Why are top calibre strikers so hard to find . . . ?
ALMOST two thirds into a remarkably quiet January transfer window and some of the Premier League’s biggest clubs are wrestling with a familiar dilemma. Where can they find the centre forward that can influence their season?
At Tottenham, coach Mauricio Pochettino wants some support for Harry Kane. Chelsea’s interim manager Guus Hiddink has told Roman Abramovich that his squad needs another goalscorer and Napoli centre forward Gonzalo Higuain has briefly been discussed once again this month.
But agents working on behalf of both clubs, and indeed others, have reported back the same story. Not only are centre forwards the most valuable addition to any top-flight squad, they are also increasingly the hardest to find.
Buying a striker in England was never quite the equivalent of the cricketing legend of hollering down a coal mine and waiting for the next fast bowler to come up in the lift. Nevertheless, watching Liverpool and Manchester United struggle for a focal point at the top of their formations at Anfield on Sunday highlighted an issue discussed at length by Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger recently.
Wenger, finally getting a consistent return out of his own traditional striker Olivier Giroud, said: “You notice it when you are on the transfer market. When you look around, you see that they are a rarity. When I arrived in England you could see in every club a forward who could head the ball, was dangerous on crosses and who was highly committed physically. But when you look around now, you see that less. It makes you wonder, ‘What is going on here?’”
In the Premier League this season, there have been success stories. Leicester, Watford and Everton, for example, will not complain about the value they have had so far from Jamie Vardy, Odion Ighalo or Romelu Lukaku.
Elsewhere, however, the returns on some substantial investment have been less impressive in recent years. Both United and Chelsea, for example, have cause to rue cash squandered on the fading talents of Radamel Falcao, Manchester City cannot find a way to bring Wilfried Bony to life while in Christian Benteke, Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has a £32-million centre forward he seems unwilling to play. Part of the problem is attributable to the coaches themselves, of course. Managers want finished articles immediately and lack the confidence to wait for emerging young talent to come good. United’s preference for Falcao ahead of young academy graduate James Wilson last season was an example of this.
Equally, modern thinking has it that it is better to play a formation with just one central striker. Therefore, some of Europe’s better centre forwards are hesitant to join English clubs because they fear they will not get in the team every week.
This is certainly one reason behind Higuain’s reluctance to come to Chelsea. The South American fears he will not get in the side ahead of Diego Costa while at Tottenham the club’s recruitment specialists are facing the same issue. Kane is Pochettino’s first pick and, as such, any attempt to buy another forward has that particular fact front and centre.
Current coaches tend to expect goals from all areas. United went into this season expecting returns from Memphis Depay and Anthony Martial while City reduced their strikers’ department from four to two hoping that they would get goals from Kevin De Bruyne and Raheem Sterling. So far, those four players have scored 17 league goals between them, which would appear to be flimsy evidence to support the argument that traditional number nines belong in the past.
Wenger, who has previously benefited from the goal returns of Robin van Persie and Thierry Henry, believes the problem is serious enough to advocate specialist coaching clinics – a finishing school for goalscorers. “I am convinced we have to do that,” he told www.arsenal.com. “Young play- ers are playing less in the park and the street where they develop that shrewdness.”
In South America that kind of environment remains. Another theory, of course, is that they are just cheaper. Ask any Premier League scout to talk about the possibility of recruiting Andre Gray from Burnley this January or perhaps Chris Martin from Derby County and their response would be the same.
The fee, if not the wages, would be vastly inflated for a player unproven in the Premier League.That is reflective of the fact that, where goalscorers are concerned, it remains very much a seller’s market. At the moment if there is another Vardy out there nobody knows where he is. – Daily Mail