We need a fecking centre forward thread

sdb4884

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Someone who can dominate in the penalty box, we have enough players who can put the ball in there. Someone who can finish the chance Rashford messed up today. Victor Osimhen, Erling Haaland, rare bunch these days.

We have tried to fill the void but it's mostly failed, Ronaldo's current state worked for the most part last season, Ighalo was a failure, Zlatan was good for a season. Need someone younger than them obviously.
 
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I hope this is done in January. Ronaldo is a husk of a man and Martial is as durable as wet tissue paper.
 
Let's be honest, everybody would want bloody arnautovic on that chance over rashford. Its hard to believe he's who we turned to to win the game. Poor man's welbeck most weeks
 
Outside Martial we don't have anyone who can get the job done. Ronaldo is no longer half of what he was, and Rashford blows hot and cold there.

I don't look at the team and see a lot of problems really, but it's obvious that without someone converting chances we'll end up dropping a lot of points.

Should be a priority in Jan even as a loan.
 
sdb4884 said:
Someone who can dominate in the penalty box, we have enough players who can put the ball in there. Someone who can finish chance Rashford messed up today. Victor Osimhen, Erling Haaland, rare bunch these days.
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sdb4884 said:
Someone who can dominate in the penalty box, we have enough players who can put the ball in there. Someone who can finish chance Rashford messed up today. Victor Osimhen, Erling Haaland, rare bunch these days.
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My dead nan is free
 
Bench Rashford. I don’t care what he brings to the side, he goes through these periods when he expects to miss so straight up does. Can’t start him until that passes. It costs us too many games every single season.
You might as well not create the chance if it falls to Marcus, he only scores a certain type of chance and if it doesn’t fall into that narrow category then you’ve wasted your time. Might as well recycle the ball
 
sdb4884 said:
Someone who can dominate in the penalty box, we have enough players who can put the ball in there. Someone who can finish chance Rashford messed up today. Victor Osimhen etc.
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Centre forward, right back, defensive midfielder. It's clear that this team is incapable of finding the net with any regularity. These same players have struggled for years wearing red. They appear confused when they approach the final third. For contrast, watch any City game. You won't believe they're in the same league.
 
Is there no one in reserves to help out until January? I mean Rashford came out of no where when he was given a chance due to an injury crises, we basically have a crisis now too with Martial hobbled
 
Should've sold maguire and just released Ronaldo and could've afforded a project cb as well as a decent CF
 
At this rate if Martial is out, I'd consider playing Bruno as a false 9. Get the wide forwards more central and running in behind, get the full backs pushing high and wide instead of under-lapping all the time.
 
We won't be achieving anything this season unless we sign one in January.

Rashford is a poor finisher and can't be relied on to score
Martial is a crock and completely unreliable even if he is fit. Sometimes he looks great and sometimes he'll look awful
Ronaldo is utterly finished.
 
We should have really considered splashing on Ivan Toney. Good movement and energy. More than capable of finishing chances and also stays fit. He may not end up being the final answer to win us big trophies but he'd certainly send us in the right direction. I'd go all out to make him a priority in January.
 
cyberman said:
Bench Rashford. I don’t care what he brings to the side, he goes through these periods when he expects to miss so straight up does. Can’t start him until that passes. It costs us too many games every single season.
You might as well not create the chance if it falls to Marcus, he only scores a certain type of chance and if it doesn’t fall into that narrow category then you’ve wasted your time. Might as well recycle the ball
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Rashford certainly shouldn't be playing at striker, but he's been quite good off the left this season. From memory he's only got one assist playing as a striker this season despite spending most of his time in that position, while getting five goals and two assists in the relatively short amount of time he's been on the left.
 
How come chelsea and man city have managed to still be successful without a striker.

There are deeper issues in the side in terms of coaching and creativity
 
Knowing us we will probably buy De Jong and have no money for a centre forward
 
I don't think someone like Toney is actually good enough for a top club. But having said that, with him today we would have won comfortably. Damn, probably someone like Bamford or Ings would have done a better job than current version of Ronaldo too.
 
Lee565 said:
How come chelsea and man city have managed to still be successful without a striker.

There are deeper issues in the side in terms of coaching and creativity
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Because they have better finishers outside of a striker? How easy do our chances have to be?
 
I don't think this is a good idea because it could result in Rashford and Martial sulking and having their feelings hurt.
 
Trequarista10 said:
At this rate if Martial is out, I'd consider playing Bruno as a false 9. Get the wide forwards more central and running in behind, get the full backs pushing high and wide instead of under-lapping all the time.
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I really don't get the clamour for this. He is woeful with his back to goal, invariably loses possession in tight areas and struggles to link the midfield as a 10/ shadow striker (or whatever the f' he is). What is it about his skillset people think is conducive to playing as a false 9?
 
Toney or Mitrovic could do a job for us.
 
Rather not mangle this up, we need to get a long term option so let's not act in haste.
 
Lee565 said:
How come chelsea and man city have managed to still be successful without a striker.

There are deeper issues in the side in terms of coaching and creativity
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Because we don't just need a striker. We have issues at goalkeeper, defence and midfield as well that all combine to make us less effective without a striker than other teams have previously been without a striker.

Those other issues don't change the fact that CF is one of if not the biggest problem positions in the team though so I'm not sure there's much value in pointing out that everything else isn't perfect either.
 
Isn’t there a thread already?

Rozay said:
One of our next key areas to address.

The market is not great at present, not only for us, but in general. Chelsea struggled and the best they could come up with to guarantee some goals was a 33 year old. Barcelona could only find a 34 year old. Liverpool gambled very big very early on Nunez. Haaland was a standout striker, but he could only join one team.

Seems the market has suffered somewhat from a transitioning of the role. Every candidate has some question marks. Ideally, you want a striker who can first score 20+ goals. Then you want them to be able to hold the ball up and have good technical ability to link with the rest of the team. You also want speed and intensity and ability to defend from the front. Nobody seems to have all of these things, and teams have to make trade-offs in what they prioritise. Guardiola, for instance, sacrificed the silk and hold-up/link-up ability for the guarantee of 20+ goals from Haaland. I'm sure he'd have rather Haaland had a bit more Kane to his game. But you can't get everything. Klopp made the same trade-off. Nunez is no Firmino.

Who are the best candidates of the next gen, and what are their respective strengths and weaknesses? To get all of the qualities we want - we may need to go big for a young player and try to develop one.

I think Gakpo has potential - he has the size, speed and power, he has link play and can finish - but he's a bit rough still and doesn't necessarily have the killer instinct for 30 goals.

Osimhen is interesting. He has little silk to his game, will struggle with hold up and link play as a result, but he does the most similarities to Haaland in that he is physically a beast with speed, strength and intensity in addition to a good size. He is a good finisher, and can probably excel as one of these 'only had 8 touches but scored twice' type of strikers. Can bully centre-halves.

Sesko potentially has everything you want, although a bit undercooked now. Likely to only become a serious option in two years at least.

I think there's a 20 goal striker in Joao Felix, although he doesn't have the explosive speed.
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I like Ten Haag's tactics (mostly) I don't like the transfer targets he's seeked and (mostly) got. Martinez, Antony etc Obviously they are there on his watch as we struggled to attract interest from anyone else but
I feel he went after the wrong targets whilst I see other clubs with players he could have got like Botman for instance.
 
Can we automatically add “thread” to the end of every thread title? It really helps
 
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