Think the original point was technical in terms of close control, dribbling, bringing others into game, softness of touch, a la Bergkamp, Henry type of silky players.
I was saying there are a cohort of top level strikers who weren't as refined in those areas, but had other aspects to their game that made them great. I don't think Cavani is technically brilliant at what fans traditionally would view as technical skills: first touch, close control, dribbling etc..
He's not as refined in those elements, compared to someone like Kane, at least to my eyes. Didn't take away from how great a player he was, which is ultimately what I'm saying.
I completely agree with you.
I don't think Cavani was a technical wonder. He was extremely good at the fundamentals of centre forward play. If you were a scout you'd give him a tick for nearly every category. Great build, good athlete, can hold the ball up, good in the air, good movement, good finisher. But he wasn't exactly Wayne Rooney or Dimitar Berbatov with what he brought on the ball in and around the box. It was good, common sense hold up play, it wasn't something I got off my seat for expecting something surprising to happen when he got the ball and I don't think he was like that even in his prime, as obviously we got the tail end.
So there are certainly levels of technical ability and creativity among strikers and I don't think it's mandatory to be the most technical attacker out there to be among the best. It depends on the team. If you have technical players, creative players, players that can get great quality into the box, then maybe it's actually more important to have a striker that makes the right movements, finishes the chances they're creating and provides an outlet to create space. Basically don't feck it up when you do get it, bring others into play. That requires a good touch and passing but by no means do they need to be the most technical player in the team. If your team is full of work horse midfielders and little creativity then maybe you do need somebody that can drop in and take responsibility. It's about the overall function of the striker within the setup for me.
I still don't think Haaland is a technical wonder, I think his athleticism and finishing far outstrip his technical ability. His technical ability amounts to having a great ability to take the right touch to get a shot away, it's not like the fella is dropping into spaces and spraying balls around with the outside of his foot to contribute to team play with his technical ability. He's not that interested, as long as he takes the right touch for the purposes of a shot that's mainly what he cares about. So for me he's another example of a striker that doesn't need to utilise many areas of technical ability, I wouldn't say he's anything like Ibrahimovic for example, to pick a striker with a similar build that has incredible class on the ball. He does his own thing and it works.
As far as I can see Hojlund has ticks in many boxes. Many of them are potential, raw ingredients, but that shouldn't be too surprising at this stage. ETH clearly thinks he can fit into what he's creating and that's good enough for me to go with.
Some sense at last in this thread.