Current Player #9 Mark Harris

[Gregortheox]

Harris is a quality player!
Fast, clever, selfless, but doesn't convert at the rate where he is our unchallenged no 9 I think we all agree.
Can’t see us not getting a striker in within the next window.

 

[Beast]

I think you can see that he is not a natural goalscorer or a striker, just with the chances he’s missed already this season. He seems to panic when he’s got time and is actually better when he’s not got time and just shoots on instinct. But he’s got other areas of his game which are really good, like his work rate, pace and movement to get into good areas. I’m sure that he said when he joined the club, that his best position was playing just off the striker, which makes sense if you look at what he’s good at.

Just watching him play, you can see that he’s not comfortable playing as an out and out striker, but would do well alongside a natural striker, but then the question is do we play that formation to play two up top!!!! I personally think it would suit Harris if he played with another striker.

 

[ttg17]

Do we though?
We've scored the most goals in the division (31 in 16) which is a scoring rate that puts us on pace for 89 - which would comfortably eclipse any of Karl Robinson's teams, and indeed would be more than Appleton's League Two promotion side managed - despite both of those clubs having an elite goalscorer, which we currently lack.

I keep harping on about last year's Plymouth team, but I really do think they're a side that we can realistically emulate. And their top scorer in the league (Ryan Hardie) scored 13 goals. And they got 101 points.

We need another striker as competition/depth for Harris - but in my opinion it is more important to bring someone in who can contribute effectively to our all-around play even if they're not an elite finisher than a pure out-and-out goalscorer that won't (both would be great - but probably not realistic on a League One budget, unless we happen to strike gold on some loanee/lower division kid)


Also, yes - if Harris had his shooting boots on then we would have scored at least five on Saturday (he missed three gilt-edged chances.....missed two of them twice......but one of those RR thumped in the rebound). But we shouldn't need five goals to win. If we had conceded an equalizer, I would have been more angry with our frankly dozy defending, and failure to deal with relatively simple deep floating crosses, for the first two goals.

That’s fair. I perhaps mis worded that - I was going for more, I think there is merit in a horses for courses approach. Scoring at such a high rate on average is great, but that doesn’t mean that there won’t be games where Harris is nullified / not being sufficiently clinical and it would be more beneficial to have an elite finisher putting away chances. To use an extreme example, if you win one game 8-0 and lose the next 1-0 (because your striker has been nullified / he’s missed a load of chances), you’ve averaged 4 goals a game across the two fixtures but still only got one win to show for it. Without having watched them much, I imagine the Plymouth team you reference probably supported this idea: I would assume with that kind of goal return from their attacking players they would have used different types of strikers for different types of games.

As I say, I very much take the point that Harris contributes to our overall play in a big way. Lincoln was a prime example, he was brilliant without coming close to scoring. Saturday though for me was different. While I appreciated his endeavour up front, I think we would have created enough without him doing that that all we really needed in the number 9 was a player who could put away the chances that Mills and Ruben were laying on for him.

Incidentally, this was also why I was never quite as enamoured with Matty Taylor as the general fan base was. I always thought of him as a bit of a flat track bully - great for a hat trick against Wimbledon at home, when you’re creating bucketloads and just need someone to put them away, but often a bit of a passenger when we had tough games against the top teams in the league.

 

[Scotchegg]

If Harris had scored 2 or 3 more then we wouldn't be having this conversation, and it is fine margins that have prevented this.

On Saturday there were a couple of very good saves that stopped him scoring. The first where he was played in by Mills, he shot first time into the space but the keeper made up a lot of ground to make the save and get it wide enough to make the follow up more difficult. And then from the corner where we scored the third, his first effort was behind him and he did well to get it on target, but hit the keeper. His follow up, came quickly with him off balance, but he again got this on target and it could have gone anywhere but hit the defender.

Against Wycombe, play was pulled back for a freekick when he was free on goal and would have been favourite to score. He was also taken out in the box for what was a far more obvious penalty than the one he eventually won, and would have been favourite to score had he not been fouled. I'm sure that there are numerous others where he could have been seen as unlucky rather than bad misses.

But equally, there have been chances where he should have done better. He was through on goal against Wycombe and should have buried it. There was another similar chance earlier in the season where he put it wide. The one that hit the bar on Saturday was a little unlucky, but he also had a lot of goal to aim for and was several feet higher than it should have been rather than the inches of the bar. He's not the natural finisher that some would want, but he's not far away and will get better with the more games he plays and the confidence he will get from scoring a few.

Plus we get the rest of his play which is excellent. If you look at his assists and the times where he has taken defenders away and created space for others, he has helped us score far more as a team than he has missed individually.

 

[Osei Yaw]

If Harris had scored 10 more goals in the league then he'd be the top scorer in the division right now and be worth millions of pounds.

So if you think of the chances he missed but then imagine he scored them instead, then we've got a £3m+ player on our hands.

Exciting, isn't it?

