Report Cards: Forwards
Next to be graded is the forwards, Chris and Pete mark the seasons of Albion's attackers...
So, you’ve seen Pete and Chris’s grades for our defenders and central midfielders (and if you haven’t then the link to find them is here) so it’s now time for the attackers.
As with last time, only players who played 10x90s in the league were included and the grading scale goes from A+ to F.
Let’s see how they did:
Jed Wallace
Chris: B+
Albion’s Mr Versatile really played a captain’s role for us this season in my opinion. Jed did what the team needed of him throughout the 23/24 campaign and played wherever the manager needed him to.
Of his 36 starts, 15 were wide on the right, 13 were at centre-forward, 7 were in central midfield and one was wide on the left.
As a result, some of his numbers suffered this season but he also did a job in all of those roles. In a nutshell, Jed sacrificed his season so ours might prosper.
Pete: B+
Largely played out of position but has done a decent job as a striker and always worked hard up there. Showed brilliant movement for his goal at the King Power Stadium. Constantly made runs in behind to stretch a defence and give Albion an out-ball, also worked very hard in pressing and hassling defenders.
We probably would have seen more out of Jed had he played as a right winger and been allowed to whip balls into the box, but we needed another option upfront and the skipper stepped up. Also, we may not have seen the breakthrough season of Tom Fellows had Jed played on the right more often.
Grady Diangana
Chris: A
My attacking player of the season.
Grady’s season took a little while to get going but when it did – wow!
Before heading to AFCON, he racked up 9 goal contributions in his last 16 games from predominantly a wide right or wide left position.
He returned in February to find that Mikey Johnston and Tom Fellows had made competition for the wide berths fierce.
No matter, Grady just reinvented himself as a number 10 racking up a further six goal contributions in the final dozen games of the regular season!
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