Craig Mackail Smith, You are the weakest link.... Goodbye

[terryberry1]

He didn't have one of his best games but i don't think that is a reason to write him off, especially as he is our best forward and highest scorer and a nuisance to the opposition and pulls them out of position, creating space elsewhere and also pushes them further towards their own goal (stretching play, making more room for us to play in and stopping the opposition from pressing us and keeping us pinned in our own half) There is far more to him than just goals

I thought Buckley didn't play to his usual high standards tonight either, but i wouldn't act in a knee jerk manner about him not 'being good enough' etc like some are here about CMS.

We should be getting behind our players and cheering them onto victory

You are correct, Buckley was not good at all tonight. He is by far our best attacking threat though. People don't just slag off CMS for tonights performance, he has never fitted in here. He just doesn't have the quality needed to be a success in this division. The Norwich rumours must be a sick joke

 

[DumLum]

His running into Buckley was laughable. He really was poor tonight. Is he all that? His touch is woeful and he seems to often panic in front of goal. His miss in the first half was harder to miss than score.

Looked like Buckley ran into cms to me. Possibly his worst game for us tonight but I'm still team cms and I hope he plays every game for the rest of the season.

 

[Broady]

I think to fit it this team, the striker needs to have a good first touch, CMS has a decent touch when chasing a ball down but with his back to goal his touch is pretty poor. He is probably not used to having to play like this and it was probably quite alien to him pre-albion. But surely the staff and Poyet would have looked at his touch if we were going to play this way. Unfortunately at his age I don't feel touch can be worked so that it reaches the required level. I have no problem with CMS, don't think he is awful (admittedly, he was tonight) but I don't think he is the right man to lead the line for us.

The difference between David Lopez and Mackail smith's instant control is huge. I know one is a midfielder but today I don't think Lopez miscontrolled a single ball-no matter how close he was to an opponent. Mackail Smith has strengths and weaknesses but unfortunately, one of them is one that is required most in our team.

 

[Doc Lynam]

I think to fit it this team, the striker needs to have a good first touch, CMS has a decent touch when chasing a ball down but with his back to goal his touch is pretty poor. He is probably not used to having to play like this and it was probably quite alien to him pre-albion. But surely the staff and Poyet would have looked at his touch if we were going to play this way. Unfortunately at his age I don't feel touch can be worked so that it reaches the required level. I have no problem with CMS, don't think he is awful (admittedly, he was tonight) but I don't think he is the right man to lead the line for us.

The difference between David Lopez and Mackail smith's instant control is huge. I know one is a midfielder but today I don't think Lopez miscontrolled a single ball-no matter how close he was to an opponent. Mackail Smith has strengths and weaknesses but unfortunately, one of them is one that is required most in our team.

Nail on head.

 

[HastingsSeagull]

Usually a CMS fan but tonight he was proper shite. Still glad he's an Albion player though and hope we add a striker to our stable of 3, rather than loose any of them in Jan

 

[DarrenFreemansPerm]

Cos he says it after every game! Its so f***ing boring. We've lost 5 games out of 23 in the 2nd tier and all people do is moan. Bore off.

That may be so, but he's got a point.

 

[Stat Brother]

I don't subscribe to this "we don't play to his strengths". He is a striker. He is supposed to convert goal scoring chances. His goals to chances ratio is too low. How he failed to score tonight, I don't know. I do know how pissed off with his failure to score I am.

All this 'we don't play to his strengths' does my head in. He misses chance after chance from 6 yards. What is his f***ing strength ? Please tell me. Is it his great touch ? His link play ?

But when we are bad we clearly don't play to his strengths or any other strikers, for that matter.

Things turn to plops for CMS for one reason that being he gets left marooned.

Nobody from centre midfield within 20 yards.
No attacking threat down the left.

So when Buckley is contained (where are the 'Buckley is shite threads?') the centre halves have only 1 job, mark CMS.

If you put 2 holes in the side and floor of my garden shed and 1 in the roof, Danny I-shitu-not could wear it, and he was the smaller of the two.

(Bear with me) If we had Drogba we still wouldn't score because, there's no Frank Lampard, not to mention there wingers and full backs, opposition defences have nobody else to play so playing CMS is easy.

 

[KZNSeagull]

I don't understand. Why, if CMS is so shit, are a Premier League team (that is a team BETTER than us), rumoured to want to buy him? It does not make any sense.

 

[Hamilton]

I think to fit it this team, the striker needs to have a good first touch, CMS has a decent touch when chasing a ball down but with his back to goal his touch is pretty poor. He is probably not used to having to play like this and it was probably quite alien to him pre-albion. But surely the staff and Poyet would have looked at his touch if we were going to play this way. Unfortunately at his age I don't feel touch can be worked so that it reaches the required level. I have no problem with CMS, don't think he is awful (admittedly, he was tonight) but I don't think he is the right man to lead the line for us.

The difference between David Lopez and Mackail smith's instant control is huge. I know one is a midfielder but today I don't think Lopez miscontrolled a single ball-no matter how close he was to an opponent. Mackail Smith has strengths and weaknesses but unfortunately, one of them is one that is required most in our team.

Agree with this. Very good observation.

Certainly the touch and control of players like CMS, Dunk and even Crofts tonight was poor. And I agree that once you're in your mid-twenties it's probably hard to work the sufficient level of skill into your game.

