Zohore - indispensible or time for a kick up the arse?

4 goals in 20 games this season is frankly poor for a striker of his ability. I agree with comments elsewhere that he's not a poacher, even particularly a penalty box striker. It's worth reminding ourselves that, last season, we saw him net 10 goals in 11, so the argument that he's a good target man who creates chances for others if he doesn't score himself doesn't hold weight.

Is he worth the £15 million Everton allegedly offered back in the summer? It's a question worth asking.

Bogle and Ward have better scoring ratios than Zohore. Bogle, in particular, has looked like a handful.

While Zohore was injured, we won 7 league games out of 10. Since his return, we've won 4 points from 24. We've only lost 1 league game this season that Zohore hasn't featured in and that was because of a silly red card picked up by Bogle. We scored 16 goals in the 10 games he missed, with Bogle or Ward (Zohore's replacement) scoring 6 of those 16. Since Zohore's return to the team, we've scored 11 in all competitions with Zohore getting 1.

There was a recent question as to who City fans preferred - Zohore or Bothroyd. In his 3 seasons with us, Bothroyd scored 12, 13 and 20 goals respectively. At Zohore's current rate he's not likely to hit double figures this season.

I fully appreciate that this doesn't take into account Zohore's hold up play, his great assist for Ralls last week, but in terms of goals and stats, claims that Zohore deserves to be our number 1 striker are flaky at best.

To be fair, he did have a perfectly good goal disallowed

Drop him bring in Pilkington

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Originally Posted by City123

To be fair, he did have a perfectly good goal disallowed

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Agreed. I thought he did reasonably well tonight.

I think he's still getting fully back up to speed after the injury lay-off - but he is very close.

I can't think of any other striker in the club at present that I'd rather have out there than Ken Zohore - even if he is not getting the goals at the moment. His overall play (especially when the ball is kept on the ground) is mostly excellent - and he should have had one to his name this evening. He had a barren patch early in the season whilst playing well (between Burton and Leeds), and a poor run after coming back into the team after the injury when he clearly wasn't fully fit.

I expect him to produce from now on.

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Originally Posted by jon1959

I think he's still getting fully back up to speed after the injury lay-off - but he is very close.

I can't think of any other striker in the club at present that I'd rather have out there than Ken Zohore - even if he is not getting the goals at the moment. His overall play (especially when the ball is kept on the ground) is mostly excellent - and he should have had one to his name this evening. He had a barren patch early in the season whilst playing well (between Burton and Leeds), and a poor run after coming back into the team after the injury when he clearly wasn't fully fit.

I expect him to produce from now on.

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I'm of a similar mind on this. I would expect that, if the goals still don't come after a few more games, he'll need dropping.

I thought he played a lot better tonight than recently, but yes he does need a rocket up his ****in arse or drop him!!

Thought he worked hard but the service to him was poor.

He scored a cracking goal that should never have been disallowed.

What else could he have done tonight?

Completely unnecessary post and we were, for large parts of the game by far the better side.

That was a superb goal mistakenly disallowed by the ref. Bullied the defender and a fantastic finish. Ken at his best.

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Originally Posted by Baloo

That was a superb goal mistakenly disallowed by the ref. Bullied the defender and a fantastic finish. ken at his best.

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Kick up the arse.

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Originally Posted by Eric the Half a Bee

4 goals in 20 games this season is frankly poor for a striker of his ability. I agree with comments elsewhere that he's not a poacher, even particularly a penalty box striker. It's worth reminding ourselves that, last season, we saw him net 10 goals in 11, so the argument that he's a good target man who creates chances for others if he doesn't score himself doesn't hold weight.

Is he worth the £15 million Everton allegedly offered back in the summer? It's a question worth asking.

Bogle and Ward have better scoring ratios than Zohore. Bogle, in particular, has looked like a handful.

While Zohore was injured, we won 7 league games out of 10. Since his return, we've won 4 points from 24. We've only lost 1 league game this season that Zohore hasn't featured in and that was because of a silly red card picked up by Bogle. We scored 16 goals in the 10 games he missed, with Bogle or Ward (Zohore's replacement) scoring 6 of those 16. Since Zohore's return to the team, we've scored 11 in all competitions with Zohore getting 1.

There was a recent question as to who City fans preferred - Zohore or Bothroyd. In his 3 seasons with us, Bothroyd scored 12, 13 and 20 goals respectively. At Zohore's current rate he's not likely to hit double figures this season.

I fully appreciate that this doesn't take into account Zohore's hold up play, his great assist for Ralls last week, but in terms of goals and stats, claims that Zohore deserves to be our number 1 striker are flaky at best.

