[Football] Striker

[brighton_tom]

In terms of additions and improving the squad this is how I see it.

I'd like to see an experience goalkeeper come in as cover for Sanchez.

Our defence will be fine even with no more investment. Especially seeing as we have our loan players to come back & hopefully a fully fit March & Lamptey.

In midfield we could chance not making any significant signings because we have the likes of Moder, and Caicedo being more involved. Maybe an upgrade on Ali J could come in with him & Izquierdo departing. But we can be relaxed about this.

So a new striker is where the big question mark remains. Covid losses may mean that Andone is the new striker, but he may prefer to move on so we cant be sure on that. Seeing as its the main area where clear improvement is needed i'd say us buying a new £30m striker or not & just going with Andone/Maupay/Welbeck hinges on whether we can permanently move on Duffy/Locadia/Ryan/Jahanbaksh/Propper. Our advantage this transfer window with regards to a striker might be that because its one of very few positions to fill our recruitment team can focus on this project rather than having to bring in 5-8 other players & even if we do drop £30-35m on a striker that fee could be offset by the sale of others.

 

[Bry Nylon]

There must be SOMEONE out there who fancies getting on the end of 23 chances / game and sticking at least 1 of them away, who won't cost the earth.

The longer the club spends in the PL the more you realise that whoever scouted Jamie Vardy out of non-league football for £1m pulled off the football equivalent of Brian Epstein signing the Beatles.

 

[Larry Boyd]

Lets face it we will never ever have a prolific PL striker. A 50m-70m striker would never come to us plus even if he did we wouldn't be able to pay the transfer fee / wages, plus I imagine we would be competing with the likes of West Ham, Everton, Leicester, Villa and Newcastle for a player in that bracket who all could outbid us in terms of fee / wages. For example say Tammy Abraham came onto the market this season all of what I've just said would be applicable.

So we are moving down into the 15-20m market for players from the Belgian / Dutch / Fremch league and the championship which we all know is a big risk (acknowledge any transfer is) but even in that market we will still be down the pecking order (Watkins to Villa) for example.

Also in football there are no secrets anymore, all of the clubs have comprehensive inline scouting networks so if there is a guy banging them in in the french second division every club will know about him. I feel unless we get lucky the way we did with Ullua (albeit in the championship) we will never sign this elusive 'proven goalscorer.

 

[albionalbino]

Someone we aren't expecting from a league far, far away......
I'd imagine Paul Winstanley and Kyle Macaulay have been tracking players in Portugal, Turkey, Norway and dare I say it.... Holland.
Freshly relegated strikers and failed gossip from previous windows less likely.

 

[Mellotron]

the championship which we all know is a big risk (acknowledge any transfer is) but even in that market we will still be down the pecking order (Watkins to Villa) for example.

We signed Maupay, whose scoring record (at the exact same club) was better than Watkins'.

 

[Greg Bobkin]

AGUEROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

 

[Stumpy Tim]

Maupay is a 10 a season striker which costs 20m in prem and even that is a risk. Plus he is only 24 !!

Those casting aside will be the first to moan when we are struggling without those goals.

Maupay stays and is a very important squad member.

The question is who joins Maupay as options.

Agree 100%. Maupay will still be at the club, as I suspect, will Wellbeck. My view is that both Connolly and Zeqiri will be loaned out to the Championship and we will buy a new striker from somewhere. Our attacking options will be Maupay, Wellbeck, Trossard, Andone and another.

 

[zefarelly]

There must be SOMEONE out there who fancies getting on the end of 23 chances / game and sticking at least 1 of them away, who won't cost the earth.

The longer the club spends in the PL the more you realise that whoever scouted Jamie Vardy out of non-league football managed the football equivalent of Brian Epstein signing the Beatles.

And GP the Goerge MArtin . . . . Thats the other key, a striker who fits GP's cosmic vision or can be mentally manipulated not to shoot from outside the box

 

[Gazwag]

If we can find a way to just have Maupay as an out and out poacher, I think he will score more. He can't pass and is too selfish to drop deep, so play to his strengths and just have him in the box. Problem is it will weaken other parts of the pitch.

Did you miss cross of the season at Old Trafford then

 

[Gazwag]

AGUEROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Going to the biggest club in the world/universe I see on social media

 

[vagabond]

There must be SOMEONE out there who fancies getting on the end of 23 chances / game and sticking at least 1 of them away, who won't cost the earth.

The longer the club spends in the PL the more you realise that whoever scouted Jamie Vardy out of non-league football for £1m pulled off the football equivalent of Brian Epstein signing the Beatles.

