Could David be an option? He’s put up decent but not spectacular goalscoring numbers at both Lille and Gent, but from this chart it’s clear he adds a lot more than goals.Also noted the below, which suggests he might offer quite a bit in terms of a pressing game.
Sounds about right. I keep reading cafites raving about him but for some reason don't have the time to watch Benfica every week.
Am not so sure a lot of teams who play possession football have their center forward doing most of their work off the ball, constant movement off the ball to stretch defences to create spaces for the midfielders, and then pressing hard when the team is out of possession, they build play mainly in wider areas using triangles between fullback, winger and midfielder so they don't require a lot of hold up or link up play from the number 9 as they hardly take the direct route.
His first touch isn't the cleanest, he is strong at protecting the ball though he is no Benzema on the ball, its his tenacity, movement and finishing that stands out.
Any buzz around him in terms of upward trajectory? Your bolded, yes, he looks run-of-the-mill (from the tiny piece of cobbled together footage I've seen). If he's always like that, it's some come down from the calibre of forwards your NT is accustomed to this past decade!
The buzz is from people hearing ge scores, did well, etc. Zero buzz as far as him being the next big thing.
I would give my left bollock for him to turn out to be a pressing version of a 100m striker.
Lukaku has 68 goals in 101 internationals, I'll take that. It has taken Suárez 133 caps to score as many. Núñez will get nowhere near the caps or the goals.
I'm talking about having a pressing Lukaku instead of Darwin Nuñez in my Uruguay NT.
Have to say he is rated far higher here by many posters than he was on North Stand Chat, when Brighton were looking at him 18 months 2 years ago, I haven't watched him alot but I'm not sure he has developed that much.
Not really and I very much doubt anyone will try go tiki taka just because we suddenly have a rare batch of good midfielders instead of defenders and strikers.
That is the key point. Where do our goals come from? Ronaldo might leave, Cavani and Greenwood too, Pogba out, Rashford is terrible for whatever reason. Only Bruno seems to do the job consistently. We don't have the 25+ a season goal scorers out wide to afford a risk in CF.
I swear we have been here before with the "dribbling widemen that aren't really centreforwards but play as such".
Well you'd hope eventually with some decent coaching and a bit of confidence we can get way more goals out out of the likes of Sancho/Rashford/Elanga. Mctominay has shown he's capable of scoring a good number from midfield, Fred too if he's played a bit closer to goal.
Cavani vibes in the sense he presses a lot from the front and is decent in the air yes. Obviously they aren't identical, but I can see why we might aim to look for the younger version of the Cavani we have now.
I remember Ole talking about goal scorers and the same with RR now. Even when we create we have issues converting. I don't think coaching of any kind changes that. We had Rashford, Martial and Greenwood looking good in this department under Ole for a season but then they stopped and became just as inconsistent as they were before. Top attackers tend to know how to be at the right place at the right time and our player do not IMO, regardless of manager. City might be the odd one out but most teams have reliable scorers, from Salah to Lewandowski.
Not really and I very much doubt anyone will try go tiki taka just because we suddenly have a rare batch of good midfielders instead of defenders and strikers.
The one thing Tabárez was spot on about was recognising that our pool is limited (usually have a single world class player, not three or four) and the grassroots have and will continue to have no structure so the technically accomplished players will still be few and far between.
At the time Barca and Spain were all the rage and the future of football, he was adamant going tiki taka or possession-based would mean adding constraints to an already limited pool. You are doomed to fall short, someone else will do it better with better starters and, particularly, like for like bench replacements.
He actually aligned all the tiers from before U17 to NT to a philosophy based around our traditional strengths (counter-attacking 4-4-2/4-3-3, workrate, resilience, solidarity, etc), those we can expect to allow us to make the best possible use of a limited talent pool. He was absolutely right.
Where Tabárez failed and Alonso is doing well was factoring in pressing high up as a necessary ingredient and one most of our pool will have been drilled on by now at their respective clubs. That's something you can and should expect players to embrace and it's working. On Tuesday we were 1-0 up away to Chile and still going at them and choking their build up. Once we get it though, no tiki taka bollocks. Thank god, I hate it anyway
