Which striker should we sign this summer?

fps said:
You don't understand logic in its most basic form, and you're not worth answering any more. Your smugness is a little embarrassing.
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No names yet?
 
red woppit said:
Anyway, back to the thread. I would sign Ighalo on a two year contract. Why,?
1/- He's already here, training with the squad.
2/- He seems to have fitted in very well.
3/- It seems that he would be ok with sitting on the bench for some games.
4/- A new player would take time to gel with the squad, and could possibly not be happy to be on the bench.
5/- He takes up positions in and around the box that no one else in the squad does.
6/- He's a fan of the club.
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The problem is that ighalo is not our player. His team might ask ridiculous fees for him. Also he's on a ridiculous salary as well. He might not agree to a huge pay cut

If he leaves in June then we have the players to hold the Fort up until the summer transfer opens. Then I'd suggest we buy someone cheap. SA + a relegated team (Pukki? Wilson?) could do the trick
 
jamesjimmybyrondean said:
Is he doing well at West Ham
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No in short...

Haller hasn’t really hit the ground running at West Ham and would likely cost a lot more than he’s worth. For me it would be the perfect storm of too expensive and not enough quality. If you want a cheap target man he’s not it.

The general feeling amongst West Ham fans I know is that he doesn’t put himself about enough despite appearing to be physically gifted and isn’t working well with the pace of the game. Perhaps with time to adapt he’ll improve next season as it would be unfair to say he’s not shown any ability in other leagues but I’d steer well clear of him.

I honestly think at this point if Ighalo isn’t staying we’ll go back in for Josh King or someone like that.
 
BenitoSTARR said:
No in short...

Haller hasn’t really hit the ground running at West Ham and would likely cost a lot more than he’s worth. For me it would be the perfect storm of too expensive and not enough quality. If you want a cheap target man he’s not it.

The general feeling amongst West Ham fans I know is that he doesn’t put himself about enough despite appearing to be physically gifted and isn’t working well with the pace of the game. Perhaps with time to adapt he’ll improve next season as it would be unfair to say he’s not shown any ability in other leagues but I’d steer well clear of him.

I honestly think at this point if Ighalo isn’t staying we’ll go back in for Josh King or someone like that.
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I had a bet on Haller and watched him a lot and he was a much better creator for others than I expected but less of a goal threat. I don’t think he’d score more than 1 in 3 for us but I could see him helping Rashford, Martial or Greenwood as a partner or central in a 3 man strike force. He did a lot for Jovic.

A loan could work, maybe Dalot goes the other way along with money if we sign a proper attacking left back and have Williams backup Wanbissaka. West ham could badly use him at RB/RWB.
 
Timo Werner or Ben Yedder would be huge for the club. Pepper in a little Sancho on top of that and this is a frightening team up front.
 
BenitoSTARR said:
I think Haaland would have started as back up. Martial is a better striker than you think and I’d put good money on him getting 17+ PL goals next season.
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I think as part of the deal Martial would have quickly moved like Alcacer did. I don’t think Raiola was fecking around. He’d have been at Dortmund, Atletico or a major Italian side within the month.
 
NoPace said:
I think as part of the deal Martial would have quickly moved like Alcacer did. I don’t think Raiola was fecking around. He’d have been at Dortmund, Atletico or a major Italian side within the month.
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I’m not so sure after the 5 year contract and I believe (though cannot prove) that one of the factors for Haaland going to Dortmund was he’d be a guaranteed starter whereas we would expect him to earn that role in his first season.
NoPace said:
I had a bet on Haller and watched him a lot and he was a much better creator for others than I expected but less of a goal threat. I don’t think he’d score more than 1 in 3 for us but I could see him helping Rashford, Martial or Greenwood as a partner or central in a 3 man strike force. He did a lot for Jovic.

A loan could work, maybe Dalot goes the other way along with money if we sign a proper attacking left back and have Williams backup Wanbissaka. West ham could badly use him at RB/RWB.
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I’d agree him and Jovic were a good partnership and helped take the pressure off one another but I look at his season at West Ham in the PL and I think for the money and uncertainty it’s not worth it.

I doubt West Ham would loan a £36m+ striker after one season to us.
 
Feck it, I'd like some instant succes and someone who puts them in the net consistently.

Aubameyang. Currently 30 years old, 1 year left on his contract. Way better option short and long-term imo. He'd probably be okay with being a backup, when he's over the hill too.
 
BenitoSTARR said:
Because all Uruguayans bite people ;)

Joking aside Cavani is older, has had a season curtailed by niggling injuries and would likely expect quite a high salary to join us. That coupled with the fact he’d likely want a starting role would probably be enough to put us off looking at him as an option.

Of course he’s been a great striker for PSG but he strikes me more as a future Serie A player than a PL striker as I think the transition to the PL at 33 might be a step too far for him.
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Fair enough. Appreciate your response. Based on what you’ve said the niggling injuries probably would concern me the most.

