I can see where you're going with this... but I wouldn't have smeared N'donbele to the same extent as the others.
It may be semantics but what properties does a striker have? I assume Messi and Peter Crouch both count but Gareth Bale and Christiano Ronaldo don't? The fact that City have better players than us doesn't alter my belief that we should pick our most skilful forwards ahead of those who are 'strikers'.
Tonight's starting eleven just looks wrong on so many fronts... Jose seems to have surrendered even before kick-off this time.
That's all true. I still think the best solution is to leave Son on the left and Bergwijn on the right and use Lamela as a false nine with Lucas in a free role. Kane plays deeper these days anyway. But we are bound to be much worse without Kane whoever plays because he is our best player by far. I don't think we would look good with Gabriel Jesus in Kane's role so it's a big ask for Vinicius to do it.
A striker and a forward are two different players in my opinion. A striker is your central and focal point of your attack. A forward is generally one who plays off the wing or just behind the striker. Strikers are players like Kane, Aguero, Lewandowski, Benzema etc. Forwards are like Mane, Salah, Sterling, Son etc. Also, if the other forwards in our team outside of Son were genuine goal scorers like what City have I think you'd have a valid point when saying we could play without a striker. But when Lucas, Bergwijn and Lamela have just 8 goals between them in all comps this season, whilst Vinicius alone has 6, I feel like your viewpoint is massively flawed.
Different strikers have different properties and Ronaldo plays as one for Juventus. Someone like Defoe plays the position very differently to Crouch, for example. Playing as the furthest forward player, scoring goals and being able to hold up the ball are the most common qualities they share. Son is much weaker as a striker than when he's playing off one and coming in off the wing. It restricts his movement, makes him a lot easier to mark and highlights his weaknesses. He's not physically strong, basically refuses to head the ball and is poor with his back to goal.
Just thought I'd mention that I welcome @PowerSpurs posts on various things that I disagree with him on. He generally seems to think about the game from a different perspective and it makes me examine my preconceptions. Good ideas survive examination.
I agree, I often find myself perplexed at his views but I also love that as it allows for debate. Keep being odd, Power, lol.
Good header by Lamela. Moura should do better with the follow-up, but I'll let him off after that run.
But if we play to Vinicius's strengths we might have a decent plan B. This ain't just an "anti JM" thing cos Pochettino did the same nonsense with Llorente. It took nearly 2 years for him to learn how to use him effectively...and he was a huge reason we made the CL final.
