Craig Mackail-Smith Article

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Hooper looks to be doing ok at Celtic too following on from where he left off at Scunny. He was non league wasn't he?

Thing is though with that its the SPL. Celtic and Rangers are big fish in a very small pond. They are low standard prem sides playing league 1 standard players. They are bound to score goals against that lot. I would back Heskey to be a bloody 15 goal a season striker in the SPL. On that note rumours are that Leicester are going to re sign him this summer how do you think the big lump will do in the championship?
 
Charlie Austin hasnt played for Burnley has he? But he will probably be a good asset (not sure how you spell that). I do know that he played for Poole FC or something like that 2-3 years ago, pretty impressive

Austin played four games for Burnley, before getting an injury that put him out for the rest of the season.
 
Charlie Austin hasnt played for Burnley has he? But he will probably be a good asset (not sure how you spell that). I do know that he played for Poole FC or something like that 2-3 years ago, pretty impressive

Austin played four games for Burnley, before getting an injury that put him out for the rest of the season.
 
Thing is though with that its the SPL. Celtic and Rangers are big fish in a very small pond. They are low standard prem sides playing league 1 standard players. They are bound to score goals against that lot. I would back Heskey to be a bloody 15 goal a season striker in the SPL. On that note rumours are that Leicester are going to re sign him this summer how do you think the big lump will do in the championship?

It's true that the SPL is not a great guide of a players ability, but if you score 18 goals in 30 appearances, including one in the Champions League, then you're probably a half decent striker.

As for Heskey, I think he'll probably do very well in the Championship, he can be a handful.
 
Thing is though with that its the SPL. Celtic and Rangers are big fish in a very small pond. They are low standard prem sides playing league 1 standard players. They are bound to score goals against that lot. I would back Heskey to be a bloody 15 goal a season striker in the SPL. On that note rumours are that Leicester are going to re sign him this summer how do you think the big lump will do in the championship?

It's true that the SPL is not a great guide of a players ability, but if you score 18 goals in 30 appearances, including one in the Champions League, then you're probably a half decent striker.

As for Heskey, I think he'll probably do very well in the Championship, he can be a handful.
 
Thing is though with that its the SPL. Celtic and Rangers are big fish in a very small pond. They are low standard prem sides playing league 1 standard players. They are bound to score goals against that lot. I would back Heskey to be a bloody 15 goal a season striker in the SPL. On that note rumours are that Leicester are going to re sign him this summer how do you think the big lump will do in the championship?

Yes but we're talking about players from lower league that have done well at championship level. So hooper almost single handedly kept Scunny up and got the promoted from L1 and is continuing at Celtic, whether you gauge the SPL as lower prem or upper championship, he is still progressing and still scoring goals at a higher level!
 
Yes you can, but when you're being asked to pay over £1M (£2M upfront and another £1M in addons in the demands from P'boro) for a striker you don't want to be basing it purely on evidence from a lower league. You certainly want more than a 50% chance of them being good enough. With CMS he's even had a season in the Championship and didn't do much better than a player we already have on our books, who we generally don't think is good enough, and who was carrying an injury at the time. We've already been ripped off having paid £1.3M for what would be our 4th choice striker, lets not go throwing another £2M away on what will probably end up being our 3rd choice striker.

I would like to think that our scouting/management team would be capable of making that kind of judgement. It should be possible to assess from the way that someone plays - as opposed to the raw numbers - whether they are likely to be able to perform at a certain level.
 
Yes but we're talking about players from lower league that have done well at championship level. So hooper almost single handedly kept Scunny up and got the promoted from L1 and is continuing at Celtic, whether you gauge the SPL as lower prem or upper championship, he is still progressing and still scoring goals at a higher level!

In that case i agree with you he has progressed, but i think that goals whilst playing for one of the old firm are going to be much easier to come across than playing for us in the Championship for example. The gulf between those two and the rest is massive meaning a striker will get a lot more chances to score a goal. An example of that is Tore André Flo if you look at his goal scoring ratio per game in the SPL it is a lot higher than anyother club he played for in England. An other prime example is Robbie Keane as soon as he went to the SPL his goals scoring ratio flew up. The league is poor hence giving old firm strikers more oppourtunity to score.
 
In that case i agree with you he has progressed, but i think that goals whilst playing for one of the old firm are going to be much easier to come across than playing for us in the Championship for example. The gulf between those two and the rest is massive meaning a striker will get a lot more chances to score a goal. An example of that is Tore André Flo if you look at his goal scoring ratio per game in the SPL it is a lot higher than anyother club he played for in England. An other prime example is Robbie Keane as soon as he went to the SPL his goals scoring ratio flew up. The league is poor hence giving old firm strikers more oppourtunity to score.

Hasn't he already demonstrated his ability at Scunthorpe? At Celtic the ammunition is being provided by other Championship players Ledley and Commons...