He’s not the guy you look to to rescue a tough game with a little bit of magic, and he never will be, I fear.
He’ll get you 23-26 goals a year, from around 10 yards, and have a more than healthy conversion ratio, allowing people to continue comparing him to the great and the good of PL strikers without looking too foolish, or thinking about it too much, but he’ll never conjure a last minute worldie out of thin air like the truly great strikers do. He’ll never surprise us with a cycle kick, or a 30 yard screamer, or a devastating chip or mazy dribble from the half way line, or any of the things all the other names mentioned in this thread could and did do on occasion. The things that make otherwise very good strikers into great strikers, or world class strikers - Man Utd strikers.
A Man Utd striker doesnt need to do this kind of thing all the time, but he needs to be able to do it. To have it in his top pocket to whip out once in a blue moon when the team are in dire straits. He keeps being compared to Andy Cole in here, and while there may be some fleeting similarities, Coley could do this. He won us League deciders and Cup Semis with bits of ingenuity. He scored overhead kicks and long range chips when nothing looked on. He didn’t do it a lot, but he could do it, and it made him a much more dangerous player to have in a tight situation, regardless of whatever the feck his conversion rate was.
As hard as Rom works, and as lovely and personable as he is, he just doesn’t have this. He’s simply a pretty good striker for a top half side, who’ll score a lot if his served, but nothing if he isn’t. He’s grown on me a lot in the last year, but he’s just not the kind of No 9 you win the big things with. And I don’t think he’s going to become one either.
9
no, sadly. He would cause havoc in oppo defenses every game.
