What's truly amazing about this is that Football For All aren't saying he's been arrested for drink driving or something...You must log in or register to see media
Rival watch
- Thread starter Spurlock
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Surely that makes it worse. Small time leicester have at least attempted to resolve their striker depth issue with a new potential solution even if it wasnt successful.
The point being spurs havent even tried
Vincent Janssen, Fernando Llorente and Carlos Vinicius are all examples of us trying to resolve the striker depth issue
One was played too soon and his confidence was shot, while the other two we attempted to remedy that situation happening again by not playing them
We did in previous seasons and it did work, to some extent.
Llorente and Vinicius both did alright and had important games.
Failing to line up someone similar is just poor. A loan or slightly past his best bench option shouldn't be hard.
You're measuring success on goals scored only. There are far more measurables at play. Even having a natural striker to avoid having to play other players out of position (e.g. Son, Lucas and Dele all "leading the line" at various points) has a lot to be said for it. What we've done in the past is essentially weakening two spots in the team at the same time.
I thought Okazaki and Ulloa were highly useful players. They certainly kept defenders busy and - more importantly - allowed the likes of Mahrez and Vardy to rest when needed.
Llorente only scored a handful of goals for us, but take him out of the equation and we don't make it to the CL final. Simple as that. In fact we don't make the semi final either. He cost us £11m. The CL run brought in eight times that amount.
Arsenal are the only other "big" club who have neglected to bring in back up for their main striker and unsurprisingly they've struggled.
Arsenal actually do, they have Lacazette who is often on the bench nowadays and even if we exclude him, they also have Nketiah, not the greatest but he’s had a season in the championship and has a number of league appearances for Arsenal too.
We stand alone in the sole striker category as far as I’m aware. The fact we’ve done it twice in three seasons as well just shows how thick we are.
It really shouldn’t be difficult to find an adequate second striker though, regardless of us having Kane or not. Llorente and Vinicius both proved their worth at Spurs. You don’t need a 25 goal striker on the bench. A 10 goal striker (in all comps too, not just league) would be massive for us as a second choice.
Llorente-esque types who have seen their best days but still have something to offer.
Obscure high scorers in weaker leagues like Vinicius can certainly do a job.
Taking a look at the championship is also a great source for decent talent.
Really is stupid of us over relying on Kane like we do, and then Son when Kane inevitably picks up a knock.
Llorente-esque types who have seen their best days but still have something to offer.
Obscure high scorers in weaker leagues like Vinicius can certainly do a job.
Taking a look at the championship is also a great source for decent talent.
Really is stupid of us over relying on Kane like we do, and then Son when Kane inevitably picks up a knock.
I often wonder how the 2019/20 season would have turned out had Covid not happened and we'd ended up playing the rest of the season without Kane and Son.
I don't think relegation is too far fetched of a suggestion.
When we were being linked to Ings, I said that we wouldn't be signing another striker, unless Kane left. It's 'One out, one in'...always. That's why we're so often behind the curve...that and the interminable drag to complete sales and purchases...and the obsessive/compulsive need to balance the books and never take even a minor risk to obtain a reward....
Oh, and the rest of it.
Covid single handedly kept OGS (Man Utd), Lampard (Chelsea) and Mourinho (Tottenham) in jobs. The real losers were Leicester and Sheffield Utd. West Ham would have gone down as well IMO had Covid not struck when it did.
It's crazy to think they'd have likely finished the season or at least continued up until April had Arteta not tested positive.
The issue we have is that a good Championship-level striker is always going to have options. Obviously someone like Ollie Watkins is better than good but would you rather go to a mid-low level PL team and potentially start the majority of PL games and maybe get into the England squad, or earn more at Spurs and be restricted to cup/low level European games and the occasional minutes in the league when Kane is tired or injured?
Obviously Watkins was a relatively young player when he went to Villa but signing an upper-bracket Championship forward is like getting blood out of a stone, clubs at that level place a massive premium on their goalscorers because it’s such a difficult division.
Looking abroad is the easiest decision in terms of recruitment but then you have to consider how to get the player acclimatised. Because you need regular football for that and that’s the one thing they’re not guaranteed. Sure if we can bury a game we can take Kane off for the last 20/15 mins to ensure another player gets game time but we haven’t been in a position to do that for ages.
We’re in a bit of a bind this season unless we can find a short term solution in January but I’m hopeful we can use Troy Parrott next season. He also looks like a reasonably close stylistic fit to Kane too.
Obviously Watkins was a relatively young player when he went to Villa but signing an upper-bracket Championship forward is like getting blood out of a stone, clubs at that level place a massive premium on their goalscorers because it’s such a difficult division.
Looking abroad is the easiest decision in terms of recruitment but then you have to consider how to get the player acclimatised. Because you need regular football for that and that’s the one thing they’re not guaranteed. Sure if we can bury a game we can take Kane off for the last 20/15 mins to ensure another player gets game time but we haven’t been in a position to do that for ages.
We’re in a bit of a bind this season unless we can find a short term solution in January but I’m hopeful we can use Troy Parrott next season. He also looks like a reasonably close stylistic fit to Kane too.
We couldn't have picked up someone like Josh King, who ended up going to Watford?
He's homegrown too, having come through Man Utd's academy, so he wouldn't hurt us in that area.
We can't find anyone in world football to do a job there?
I agree, it should be possible. It's difficult, which is why people far more qualified and well connected than me are supposed to be doing the job. I say supposed, because the fact that we keep not managing to do it, despite the difficulties, is laughable.
I listened to a tv pundit feeling sorry for the Chelsea Cukoo. Said he'd played too many games in Italy,Internationals and now PL and was wearing himself out. No mention of Harry,however....!
Tuchel said that Lukaku had played too many games before yesterday's match.
Played him anyway and he got injured.
They've got Werner as an alternative, but he's injured.
They can always play Pulisic there, I guess. Or they could, but he's injured too.
This is somewhat inaccurate. Many people at an operative level in this league (especially at the big 6) have no qualifications when it comes to footballing matter. Woodward was a banker, Granovskaia was Abramovich's PA, Edu at Arsenal has no business qualification that I'm aware of. The average football fan may not have as much business nouse but when it comes to the sporting side of the game they are far more knowledgable than executive board members.
He's still something quite similar to this...
Tuchel said that Lukaku had played too many games before yesterday's match.
Played him anyway and he got injured.
They've got Werner as an alternative, but he's injured.
They can always play Pulisic there, I guess. Or they could, but he's injured too.
Tuchel is much like Pep in the sense he tends to overthink the basics. Lukaku had no business on the pitch last night but at least he's owned it to be fair to him.
Is he the biggest loss? He hadn't scored in quite a few games before he got injured (was at least six wasn't it?) This would of course be a crisis in the media if it had happened to Kane - but since Kane was scoring in other competitions / internationals they changed the agenda for Kane to be "in the premier league". I believe (and please correct me) Lukaku hadn't scored in any type of game (or did he in an international?)