Nine games, including the League Cup game, in to the season and just three goals scored. A good trivia question would be who has scored those goals. The answer Nathan Delfouenso, Nile Ranger and Tomas Cywka. So no goals yet from Ishmael Miller, Francois Zoko or Steven Davies, just one from midfield and so far the defence have failed to chip in anything (although in fairness they have been a bit busy!).

Last season, especially once we lost Tom Ince, there was a clear problem at Bloomfield Road - we weren't scoring enough goals. The fact that Ince went on to be our top scorer, despite heading on his taxi ride around the country with his Dad in January, speaks volumes. Ince ended the campaign on 7 goals, Ricardo Fuller was next on 6 whilst Stephen Dobbie chipped in 4. None of them returned for the start of this campaign and so there were your top 3 goalscorers off your books. We were left with Steven Davies who scored 3 last year and Bobby Grant who appeared to have problems hitting the rump of a bovine animal with a musical instrument.

So it was a fresh start this season for Jose Riga who would have looked at the stats last season and seen that the Seasiders only scored 38 league goals - less than one per game. Whilst the restraints of the Chairman clearly took it's toll, but were the strikers he brought in up to the job. Ishmael Miller's stats were decent. At Yeovil last season he made 19 appearances and scored 10 goals and so you would think over a season he would have 15-20 in his bag. So far we have failed to see a fit or indeed goalscoring Miller. Nile Ranger has managed just 12 goals in his 86 senior appearances, although again knocked in a decent 7 in 19 games with his last side Swindon. Francois Zoko's return of 20 goals in 88 appearances for Carlisle was pretty decent and last season knocked in 16 in 37 games for Stevenage - again good stats for a campaign. Finally Delfouenso who scored 6 goals in 41 games for Blackpool in the 2012/13 season but failed to hit the back of the net when he returned for 11 games last campaign.

So on paper you do have strikers who have proven they know how to score and yet this season have failed to do so. With so few shots on target and, so far, a failure to work out a settled front two, Jose Riga must be wondering if he's got the right men for the job or needs to head out and find a new striker? For what it's worth, our advice would be to look at the next bank of four players in midfield and ask are they supplying enough to the front men. Sort this problem out and we might start firing on all cylinders.

Photo: Action Images

Bigbrother added 08:45 - Sep 23 Interesting when you look at all those goal stats that we do have 3, if not 4, players who have achieved decent goals to games ratios in the last 12 months. I'd agree that it's our midfield that have let us down - that and the fact that Riga seems reluctant to start with Ranger who still looks our biggest threat.
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