Poor finishing is not bad luck

Aaron Mokoena my friend, the misses that we seem to be punished for this season have nothing to do with bad luck!

Whilst I agree with him that we do need a touch more luck, and also agree that the spirit and attitude cannot be faulted, some of the finishing that we have seen from our 'strikers' this season has been abysmal and you cannot put these misses down to luck, merely poor finishing...

Aruna Dindane missed a couple of sitters at the weekend with Freddy P and David Nugent - before he was moved on - guilty of some horrendous misses as well earlier in the season, so all-in-all this is what is costing us at the moment.

I am not looking to shift the blame onto the strikers, as it is my thinking that you win as a team and lose as a team - as the saying goes there is no I in team, but they are paid to score goals, are they not? Granted we have seen some misfortune but you cannot and will not win games without finding the back of the net.

We are now creating the chances, and players are getting into the positions to score them they are just missing them! A little more composure at times, less haste and all that and at times a more clinical finish and we will laughing as we climb the table - the more we fail to convert the more we will get punished.

They always say that it is better for strikers to get into positions and miss them than not get into this positions at all, but the more they do miss the more you would start thinking you wish they would not - it is a double edged knife in many ways, although I am sure, at least I hope, we will start putting more of these away very soon!

Better teams will punish you for not taking your chances, and I guess all in all this is what we have found this season, certainly against Citeh, Villa, Everton and Spurs - all games we could have at least drawn, if not won but for better finishing. Then again others such as Fulham Birmingham and Bolton merely punished us by capitalising on mistakes and ensuring they made the most of luck of chances they got, so Mokoena is right in some ways with the luck when you think about it.

As said previously we really need to bring in a quality striker in January, but unless we take chances in the meantime we run the risk of being cut adrift and then we have no hope of a quality striker arriving!

This weekend against Hull, this is when we start taking the chances! I know we need to. Come on guys, it is time for you to start tucking more of these chances away so we are not left to rue missed opportunities...

PLAY UP POMPEY!

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