It sounds counter-intuitive, but scoring is overrated. I'm all for the young guns to move into the picture but you can't coach savvy, (mental) toughness and durability. The younger generation of Yank forwards still have a ways to go to upstage Bobby.
In a 4-4-2 maybe, but as a sole striker I'll take a hard pass on an infrequently scoring striker with average hold up play and passing skills.
I'm a Bobby fan here but I must disagree. His athleticism and instincts put him in good positions but he misses too many half-chances and even clear chances to be a "good" Bundesliga striker. He deserves a roster spot on a relegation threatened team but no Bundesliga team should be satisfied with Bobby as their main striker the way he's played since leaving Union Berlin.
Define "good". I think Bobby has potential for "good" but at the moment he's decent. But he plays for a relegation fodder club, so I mean let's put his goalscoring (or lack of) into context
Not too shabby. I still hold he'll reach ton by season's end. I hope he really increases the assists though.
Bobby was demonstrative in this game. Motioning at his teammates multiple times. Applauding a teammate who lost the ball, frustrated at teammates who werent pressing with the frontline, frustrated at not getting passed to on good runs. I think it reveals how confident he is and that he is trying to be a leader - but there's a fine line as well - don't wanna seem too frustrated at teammates' deficiencies. Overall, I think he is "back" from a confidence perspective. I also can't help but wonder how he would do on a better team with more service - I think he'd be a nightmare on a team like Dortmund when he's in this vein of form/confidence - it's not like he really misses chances or sitters - he barely ever gets sniffs at the goal - and in this game in particular he had a lot of good runs that were either ignored or missed by teammates.
And with this goal he ties Ihlas Bebou (who was injured for this game) as the top scorer for Hannover, with 3 goals each. Bebou, however, has 3 assists to Wood's 1.
I now wonder how things might have been had he been bought by Dortmund. Being a super-sub, could he have succeeded there?
"Good" bundesliga striker who can be depended on to lead the line as a primary attacking threat. One reason why Hannover is relegation threatened is because Bobby hasn't scored consistently.
I'm "joshing" with you. I concur. He has to do better at converting. He puts in a lot of work and needed to do way more to justify his large wages (at Hamburg). 10 goals in 62 BL appearances. Nothing to brag about, though he probably has scored more than the likes of Clint Mathis, Eric Wynalda, Connor Casey and other strikers we had in Germany.
personally, i feel like he would rise (or sink) to the level of whatever team he is on.... he can score on Bundesliga defenses when his teammates set him up ....he would have more "setups" on a better team. I think he'd score more on a better squad. It's harder to score on a hamburg or hannover than on a dortmund or bayern, imo....even though it is harder to get onto one of those teams.
Wood is not a good choice for single striker unless you are committed to your wide mids running like heck when he gets the ball. He's not a terrible hold-up guy. But he's not great either...
I think he might be tied for the most Bundesliga goals right now among American developed YAs, but I'm not sure if I'm missing anyone. Bradley - 10 Pulisic - 10 Wood - 10 Wynalda - 9 Cherundolo - 6 Reyna - 6 Mathis - 5 Sanneh - 5 Casey - 4
CC "only" scored 4 BL goals? Seems like he scored a whole lot more in BL2? If memory serves, there was a period of time when Casey was flying practically alone as YA in Germany? Hard not to like the true iconoclasts. What's he doing these days?