Graham: Hopefully I’ve shut a few people up
Last updated 09:38, Saturday, 23 August 2008
FIRST there were a few choice comments from John Ward on the subject, then the player himself put a bullet through the debate with some stunning deeds and cutting words.
The subject of Danny Graham’s failure to score for Carlisle United in pre-season was downgraded to the tiniest footnote when the striker bashed Crewe out of sight last Saturday and then rose up against the suggestion that he had been groping for goalscoring form.
“I don’t want pre-season goals, I want league and cup goals,” said United’s number nine, quite convincingly. “Anyway, that’s two in three now so hopefully I’ve shut a few people up.”
Ward, who had started the weekend with a firm defence of Graham’s talents, also felt entitled to protest: “We get asked these questions about Danny Graham, about whether two games is a drought.
“I don’t know. There shouldn’t be questions asked. We have stuck with the fellow, we did it through 15 or 16 last season, so I am certainly not going to chuck him away after two matches.”
Let’s be clear from the off and say the question came from this quarter. Let’s be even clearer and agree that the work Graham laid down at Brunton Park a week ago spoke louder than any press-conference quote.
No apologies for asking the question, by the way, because since we had rightly been urged to consider the confidence-boosting implications of the pre-season goal rush enjoyed by Danny Carlton, surely it’s fair to peer over to the other side of the fence and ask if an assassin’s self-belief has been attacked in any meaningful way by failing to register in the same period?
The answer was a loud “No”, it turned out. And, to be accurate, the word “drought” never did pop up in print or conversation prior to the laceration of Crewe. But there is no desire here to pursue a meaningless squabble – and every wish to bring some clarity to all the pub-table discussions on United’s foremost striker as he continues to divide popular opinion.
Ward’s other comments on Graham were by far the most telling, and they are propped up by statistics. “If he gets crosses, Danny Graham will score goals,” the Blues manager said. “He is at his best attacking the ball in the box when it is coming from wide.”
That’s not just a perception. It is factually on the button. After his brutal brace against Crewe, I flicked back through all the striker’s 26 goals for United from the last couple of seasons. The findings support Ward’s words emphatically.
Laying aside four penalties and the goals which bounced in off his chin (Brighton) and backside (Leeds), every single one of Graham’s net-bulgers have been dispatched first-time, with his right boot or his head.
Of that tally, 15 were converted from crosses aimed in from the flanks. The other five he buried from through-balls, or the odd outbreak of goalmouth pinball.
In other words: no elaborate solo goals, no taking of a touch or two before taking aim. Only immediate strikes with a single swing of the foot or thrust of the head.
The thrust of all this is that Graham does not engineer his own goals from thin air (for that, recall Michael Bridges in his swaggering pomp, or Joe Garner blasting home from unlikely territory), but relies on sharp, economical movement in the area to allow him to take the highest dividend from decent service. His stunning first goal against Crewe – the cross from Scott Dobie, the angled run and ripping volley – was a spectacular demonstration of this strength.
As, for instance, was his winner against Doncaster at Brunton Park last season: a low, winger’s centre from Cleveland Taylor, a near-post sprint ahead of the defender and a clean, ruthless finish from the forward (to my mind, this was the archetypal Graham goal - our ultimate reference point on the former Middlesbrough sniper).
It is precisely these attributes which prompted Ward to enter the market for a right-winger (Taylor) last January, and which exerts serious influence on his decision to field two flank-hugging wide men at the start of this season (Simon Hackney and Scott Dobie).
Another point worth slipping in here is that Graham has just turned 23 and is commencing only his second season of regular first-team play.
If his Premier League background tends to deny him the patience granted to other young players, it’s daft to argue that he is not still developing; a goal-grabbing work-in-progress.
It’s not an issue which needs to be pushed around the plate, so here’s the conclusion: Graham may have fewer dimensions than other strikers, but all that ought to mean is that United’s creators are encouraged to work to his particular strengths at every opportunity.
They serve, he scores. In that formula there is a more lasting rebuke to criticism than anything uttered into a microphone or scribbled onto a notepad.
JON COLMAN
