faith in Chaplin, like he did with McNulty, so I’m trusting the process and reserving judgement for now.
Last season, I remember making a projection that McNulty would score roughly 17 goals (based off his loan spell at Pompey) at the time of a lot of people criticising him. That projection seemed a bit high at the time, yet he went on to smash that one out of the park. Projections have their merits and of course aren’t always accurate.
In frustrating 1-0 loses fans naturally look to the strikers and expect them to score. But even the best strikers in a league will struggle to better a ratio of 1 in 2. If anyone did the simple maths, strikers won’t score in half of their games. Bearing in mind most forwards have games where they score 2+ in a game, the actual amount of fixtures they score in is probably about 1 in 3 games — that’s roughly McNulty’s ratio and his goalscoring in 2018 was only surpassed by Kane and Salah. That’s also why we struggled when he didn’t score.
Just to put things into context.
One last point, we’ve neglected just how important set pieces were in our latest run, we scored off a set play in the Southend, Doncaster and 2 in the Bradford game. 2 games decided by the one goal. How did we concede today? Off a set play.