 

[Eric Blair]

Plus we get the rest of his play which is excellent. If you look at his assists and the times where he has taken defenders away and created space for others, he has helped us score far more as a team than he has missed individually.

This plus it's hard to argue with the fact that we are the highest scorers in the league. I come back to that again and again. As Shakira might have said if she was talking about Mark Harris' contribution to the team: "the stats don't lie".

 

[Scotchegg]

This plus it's hard to argue with the fact that we are the highest scorers in the league. I come back to that again and again. As Shakira might have said if she was talking about Mark Harris' contribution to the team: "the stats don't lie".

Oh, baby, when you miss like that
You make a woman go weepy
So be wise, and keep on,
Reading the signs of the keepy

We're on tonight
You know the stats don't lie
But I'm starting to feel it's right
All the attraction, the tension
Don't you see, Sparky, this is perfection?

 

[Nadi-]

Has taken a lot of criticism lately, especially after Saturday. But none were any better.
Tonight his work rate and effort was first class. Showed 2 nd half how pace and directness on the right caused their back line real problems.
The goal return hasn’t been good, so 2 strikers come January.
Edwards, Browne, Murphy, Harris in the wide births will make us more of a threat up front.

 

[Symp59]

Absolutely a class player for league 1 we need a solid striker in and maybe take a flyer on a young national league player. We need God out on loan.

 

[brightonyellow]

Get Ruben on the blower to Langstaff !

 

[ChamonixOx]

His movement today was top drawer. Never going to be an out and out goal scorer, but after a disappointing performance Saturday, tonight he was back to doing what he does best.

 

[RagingBull]

Has taken a lot of criticism lately, especially after Saturday. But none were any better.
Tonight his work rate and effort was first class. Showed 2 nd half how pace and directness on the right caused their back line real problems.
The goal return hasn’t been good, so 2 strikers come January.
Edwards, Browne, Murphy, Harris in the wide births will make us more of a threat up front.

I agree that Harris looked much more threatening when wide on the right. I actually think he will score more from that position coming in on an angle and with less time to think about what he is doing. I’d play him out there and put Bodin up top until we can get a striker or two in January.

 

[dickwalton1964]

There was a really good ball put in in the first half when Harris and Bodin sort of left it or got in each others way and in the second half I think it was Murphy who put a great cross in, low and hard, crying out for a tap in. He’s got lots of attributes but right time, right place doesn’t appear to be one of them.

 

[Foley]

There was a really good ball put in in the first half when Harris and Bodin sort of left it or got in each others way and in the second half I think it was Murphy who put a great cross in, low and hard, crying out for a tap in. He’s got lots of attributes but right time, right place doesn’t appear to be one of them.

Murphy put a couple of really good crosses in from the left.
The best one ( where nobody got on the end of) was when GoD had already cone on? I was thinking at the time that GoD , as the central striker should really have been anticipating the cross and trying to get on the end of it

 

[Symp59]

Sadly I don't see God anticipating much. He definitely needs to be out on loan and learning to score goals. Iam sure we will have e a striker in early in January if we want to keep the momentum up.

 

[TailsWeWin]

Sadly I don't see God anticipating much. He definitely needs to be out on loan and learning to score goals. Iam sure we will have e a striker in early in January if we want to keep the momentum up.

It’s his biggest and most obvious failing. He never seems to anticipate a ball to him or run into a space where he can be found with a pass. It really is a problem for a “striker “ in a top league one club.

 

[MustardYellow]

I'm baffled as to how people can think Harris performed well last night.

All too often he isn't an option. A few times last night we had the opportunity to break away or counter and he didn't run in behind, or drop back to receive the ball. He's never in the box when he should be - he just doesn't seem to read the game.

He definitely isn't a striker. Maybe try him on the wing and give someone else a go upfront?

 

[Older Shotts]

It'll be interesting to see what DB does up front on Saturday - rest Harris and give someone else a try, or play him and hope he can score against a lower division side...?

 

[Older Shotts]

I'm baffled as to how people can think Harris performed well last night.

All too often he isn't an option. A few times last night we had the opportunity to break away or counter and he didn't run in behind, or drop back to receive the ball. He's never in the box when he should be - he just doesn't seem to read the game.

He definitely isn't a striker. Maybe try him on the wing and give someone else a go upfront?

Agree. Although we dont really have any strikers at the club.. at least noone you can rely on to score.
Maybe give Sonny a runout or send him back to Leeds.
Bodin is the "best" option, but even he fluffed a good chance last night, failing to make proper contact where you'd expect someone of his ability and experience to bury it.

 

[MustardYellow]

Agree. Although we dont really have any strikers at the club.. at least noone you can rely on to score.
Maybe give Sonny a runout or send him back to Leeds.
Bodin is the "best" option, but even he fluffed a good chance last night, failing to make proper contact where you'd expect someone of his ability and experience to bury it.

Worth maybe even giving Woltman a go?