History shows that promotion sides need a top striker
THE focus has switched heavily to Chris Wilder’s strikeforce as the Boro boss carefully prepares his promotion assault.
We’ll soon have a very good idea whether Boro have the right men in place to make a positive challenge for, at the very least, a top six spot.
Having focussed on the club’s modern-day promotion successes in this column throughout the summer, one thing is perfectly clear. Goalscorers are pretty useful to the cause.
Yet Aitor Karanka achieved Boro’s previous promotion six years ago without a single player reaching double figures in the Championship.
Scoring goals was very much a combined effort. In fact virtually every member of the squad weighed in with a few strikes.
The top scorer in the league in Karanka’s side with eight goals was David Nugent, who Karanka had bought for £4m from Leicester City during the summer.
In four seasons with Leicester, Nugent had scored a goal in every three games. He found goals harder to come by at Boro, but as a lone striker probably had a lot fewer chances.
Just behind Nugent, on seven goals, were Cristhian Stuani and Gaston Ramirez.
Stuani was a natural finisher who would certainly have scored more goals in a front two, and if he had not been utilised so often on the right hand side of midfield.
Next in the scoring charts came Jordan Rhodes and Albert Adomah on six.
Collectively the team compiled 63 Championship goals, which is a very low tally for a team winning automatic promotion to the Premier League.
Much of this can be attributed to the fact that Karanka was a big fan of the one-striker system, yet in the final reckoning the relative shortage of goals was not really seen as much of a negative.
That’s because the Spanish boss built his sides from the back.
The emphasis always lay heavily on a tight organised defence supported by a strong midfield.
No doubt the optimum situation for Wilder this season would be to be able to call on two main strikers who could score 30 goals between them.
However this is a lot easier said than done. Karanka showed that you can get by without prolific strikers if you have major strengths elsewhere.
When winning his second promotion, Bryan Robson’s two top scorers were not too far away from achieving the magical 30-goal tally.
Mikkel Beck, often dismissed lightly in the history books, top scored with 14 goals while the mercurial Paul Merson netted 12 times.
In all competitions the duo topped 30 goals between them.
When Robson first guided Boro into the Premier League three years earlier, John Hendrie with 15 was the only one to reach double figures.
This was all the more amazing because the Scot had been converted from an orthodox winger into a striker, with Robbo taking full advantage of his finishing skills.
Lennie Lawrence was the last Boro manager to win promotion with two strikers topping 30 goals between them. Bernie Slaven netted 16 and Paul Wilkinson 15 in 1992-93.
Bruce Rioch had just the one player reaching double figures in 1988. It was the prolific goal-getter Slaven himself. Bernie, one of the best finishers ever to play for the club, enjoyed arguably his best ever season in a Boro shirt when weighing in with 21 league goals.
Twelve months earlier Slaven scored 17 times as Rioch’s Boro won promotion at the first attempt following liquidation. Slaven’s fellow striker Archie Stephens was just one goal behind on 16 in a very effective striking partnership.
So the stats from Boro’s recent promotions indicate a mixed bag as
far as strikers are concerned.
You’ve got to have them, but you can get by if you’ve got goalscorers spread throughout the side, in addition to a solid defence. While Wilder will be looking for all of those qualities from his side, he also knows that he’s got the January window to fall back on should everything not go to plan this summer.
Karanka showed that the January window should not be overlooked if there is extra funding available. Aitor stuck with much of the same squad during his promotion campaign though he made one significant change half way through which changed the whole impact of the side.
He brought in littleknown Uruguayan midfielder Ramirez on loan from Southampton. As a result Boro were virtually transformed overnight.
Ramirez also scored seven vital goals, most of which came from stylish finishes which help boost the confidence of the whole side.
Overall Ramirez netted one goal more than fellow January new boy Rhodes, who was picked up from Blackburn Rovers for £9m. The 13 goals which the duo scored were worth their weight in gold in the final promotion reckoning.
Robson was another to fully utilise the mid-season transfer opportunities.
He made several additional purchases during both promotion campaigns, the most significant being the swoop for Marco Branca in 1998.
It is especially noteworthy that Branca was a striker.
Robbo was very keen to keep improving his attack as the campaign progressed. In addition to Branca, he also brought in Alun Armstrong and Hamilton Ricard.
Three years earlier the big German Uwe Fuchs was an inspired loan signing and made a significant contribution to the promotion cause.
Fuchs revitalised a side which was beginning to lose its way a little and scored several vital goals to keep Boro on track.
Nor was Robbo finished there. In an era when the transfer deadline fell annually in late March, Bryan added Norwegian international Jan Aage Fjortoft to the fray for the final few weeks of the campaign.
Lawrence also tried to make a telling change to his attack during the season when signing Andy Payton from Hull City for £700,000. Payton had been prolific for the Tigers and no doubt he was seen as a replacement for Slaven, who had not always seen eye to eye with the manager.
Unfortunately Payton was injured immediately following his arrival. So Lawrence had little opportunity to develop a Payton-Wilkinson striking partnership. Rioch was never afforded the luxury of making much in the way of additions to his squads in the summer, never mind during the campaign.
Bruce never had much cash at his disposal, he did make a very astute signing in the January of the first promotion season. When the club’s transfer signing ban was finally lifted, the Boro board made a little money available which was used to bring in Paul Kerr from Aston Villa.
Kerr was essentially an orthodox striker when he arrived on Teesside. However a lack of numbers meant that he had to operate as an attacking midfielder.
In this role Kerr made major contributions to both of Rioch’s successes.
Rioch was the only one of the last four Boro promotion managers to have to make do with what he had. His motivational factors are beyond dispute.
Rioch turned young, hungry footballers into great players, several of them becoming full internationals.
It’s hard to imagine such a success being achievable in the modern era. You won’t get too far with a very thin squad and little money in the bank.
Rioch clearly earned great respect from his players throughout the two promotion runs but then that’s clearly been the case with the successful managers since.
Lawrence and Robson made an immediate impact as new managers, though Robson did it all over again three years later.
Karanka built slowly over two and a half years yet we are all expecting Wilder to create a promotion side more quickly.
Wilder will be able to take positives from all of the recent promotion campaigns.
However he’s clearly his own man and can be expected to stick with his own tried and tested approach to winning games.
Karanka built slowly over two and a half years yet we are all expecting Wilder to create a promotion side
more quickly.