Yet again tonight the team looked to have no cutting edge whatsoever. Neither McCormack nor Bothroyd look like genuine strikers. Parry, who was utterly pathetic this evening, is a winger. And as for Johnson, well he looks like he might be in the wrong sport judging by his efforts so far.
I was hoping the barren spell would end this evening but on it goes. It's now almost seven full matches without a goal from open play by a striker.
If we remove McCormack's penalties from his record, our strikers' stats this season are as follows:
Jay Bothroyd - 5 (+4) appearances, 0 goals
Eddie Johnson - 2 (+2) appearances, 0 goals
Ross McCormack - 7 (+3) appearances, 2 goals
Paul Parry - 8 (+2) appearances, 2 goals
That's an overall total of 22 (+11) appearances, 4 goals.
Two of those four goals were scored by Paul Parry against Bournemouth - a side who currently sit 23rd in League Two.
It's not good.
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The Echo today have used the same stats to start a quite hard hitting article criticising the club on several levels.
That piece is here
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CARDIFF City's feeble capitulation in the South Wales derby raises a number of troubling questions.
We could dwell on the gutless display by a number of the Bluebirds personnel in this massive encounter, but what would be the point?
You would hope boss Dave Jones has already gone over that in private - and very forcibly at that.
We could also focus on the fact that, as he watched his side over-run in midfield for almost the entire game, Jones looked on impassively, seemingly unwilling or unable to do anything about it.
When he did intervene, Jones got it wrong, dragging off Joe Ledley, who always has a goal in him, and leaving on Stephen McPhail who quite frankly had been a red-card waiting to happen for some time.
Indeed, stuck with his rigid 4-4-2 formation, Jones' inability to think on his feet was drawn into even sharper relief by the imagination and flair of Roberto Martinez.
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