Tea Light in the Dark Universe: Bobby Wood at Hamburg

You left out the replies asking if he was supposed to dribble from box to box in order to pull this off.

 

You k ow what Hamburg needs? Dembele.

 

What? No WAY they can aff... oh wait...

While I have yet to see yesterday's game, if this year's midfield looks anything like last year's midfield, they could use some kinda skill there. There are a number of Dembele's who play soccer. Maybe they can find the next...

 

He actually couldn't hurt.

I just get annoyed at how selectively @Suyuntuy quotes things. When reality is negative, fine. But no need to stretch so hard to remove anything positive.

There are a ton of HSV fans who see Bobby's worth and know they need to improve the mids.

Source? All the people not quoted by suyuntuy.

 

So like two fans aren't thrilled with his production right now?

 

Right, first game of the season. Not 5th game, not 20th game, game number 1. Imagine if BW actually was in a real team, like Dortmund where Philipp plays, a team with real players in the midfield.

 

Did you see that South African body builder who killed himself doing a backflip? Landed on his head, broke his neck.

 

I've seen a guy break his neck and die right away celebrating his goal, so nothing surprises me.

 

I just noted for the first time there are fans fed up with Wood's lack of goal scoring prowess.

I never said all posts were about it, or against him.

 

It's more than that. About half in that thread are disappointed, some are angry, and a couple are defending him. At any rate, he's not looking like someone likely to score double-digits at this point.

 

Has Hamburg had a double-digit scorer since Rafe vdVaart was at the club? If Wood gets close to 10 it's a good season. With Nicolai out it's even less likely.

 

Teenage daughter to father: "Dad, why do people say footballers aren't smart?"

 

Scoring a league goal once every 417+ minutes in the league is not a good scoring rate for a CF, whether the guy is American, German, Bosnian, Chilean, etc.

I am actually surprised about how some fans in this thread have treated Wood's first season. Altidore's first season at Sunderland got non-stop backlash, and it wasn't that much worse than Wood's first season at Hamburg.

 

And many fans still have an inability to contextualize actualy play within the real world of league, opponents, teammates, comparison to scoring elsewhere etc.

Again, I haven't looked but I'd bet Hamburg has not has a double digit goalscorer since Rafe vdV was there. Why? Because they haven't had a decent creative midfield (much like Sunderland, btw.)

Sunderland went and got a double digit goal scorer in Dafoe, but he did little else and they ended up worse in the table and finally got relegated. Even CF's have to be part of a team game, and sometimes that lowers the scoring stats while still improving team performance.

At the same time, Wood (also like Jozy before him) is not as good as some HSV (and US) fans want him to be. And 10+ goals will be hard (impossible without Muller?) to come by.

 

You are implying Defoe played a role in Sland going down. That is poppycock, He kept them up a couple of seasons longer than they deserved with his goals out of thin air.

 

I'm not "implying" anything, just stating facts. With Jozy on the team both S'land and Toronto performed as well or better than with Defoe on the team.

The stats are clear:
Sunderland performed the same or worse in the table with Defoe than with Jozy.
2013-14 w/ Jozy: 14th. 38 pts.
2014-15 (1st 1/2 w/ Jozy - 2 starts/11 aps over 20 games): 16th. 20 pts.
2014-15 (2nd1/2 w/ Defoe - 17 starts): 16th. 18 pts
2014-15 (final S'land total) 16th 38 pts.
2015-16 w/ Defoe: 17th. 39 pts.
2016-17 w/ Defoe: 20th 24 pts.

by contrast, Toronto did better with Jozy than Defoe
2014 w/ Defoe: EC 7th. 41 pts. Overall 13th (-10 GD)
2015 w/ Jozy: EC 6th. 49 pts. Overall 12th (0 GD)
2016 w/ Jozy: EC 3rd 53 pts. Overall 5th (+12 GD)
2017 w/ Jozy: EC 1st 50 pts. Overall 1st (+24 GD)

My only point is the simplistic adage that "a striker must score" is not always true. A better adage is "a team must win, or at least not lose." S'land would take less goals and not be relegated. Toronto would take less goals and winning the league.

Hamburg will take less goals and not getting relegated if Wood helps with that calculus.

 

At this point? At the 1 game mark?

 

He may get to double digits if they get someone to help with that garbage midfield.

But frankly Bobby is a marginal BuLi player, who compensates for it with the NT with his enthusiasm and giving his best. I'd still want him in Russia.

 

you're lunching if you think wood isnt a buli player...there's a reason he was linked to big clubs and a epl move last season. he had some amazing goals last year that only a handful of players in any league could score. it wasnt just the golas though...he carried the team on his back in many games and was a big reason they were not relegated.

there simply arent many players in the world who can score consistently with no service. maybe messi and ronaldo?? i would love to see how may goals messi or ronaldo could put up this season if they were somehow magically transferred to hamburg. my guess is it wouldnt be very many....yeah probably more than wood....but even those guys would struggle on a team that cant create anything.

its not all about stats when judging players.....i know its tempting to look at a forward and look at golas/game and think that is all that matters...but if that was the case why would scouts even bother attending games???

 

I was surprised Wood didn't have more assists last season. He seemed to only score when he practically did all the work himself.

 

Bobby's an interesting player. He seems to excel at scoring the hard goals and lag a bit in scoring the easy ones.

Tempted to think that the first cannot be taught but that the second can, and that bodes well for his future.

 

he was always alone up top

 

Can't assist when there's no-one up there to assist.

Unless, of course, you count the number of times he gave an assist.

 

I still definitely like Wood as a player and am not writing him off in any way, but I do think it is fair to at least begin considering the possibility that his run of good form in 2015-2016 was the anomaly and not him coming into his own as a highly productive forward.

He's going to be 25 in November and hasn't scored for the USMNT since last fall (albeit he only has 3 caps in 2017) and (if I'm remembering correctly) did most of his scoring for Hamburg in the first half of last season. So not many goals at all in 2017...

I hope he scores a brace this weekend to make this post look silly, but I can't say that doubts aren't starting to creep in for me.

 

You're right. I was very confusing I admit. But yeah i'm surprised he didn't get a few more assists, but his teammates seem to really struggle to put it in the back of the net.