For all we say things like "Messi and Ronaldo couldn't score playing for us", you'd expect the strikers that leave to be scoring a lot elsewhere, or at least some of them. So here's the records of the last 10 strikers to leave the club. Cousin - 8 goals in 36 for Larissa (before a year in Gabon) Proschwitz - 1 goal in 1(17) for Brentford (he could be PL again next season lol) Long - 2 goals in 9(10) Simpson - 3 goals in 9(8) for Leyton Orient (after a year in Asia) Fryatt - 5 goals in 14(3) for Forest McLean - 7 goals in 31(9) for Bradford and P'boro Cullen - 16 goals in 34(17) for Luton Adebola - 8 goals in 32(7) for Rochdale, and Wrexham ***an - 10 goals in 50(10) for Bradford, Bury, and Gillingham Folan - 6 goals in 42 games for Colorado Rapids (6 in 26), Birmingham (who he didn't make an appearance for), T-Team, and Bradford, before going back out to foreign leagues again. You can take Fryatt out of the reckoning, he left because he was behind Long and Jelavic after we signed them and they both scored about 1 in 3. Of the rest, even considering the low level they've played at Adebola and Cullen have the best returns since leaving us which suggests the issue is the strikers. It'd be pretty unlucky for them all to go from a team with poor supply to another with poor supply, so what the hell do we do to strikers in training sessions that turns them from decent enough players before they arrive to being useless by the time they leave?
There are certainly some players who've become **** upon coming here, but you look at our squad right now and even on paper it's obvious why we can't score goals. We only have two proper strikers, and one is never quite right to play, whether it's down to injury, fatigue, jetlag or whatever. Counting Aluko as a striker is papering over the cracks. With tracing paper. Sagbo could have been a success at one point but that time has obviously been and gone. We need two strikers. If we don't get them I think we'll probably go down, which will be a massive shame with the squad we've got, but like Bruce keeps saying, you're only as good as your strikers. All our good football goes to waste when there's no striker.
You can add: Graham - 0 from 13 with Sunlun. 6 from 18 with Boro. 1 from 5 with Wolves. Altidore - 1 from 42 with Sunlun but who found his level in the Eredivisie where he scored at random.
The problem you've got is proven Premier League strikers cost a bomb. Most are out of our budget. We got seriously lucky picking up Jelavic for £7m We either have gamble and pay £6m or £7m for a Championship striker and hope he does Austin or Ings or gamble on someone from abroad.
I've said many times that if the posters on these and other boards can see what the problem is then Steve Bruce and Management will be fully aware too and will have been making inquiries as to who is available within the 'war-chest' budget for some time now. I agree with 'Cas' when he says proven strikers cost a bomb but what we need is strikers who can perform in the bottom 3rd and score enough goals to keep us around position 14 or so in this league. That is not too hard an ask. It would appear that we have again hit the "Thanks, but No Thanks' barrier in that we are not attractive enough to secure the services of such strikers. I agree with 'Cas' again when he says we will have to gamble but we are leaving it hellishly short even though this is no fault of our own owing to these incredible injuries the club has had to sustain.
Strikers come and go,right now we don't have enough consistency or firepower up front to hurt teams enough when it matters. Without stating the frigging obvious,we either start scoring goals again or we will almost certainly remain in the bottom three. Even more worring,I'm not sue how many give a **** anymore with all that gone on off the pitch this season. The apathy that once blighted the club when we were truly **** seems to have returned with a vengeance in many quarters,all fingers point to those who run the club like a sorry karaoke pub in a long line of upmarket Cabaret clubs.
Didnt Brucey pull Christophe Dugarry out of the hat at Birmingham one January window to keep em up?? We need a rabbit out of the hat like that.
14 goals a season not hard to find ha ha ha. Look at the last few seasons and see how many people have scored more then 10 a season apart from the odd player like austin you have to pay over 20 million to find look at Bony 28million long went from us for 12 million never has scored more then 10 goals. We were lucky to Jelavic for 7 million. What we need is a few players to chip in with goals defenders and midfielders as we cant afford to buy a striker who will score enough on his iwn to keep us up
Are you suggesting that somebody on this thread has suggested a 14 goal a season striker is not hard to find when you say "14 goals a season not hard to find ha ha ha." If so, then "ha ha ha" straight back at ya!!
You need to go to an optometrist 'hullinasia' I clearly stated "what we need are strikers who can perform in the bottom 3rd and score enough goals to keep us around position 14 or so in this league. That is not too hard an ask". I did not say a "14 goal a season striker"!
Manucho has not been exactly prolific since his time at City. But he scored last night for Rayo Vallecano. He was of course only on loan to us. 2009–2014 Valladolid 57 (14) 2010 → Bucaspor (loan) 12 (2) 2011 → Manisaspor (loan) 9 (0) 2014– Rayo Vallecano 6 (1)
I don't we've seriously bid for anyone yet. Thing with the transfer window is it's a domino effect. Club A will sign a player, then club B will sign a player from club A etc. It's usually one big transfer that kicks it off. It might be Bony that kicks things off.
Another one on the point in my original post about the "Messi/Ronaldo couldn't score for us" vibe we get. Elmo is 3rd in the league for crosses into the box. His crosses are rarely cut out by the first man but suffer from nobody attacking the back post like Elliott used to do. I noticed another in the game today from the left side and again there's nobody coming in at the back post (this time it should be Elmo getting on the end of it). I'm not saying Elliott as the player we should sign, clearly he's not but he's the perfect example of what we need. We don't have a single wide player that attacks the area when the ball is on the opposite flank, they're pretty much always outside and behind the area when the cross is coming into dangerous areas in the box.
Bony originally cost Swansea 12M a similar price to what we got Hernandez for. So its clear that you can get very good strikers at an price, but you need to look hard and i am sure Bruce scouting Europe for someone we can get.
That he did. We need this sort of veteran striker that's seen it, done it and is looking for one last challenge. Not one last pay day. There's got to be someone out there that's up for it. Klose is eying up the MLS. Come give us half a season first son.
I don't like the thought that Steve Bruce now has two weeks before our next game because it doesn't give him the kick up the arse to get us some fresh blood in.