But this is my beef with our style of play. I like the style, but it is too predictable and formulaic. We are so slow at turning defence into attack and persist in just playing the ball out patiently from the back. Now I'm not saying this should stop, but if we mix things up by turning and running at defences a bit more then I'd be delighted. KLL does this, as does Buckley, Bridge and Bruno, but the rest often stand like statues. I want to see the likes of Greer, El Abd, Bridcutt, Crofts and Hammond pushing through the centre so that they can play passes further up the pitch and then CMS and Barnes can make some runs through defences rather than always having their back to defenders.

 

[One Teddy Maybank]

To be fair I don't think we really had the chance to sign Wood permanently when he was here. And I seem to remember 90% of the twats on here banging on about how shit he was and how he wasn't good enough for us. At eighteen years old.

precisely, I also recall he didn't want to come South when he was younger.......... at least that's what I read.

 

[chaileyjem]

How did we get a penalty last night by the way ?

 

[Paskman]

Snigger

 

[Tooting Gull]

Broady's observations are both very fair, and accurate. I'd be slightly less fair to the player after another terrible miss, far easier than the one Wood converted at the other end. And the touch is just horrendous for a professional footballer at this level. And if you were being even less fair, you'd say the defender would have been better off not challenging him at all for the penalty, since he would have clearly missed.

CMS has benefited from a huge amount of goodwill from people as he seems a decent bloke and we were so pleased to get him, but it's been 18 months now and he has never, ever looked comfortable in this team.

If Norwich had a scout there last night, they won't be interested any more.

 

[Bold Seagull]

For a minute I thought he was our top scorer in a team that doesn't play to his strengths?

Best striker we have....end of!!! Ten goals this season......I blame the way we play not him

Who is the top scorer for our team? Do we play to his strengths?

Still has 10!!! If we actually played to his strengths he would have loads more....

That's the thing with Poyet, he's so ignorant that he won't play to CMS's strengths

But when we are bad we clearly don't play to his strengths or any other strikers, for that matter.

Or, CMS doesn't play to our strengths?

 

[Meade's Ball]

Maybe Gus does this already, but i would have CMS on the training pitch surrounded by cannons. 5 of them. He us unsure which one will be firing a ball at him between 20 and 70mph. I would have him there for 3 1hr sessions a day. Him sole aim to kill the ball dead. To grow to be at one with it. It'd be a karate Kid sort of tale: left circle right circle. Then it should all become natural with him and he wouldn't have to worry if it's not going his way to round players or charge through them as he could hold the ball up and ping a lay-off here and there to make sure we keep possession.
Last night was terrible. Millwall played a generally high defensive line throughout the first half and i thought that ideal with CMS to receive a long search ball over the top for him to cheetah his way onto. But it never happened.
I bloody hope he gets back into form and has the confidence drilled into him that it is alright to be him and that he has what it takes to lead the line. I still believe he can.

 

[BensGrandad]

I was a lone voice in the area of Lower West were I sit as everybody was saying that CMS is not a championship striker and I tried to support him with the statistic of 10 goals ion 20 games is a good ratio. On last nights performance this is becoming more difficult to convince people. I think that he will finish up with 20+ goals this season but something drastic needs to happen during January to help him.

 

[Chicken Runner61]

Maybe Gus does this already, but i would have CMS on the training pitch surrounded by cannons. 5 of them. He us unsure which one will be firing a ball at him between 20 and 70mph. I would have him there for 3 1hr sessions a day. Him sole aim to kill the ball dead. To grow to be at one with it. It'd be a karate Kid sort of tale: left circle right circle. Then it should all become natural with him and he wouldn't have to worry if it's not going his way to round players or charge through them as he could hold the ball up and ping a lay-off here and there to make sure we keep possession.
Last night was terrible. Millwall played a generally high defensive line throughout the first half and i thought that ideal with CMS to receive a long search ball over the top for him to cheetah his way onto. But it never happened.
I bloody hope he gets back into form and has the confidence drilled into him that it is alright to be him and that he has what it takes to lead the line. I still believe he can.

Have you carried out a risk assessment on this?

What size cannon balls do you propose to use?

 

[Meade's Ball]

Have you carried out a risk assessment on this?

What size cannon balls do you propose to use?

They'd be varying sizes. Mostly regularly football sized, but every now and again it would be a golfball to the eye and a beachball to the back of the head and on odd occasions a rolled up headgehog to the chest coming at him like a Critter. He has to be ready for anything and be able to react. They have those devices for tennis and baseball and cricket. Although i doubt with spine-spitting little rodents as a feature though.

 

[Peter Grummit]

When McSmudger is on the pitch we are effectively playing with 10 men, he does not fit in to this team.And Barnes why is he even on the bench,we do not have a striker capable of playing at this level

Brainless prize from a brainless thread. CMS didn't play well tonight. But he got an assist for our equaliser. And you're saying he's contributed nothing all season? Not 10 goals? No work rate, closing down etc? You didn't cheer his great finish at Charlton, oo, 10 days ago? I suspect you were one who moaned that Murray was lazy, Noone can't cross etc.

 

[Commander]

CMS's problem is that he doesn't score many easy chances. He tends to score difficult ones, which is good to have someone who can do that, but we need someone who is going to take the easy ones as well. We need one of those strikers who never scores brilliant goals, but never misses an easy one. And he doesn't have to be 6 foot 5, or black, despite what people seem to think.