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Should have cashed in. He was in good form, perhaps the best form of his life, and the club should have cashed in.

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Originally Posted by Helen Menken

Kick up the arse.

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Takes guts and intellect.

Hopefully he’ll get some competition very soon, Warnock has hinted that we’ll get a striker in before the next league game.

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Originally Posted by WJ99mobile

What else could he have done tonight?

Completely unnecessary post and we were, for large parts of the game by far the better side.

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4 goals in 20 appearances yet unnecessary? Interesting.

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Originally Posted by Eric the Half a Bee

4 goals in 20 appearances yet unnecessary? Interesting.

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There's more to a striker's game than scoring goals, I'm sure you know that.

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Originally Posted by Badly Ironed Shirt

There's more to a striker's game than scoring goals, I'm sure you know that.

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Of course I am. I'm more worried that our dip in form and results have coincided with his return to the team. It could be a coincidence, of course.

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Originally Posted by Eric the Half a Bee

Of course I am. I'm more worried that our dip in form and results have coincided with his return to the team. It could be a coincidence, of course.

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My honest opinion is that he found a rich bit of form that he won't ever replicate. I will probably be proven wrong, I don't see any Cardiff games these days so it is unfair for me to comment purely on the stats you supplied. Maybe he brings more to the team than your stats indicate. Problem is, with a striker who has banged in goals, a manager will have to give the benefit of the doubt because he may start scoring again and, if he's dropped and your team stops scoring fans will ask why he isn't playing.

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Originally Posted by Badly Ironed Shirt

My honest opinion is that he found a rich bit of form that he won't ever replicate. I will probably be proven wrong, I don't see any Cardiff games these days so it is unfair for me to comment purely on the stats you supplied. Maybe he brings more to the team than your stats indicate. Problem is, with a striker who has banged in goals, a manager will have to give the benefit of the doubt because he may start scoring again and, if he's dropped and your team stops scoring fans will ask why he isn't playing.

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This 100%. I suppose it's how long does this last. There has to be a cut off point.

Looking at other stats during Zohore's absence and his return, we've managed less shots on target since Zohore came back than when he was injured. Take the Sunderland free-for-all out of the equation and we managed 1.5 shots on target per game more when Zohore was injured than when he's played.

Looking at it statistically, it appears that Zohore isn't a natural goalscorer, despite last season's efforts. He probably needs a strike partner who can feed from his efforts, not wide midfielders trying to plug many gaps.

He's good, just not good enough for our style. Many of his chances seem to be him running on an angle and shooting near post, easily saved. Shame really he looked a tank in the second half of last season, but we need someone in and pronto.


Also for what it's worth, his goal today, probably wouldn't have been a goal as the keeper had given up on the play. But nonetheless, it wasn't a foul.

No keeper was saving that!

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Originally Posted by Der Kaiser

He's good, just not good enough for our style. Many of his chances seem to be him running on an angle and shooting near post, easily saved. Shame really he looked a tank in the second half of last season, but we need someone in and pronto.


Also for what it's worth, his goal today, probably wouldn't have been a goal as the keeper had given up on the play. But nonetheless, it wasn't a foul.

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This was true early in the season as well. Eric's stats ignore the fact that we has scored in eight in our previous two games with Zohore in the line up and that early in the season we were right up there among the leaders in the goal attempts and attempts on target figures, while Zohore's figures for his own goal attempts were high as well - trouble is most of the time they were from the sort of areas Der Kaiser describes.

The disallowing of last night's goal sums up how things are going for Ken this season, his luck is down and I feel he is a player whose head can drop quicker than with many other players. He's not being helped either by the fact that the service to him since he has returned has, for the most part, been dreadful if you are looking to play to his strengths. He can be criticised for not being as effective a "traditional" target man as he should be given his size, but, even when is was really on form last season, we got little out of the ploy of booting it up to him to win in the air - yet since his return we seem to think that his injury break has transformed him into Andy Carroll!

It's so instructive that, when we did finally give him the sort of pass he thrives on, he created a goal for Joe Ralls. It's been mentioned that last season's purple patch was a one off for Zohore and maybe it was because the sort of service from which he is most effective tends to mean that the odds are often against him scoring when he gets a shooting opportunity.

Even if he doesn't increase his scoring rate for the rest of the season, I still agree with jon 1959 that he is the best option we have to lead the attack and I'd still feel the same way if we signed one of the players we have been linked with this month - in my view, two things need to happen with Zohore, first the service to him has to improve a lot and second he needs to get his head right (I agree with Neil Warnock that his problems are mental rather than physical at the moment).

