Trouble Up Front

It's probably a bit naïve to be yearning for a goal-sniffer up front; after all, just about every team wants one. However, I can't help thinking that with a little more predatory behaviour in the box we'd have got off to a flyer this season!

That's not meant as a criticism of the current front two. Neil Roberts always worls hard while Michael Proctor has already been hitting the net as well as showing the qualities which have already made him a cult hero at The Racecourse.

The thing is, I see both Proctor and Roberts as the sort of strikers a fox-in-the-box would love to feed off, but how do you accommodate these two and a goal poacher in the same side? I sound like I'm just calling for Brian Carey to pack his side with eleven strikers on the basis that we're then bound to score lots of goals, as a five-year-old or Kevin Keegan might reason. 4-3-3 could be the answer, although I have reservations about that system.

So do we have a goal sniffer? Eifion Williams could be the man; his strike rate suggests he's the most likely goalscorer Carey currently has available to him.

His next league goal will be his seventy-fifth, more than anyone else in Carey's squad by some distance and although he missed a great chance aganst Hereford, at least he got into the sort of position consistent goalscorers get into.

Of course, it wasn't by accident that I said Williams is the most likely goalscorer available to Carey currently. It's not really healthy to speculate on the effect Juan Ugarte could make on League Two defences. After all, we've been asking that question for over a year now, so it's best to give him every chance to get fit and sharp again. However, seeing the ball rolling time and time again across the face of goal this season I couldn't help yearning for the Basque to be lurking in the six-yard box. Roberts and Proctor are both good strikers, but they're not that type of striker.

There is another option, though. Jamie Reed is a player who has consistently scored goals at reserve level, and I wouldn't mind seeing him given a go at some point. Being on loan at Aberyswyth should help his confidence. Already he's scored a hat trick in a 5-1 win against T.N.S. and followed it up wit a brilliant goal on his home debut.

I never felt convinced by Andy Morrell when he first broke into the team; his endeavour and enthusiasm were undoubted, but he looked to lack a bit of class to me. However, he had scored consistently in the reserves and the Welsh Premier Cup, and eventually that innate ability to stick the ball in the net showed through in the Football League, with spectacular results. I reckon Reed could well be on the same sort of career path.