Crosses to a midget? Good one. England as an example - it’s why Kane works up front and Sterling doesn’t.
Crosses to a midget? Oh my, I suppose Fryatt scored all those goals from 25 yards? If your striker isn’t very big, you drill the cross, you fit their style. You don’t force them to play our system, that’s why so many of our strikers have failed here.
You need to stop trying to use logic and footballing knowledge with some on here. After all Man City, Liverpool and Arsenal all struggled to score last season without a target man. If use pace, movement and playing balls into space like they did, and your forward is intelligent, you don't need a target man
They play an entirely different formation with a mixture of world class players. In case it has escaped your attention- we don’t.
And if you can afford fifty and sixty million quid players it's a piece of piss. Mourinho has built his career on having a big ****er who holds the ball up and brings players into play.
Is that the Matty Fryatt that played in a 4-4-2? We’re talking about a striker playing specifically in a 4-2-3-1 formation. Wingers provide pace and trickery. Physical centre forward provides the nouse and hold up with ability to play with their back to goal bringing into play Irvine/Toral and wingers. Also providing a threat from set pieces.
I know what a target man constitutes. You made it sound like it was a necessary cog in the machine, when it's just an option. If the job of the target man is to hold the the ball up, you're relying on players who aren't strikers to score the goals. And that's far too much of a risk. In a 4-4-2, or indeed any formation with two strikers, you're more likely to deploy a target man because the other player tends to be more clinical. Deploying one by himself is pretty pointless. Now if you played, say, a target man and Bowen, or a target man and Dicko, you'd probably get more favourable results in our team, but a 4-2-3-1 with just a target man means that you're relying heavily on Bowen and (presumably) Milinkovic to score. Fryatt played in a 4-4-2 with McLean for most of his time here, he wasn't a target man either, he was smaller than Fryatt was.
This is bizarre. You think a big striker holds it up lays it back and then that's it? He doesn't move? He can't also get onto through balls or attack crosses or corners cos he's stuck on the halfway line after heading it or lying it off. Truly bizarre.
Hull City are interested in signing Sturm Graz midfielder Philipp Sittsam, according to Sky Sports’ Austrian journalist Johannes Hofer. He's a 19 year old attacking midfielder, available on a free and has apparently already flown to Alicante to hook up with the U23's.
Well, good ones move. Your Harry Kanes, your Crouches, they can do it. The ones we seem to have had in the past don't do that. And we aren't going to pay the money to get a good one. I'd rather we had a clinical striker in that role and more creative wingers that don't need bringing into play via a target man. Under Bruce we had an almost over reliance on crossing, even when it wasn't working it seemed like our only option. The Plan B was to chuck more players forward and continue crossing. Sunderland at home was a prime example, even when they had nine men we continued with crosses when it blatantly wasn't effective. I wouldn't turn my nose up at having a target man in the squad, but having him on his own up front I don't think would be a good idea. Our midfielders aren't well known for haring into the box either, so assuming he does run once he has passed it off, you're asking a lot of the winger to pick out a lone striker among a few Championship defenders.