Without a question of doubt the best player we have. Nobody seriously comes close.

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Originally Posted by jon1959

I think he's still getting fully back up to speed after the injury lay-off - but he is very close.

I can't think of any other striker in the club at present that I'd rather have out there than Ken Zohore - even if he is not getting the goals at the moment. His overall play (especially when the ball is kept on the ground) is mostly excellent - and he should have had one to his name this evening. He had a barren patch early in the season whilst playing well (between Burton and Leeds), and a poor run after coming back into the team after the injury when he clearly wasn't fully fit.

I expect him to produce from now on.

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spot on matey,it is time we got somone to score off his great play making.

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Originally Posted by WJ99mobile

What else could he have done tonight?

Completely unnecessary post and we were, for large parts of the game by far the better side.

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In the words of John McEnroe - you cannot be serious!

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Originally Posted by Eric the Half a Bee

4 goals in 20 games this season is frankly poor for a striker of his ability. I agree with comments elsewhere that he's not a poacher, even particularly a penalty box striker. It's worth reminding ourselves that, last season, we saw him net 10 goals in 11, so the argument that he's a good target man who creates chances for others if he doesn't score himself doesn't hold weight.

Is he worth the £15 million Everton allegedly offered back in the summer? It's a question worth asking.

Bogle and Ward have better scoring ratios than Zohore. Bogle, in particular, has looked like a handful.

While Zohore was injured, we won 7 league games out of 10. Since his return, we've won 4 points from 24. We've only lost 1 league game this season that Zohore hasn't featured in and that was because of a silly red card picked up by Bogle. We scored 16 goals in the 10 games he missed, with Bogle or Ward (Zohore's replacement) scoring 6 of those 16. Since Zohore's return to the team, we've scored 11 in all competitions with Zohore getting 1.

There was a recent question as to who City fans preferred - Zohore or Bothroyd. In his 3 seasons with us, Bothroyd scored 12, 13 and 20 goals respectively. At Zohore's current rate he's not likely to hit double figures this season.

I fully appreciate that this doesn't take into account Zohore's hold up play, his great assist for Ralls last week, but in terms of goals and stats, claims that Zohore deserves to be our number 1 striker are flaky at best.

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"so the argument that he's a good target man who creates chances for others if he doesn't score himself doesn't hold weight."



"I fully appreciate that this doesn't take into account Zohore's hold up play, his great assist for Ralls last week, but in terms of goals and stats, claims that Zohore deserves to be our number 1 striker are flaky at best."



I Think if we keep the ball on the floor like we did lastnight he will soon be useful again.

Was a good performance from him lastnight.
Ultimately we wa t our striker to score goals..but he also needs better service.

Once lastnight he held his run when grujic wanted to play him through..other than that I can't think what he did wrong.

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Originally Posted by dembethewarrior

"so the argument that he's a good target man who creates chances for others if he doesn't score himself doesn't hold weight."



"I fully appreciate that this doesn't take into account Zohore's hold up play, his great assist for Ralls last week, but in terms of goals and stats, claims that Zohore deserves to be our number 1 striker are flaky at best."



I Think if we keep the ball on the floor like we did lastnight he will soon be useful again.

Was a good performance from him lastnight.
Ultimately we wa t our striker to score goals..but he also needs better service.

Once lastnight he held his run when grujic wanted to play him through..other than that I can't think what he did wrong.

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Without doubt he's not a target man. I agree he played well last night and was unfortunate about the goal (though I think the keeper would have saved it, the whistle had long gone).

My question was more looking at his goalscoring record. There's a hypothetical question somewhere about whether goals are the first indicator of a striker's worth to a team. If the answer to that is 'no', but then the team stops scoring goals and getting points in the bag, who are we expecting to find the net?

I hate to say it but I think all the hype has worn off now. He is struggling to score goals in a decent side?

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Originally Posted by Eric the Half a Bee

Without doubt he's not a target man. I agree he played well last night and was unfortunate about the goal (though I think the keeper would have saved it, the whistle had long gone).

My question was more looking at his goalscoring record. There's a hypothetical question somewhere about whether goals are the first indicator of a striker's worth to a team. If the answer to that is 'no', but then the team stops scoring goals and getting points in the bag, who are we expecting to find the net?

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I'm with you...yes agree he is no target man and we look better (and he does) when we play it on the floor.

We should expect more goals from him I agree with you there..yes he does well for others..but ultimately he's on the pitch to score goals.