That’s the selling point.. and I hope that’s part of the pitch given by the club to whichever hotshot striker we go for.

A few of us have mentioned Tammy Abraham before. Note, I realise he’s going to be chased by a lot of clubs.. but we can offer him guaranteed Premier League minutes, and as you say, just show him the highlights reel of our chances created. Do you fancy getting 20 PL goals Tammy?

 

[Larry Boyd]

We signed Maupay, whose scoring record (at the exact same club) was better than Watkins'.

Indeed we did but say AV had been in for him and offering the 75k Watkins is reputed to be on I imagine he would've gone there.

 

[Stato]

There seems to be a tendency for people to read the, usually large, shots off target stat and assume that our strikers can't shoot straight. This overlooks that shots blocked by someone who is not the last man are not counted as shots on target. Last night, was typical of our attacking performances against teams that pack the penalty area, a tactic that has been used very frequently by away sides at the Amex this year. The stats show 20 shots off target and three on. That doesn't mean that our strikers missed the target 20 times. In fact Maupay missed the target only a couple of times, Bissouma & Moder both missed three times from distance and Gross hit one over near the end. All of the other shots were blocked or deflected by defenders. This is going to happen and will continue to happen if we are hitting shots in crowded penalty areas and there are very few strikers capable of guaranteeing a goal in these kind of games. Yes, like all strikers, they will miss chances, but the inaccurate attempts are generally coming from distance, as midfielders try their luck, instead of continually repeating the pass and move and break down or block approach in a crowded area. I suspect the five minutes for AJ that people have been complaining about is because Potter fancies him as being his best option for smacking one from distance.

Maupay, Trossard and Wellbeck are all good footballers, good runners and decent strikers who can help create chances, but what we are lacking is a different option to use in the event of a team playing ten behind the ball. We are trying to play like Man City and, over the years, even they, with KDB, the Silvas, Sterling and Aguero in their sides haven't always found it easy to score against teams that take this approach. One thing that the Guardian's live report on the game suggested last night was that we didn't get in behind enough. This is difficult with teams sitting very deep, but on the occasions that we have done it this year, it has more often than not resulted in a clearance as we don't have an obvious target in the air, or a fox in the box type who can find himself space in tight areas. We had a few chances from free kicks last night and we are also lacking someone who makes opponents nervous with a dead-ball opportunity. So all we need is a striker who can do the work that Maupay and Wellbeck do, but is excellent in the air and in tight spaces and also a set piece expert. I think that's Cristiano Ronaldo.... A cheaper alternative might be to just have a bulldozer to come off the bench for the last twenty to provide an ariel threat and create space for his teammates. Surely there is a modern day Phil Stant somewhere in European football who is getting towards the end of his career and wouldn't mind a season or two playing special teams for Premier League wages.

 

[Frankworthington]

I am waiting for the oracle to speak.

6 pages and no word

 

[jamie (not that one)]

Did you miss cross of the season at Old Trafford then

I did, and it was lovely. Shame that for every one of those crosses there are 50 simple passes which go straight to the opposition.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

[tweet]1381934387592372224[/tweet]

 

[Reddleman]

Yeah, I get that.

Despite what I've just said, the thought of spending £35-40m on ONE player does also make me feel a little uncomfortable too!

I too recognise this sentiment but what I would say is that if we offloaded a few players who are on the books but don’t contribute much anyway to fund the purchase then that risk would feel smaller. Propper, Ali J, Tau, and maybe even Connolly would combined bring in the best part of 20/30 million and combined wages will also be high. I would rather we went down the Quality not quantity approach with our forwards. We often have three on the bench in Tau, Connolly and Zeqiri and deep down know they aren’t good enough or ready yet for the PL.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

Something has to give this summer. Forget about fiddling around with what we've got, if we want to progress we simply HAVE to invest. Our current options simply aren't good enough at finishing, and we've had this proven time after time after time this season.

Lots of names I'd like to see us go for, Kalajdzic from the Bundesliga who we've been linked with before, Boulaye Dia, Ivan Toney (unlikely), Paul Onuachu, Odsonne Édouard. Plenty of names.

But it has to be someone. And to be honest I think people are perfectly within their right to be asking for a new striker, despite one or two on here condescendingly deriding people who've had the temerity to ask for us to spend a little bit more this window when we spent 900k last summer.

And lost £67m

 

[southstandandy]

Gyokeres will be back in the summer to save the day.

 

[macbeth]

And lost £67m

Of course, and I'm not saying that we don't need to sell in order to buy. Simply that we need to buy.