One hundred and ten large

Quoted from MuddyWaters

So if Disley or Clay gets injured during the course of tomorrow's game and under the assumption that Brown is not yet fit, who would you replace them with?

Get toto in that square peg.

Non league viera.

Quoted from MuddyWaters

The only explanation I can come up with is that it's because he was a defender and he doesn't know how to get the best out of attackers.

Yet we're the second highest scorers in the league with the second best goal difference FFS

Quoted from Vance Warner

Yet we're the second highest scorers in the league with the second best goal difference FFS

Courtesy of three 4-1 home wins out of the 5 wins we've had.  Some people are so easily pleased.

Quoted from rancido

Fans have moaned so much in the past about PH putting " square pegs in round holes " and here you are advocating just that ! East may have made some appearances in mid-field at a previous club but that doesn't mean he is either competent or comfortable in that position. IMO we would be better off getting another centre mid but PH doesn't see things that way and he is both the manager and more of a manager than I will ever be.

It was only my opinion and I do not expect everybody to agree with me,

Quoted from jonnyboy82

Get toto in that square peg.

Non league viera.

No comparison between Toto and the non-league Vieira  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magno_Vieira

Quoted from MuddyWaters

Courtesy of three 4-1 home wins out of the 5 wins we've had.  Some people are so easily pleased.

Only one team has scored more goals than us - Bromley (!) and their total includes 7 against Torquay. If our 4 goals in three games don't count, how many of their 7 goals in that match should count towards their total? We're scoring plenty, but not winning enough games at the moment.

Fact is that we're in our current position not because of the goals we have scored, but the ones we have let in at the other end. If we had conceded 1 goal less in 1 out of our 6 draws, we'd be in 5th place now. If we'd conceded 1 goal less in 2 out of our 6 draws, we'd be in 3rd place. I don't think anybody can disagree that we ought to have won at least 1 or 2 of the drawn games so far this season so the defence is clearly of great importance.

FGR won their first 9 games mostly because of their defensive record - they conceded just 4 goals in those 9 games! The champions in the Conference over the past 5 years have always been the top scorers, but have also had one of the best defences. Virtually no teams who win promotion/titles do so on the back of goalscoring alone so we'd be daft to try this tactic.

Quoted from Maringer

Only one team has scored more goals than us - Bromley (!) and their total includes 7 against Torquay. If our 4 goals in three games don't count, how many of their 7 goals in that match should count towards their total? We're scoring plenty, but not winning enough games at the moment.

Fact is that we're in our current position not because of the goals we have scored, but the ones we have let in at the other end. If we had conceded 1 goal less in 1 out of our 6 draws, we'd be in 5th place now. If we'd conceded 1 goal less in 2 out of our 6 draws, we'd be in 3rd place. I don't think anybody can disagree that we ought to have won at least 1 or 2 of the drawn games so far this season so the defence is clearly of great importance.

FGR won their first 9 games mostly because of their defensive record - they conceded just 4 goals in those 9 games! The champions in the Conference over the past 5 years have always been the top scorers, but have also had one of the best defences. Virtually no teams who win promotion/titles do so on the back of goalscoring alone so we'd be daft to try this tactic.

Here's another statistic for you - if we score more goals than the opposition in all the remaining games, I reckon we'll win the league.

See, it's easy to use statistics to fit your argument!

No, the statistics were my argument.

It is almost unheard of for a team with a poor defence to win promotion, regardless of how attack-minded they might be. The stats just reflect the reality of football.

Let's look at the Champions of the top 5 divisions over the past couple of years:

Chelsea = best defence, second best attack
Man City = 2nd best defence, best attack

Bournemouth = second best defence, best attack
Leicester = 3rd best defence, second best attack

Bristol City = best defence, second best attack
Wolves = best defence, best attack

Shrewsbury = 4th best defence, best attack
Chesterfield = 2nd best defence, best attack

Barnet = 3rd best defence, best attack
Luton = best defence, best attack

A limited sampling, but it's pretty clear that having a good defence is almost as important as a good attack when it comes to achieving success in football. Only Leicester of those 10 teams didn't have the best record in one or the other. I dare say you would find something similar if you could be bothered to go back further than a couple of years in all these divisions.

If you use a bit of common sense, you can clearly see why teams with a solid defence are actually likely to score more goals. If you're not chasing a game, you're less likely to be caught on the counter-attack. If you're in the lead in a game, you're more likely to get counter-attacking opportunities as your opponents push for an equaliser. It's no coincidence that our best results this season have come when we've scored an early goal.

I think there is a lot more to come from our forwards this season and hopefully a lot more clean sheets from our defence as well.

We've had 7 draws, which is 50% of our total games and way too many. Same last season and the season before it. Hurst has failed to get the right blend so far in his tenure. Whether he can finally crack it this year is open to debate. I'm yet to be convinced.

Last year, we didn't have the strikers to score the goals until the arrival of Palmer, but the defence was generally good. This season, we've got a much better selection of strikers (though they are perhaps lacking a bit in physicality), but the defence has been much too porous until recent games. I think we've got the defenders to make the defence as solid as the one from last season and we've got the strikers to score more goals. Stands to reason we have the capacity to do much better - providing the midfield can keep up!

I really do think it is a case of when we really get going as opposed to if. Of course, this doesn't guarantee others won't do better than us and I'm as frustrated that we dropped so many points through defensive errors in the early stages of the season as anyone else.

The talk of looking for a new manager at the start of October remains preposterous.