I think the wages would be offset by no transfer fee, and he age seems again less of an issue as he’s always been quite a physical specimen. And competition to be a starter - for me that’s a bonus!
 
devilish said:
Spanish/SA players tend to be more technically gifted then British ones because SA/Spanish kids are allowed to train for 8 hours a day as opposed to British kids who aren't. In terms of many SA players football is their only ticket out of poverty. That's not the case for the majority of English players. Sure not every Argentinian kid is better then every British kid but yes SA players tend to be better in terms of technique British born players. If you disagree then please list me 3-4 English players who can match Lionel Messi's and Diego Armando Maradona's technique. I can't think of any one really.

Now the majority of Argentinian kids see football as a way to drag themselves outside of poverty. They won't wank about Manchester United at night as a young Gary Neville would have probably done simply because they barely knew we existed and honestly they don't give a feck. The more money they make the more they are able to get their family and friends out of poverty. That greed is bad in some ways and good in others. Sure from a club perspective its bad because the guy will probably hop to 2-3 clubs before he retires. However its good because unlike many British kids who would settle for a JLingz type of career, these kids would work hard to try and reach the top. I've been following many Argentinian talents throughout my 35 years or so following the Serie A. Some were good, some were meah but I can't think of many who were happy to be, well, average.

Am I generalising? Of course I am. But we're on a football forum here not some political correctness debate at the United Nations.
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I read a piece by Tim Vickery prior to the Brazil world cup about Brazilian players who are potential superstars yet when they make the big move to Europe they mostly flop.
His opinion on it was that their life goals are to get their family's out of the slums and moved into a safe area and when alot of them achieve this they lose the passion and drive to play football .
There are numerous examples over the years and we had Anderson at our own club
 
Tel074 said:
I read a piece by Tim Vickery prior to the Brazil world cup about Brazilian players who are potential superstars yet when they make the big move to Europe they mostly flop.
His opinion on it was that their life goals are to get their family's out of the slums and moved into a safe area and when alot of them achieve this they lose the passion and drive to play football .
There are numerous examples over the years and we had Anderson at our own club
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From my experience in the Serie A the Argentinians and the Brazilians tend to come from different schools of football. The Brazilians tend to be more technically gifted and individualists. When United kids were sent to Brazil to train, they were impressed by how technically gifted these kids were but also by the fact that teamwork was close to zilc. Strikers, midfielders and defenders would hold the ball up until they actually lose it. The idea here was not to win the game but to impress the scouts. That's all that mattered. Thus, I feel that many of these talents are incredibly talented but they lack the character build up and career development needed to actually succeed in a more sober and structured European football.

Argentinians tend to be slightly less technically gifted but they seem more suited to integrate in European football then Brazilian talent tend to be.. It might be because many Italians had moved in Argentina taking with them their highly structured approach to football.

As said its a gross generalisation here so please lets refrain from this silly racism accusations.
 
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devilish said:
I don't know why I created such an uproar to be honest. I concede that the use of the word greed was maybe misplaced although I did went into great pains to explain my point in detail. However I see nothing wrong in saying that Argentinian players tend to be more technically gifted then the average British dude. A big chunk of these guys only live for football.

There's also a reason to it too and was highlighted by Sir Alex himself. He once said that the British kids tend to be less technically gifted then their Spanish counterparts simply because the former aren't allowed to professionally train for more then few hours each day. Now imagine how these kids tend to compare with kids who live in a country were football is a religion and their only ticket out of poverty.

That doesn't mean that every Argentinian kid > British kid. That's silly.
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I was agreeing with you pal. Football culture, and human culture, is different in different countries. This expresses itself on the pitch. Perhaps it is a little 'lazy' to say ALL players from X are like X but there's no smoke without fire and indeed they are, to an extent, trained to embrace these attributes their countries are known for. Imagine how a young Brazilian footballer would fair if he didn't practice his dribbling, or a young Spanish player didn't practice his first touch or young British player didn't experience getting his shins kicked in every weekend? They wouldn't make it into a Sunday league team let alone a professional one. That's football culture and it's foolish to say that a person's country doesn't affect how they play football.
 
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SweetRightFoot said:
I was agreeing with you pal. Football culture, and human culture, is different in different countries. This expresses itself on the pitch. Perhaps it is a little 'lazy' to say ALL players from X are like X but there's no smoke without fire and indeed they are, to an extent, trained to embrace these attributes their countries are known for. Imagine how a young Brazilian footballer would fair if he didn't practice his dribbling, or a young Spanish player didn't practice his first touch or young British player didn't experience getting his shins kicked in every weekend? They wouldn't make it into a Sunday league team let alone a professional one. That's football culture and it's foolish to say that a person's country doesn't affect how they play football.
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I agree fully. Honestly I am glad it's been clarified out. However I do feel it was one hell of a storm in a teacup.
 
SweetRightFoot said:
I was agreeing with you pal. Football culture, and human culture, is different in different countries. This expresses itself on the pitch. Perhaps it is a little 'lazy' to say ALL players from X are like X but there's no smoke without fire and indeed they are, to an extent, trained to embrace these attributes their countries are known for. Imagine how a young Brazilian footballer would fair if he didn't practice his dribbling, or a young Spanish player didn't practice his first touch or young British player didn't experience getting his shins kicked in every weekend? They wouldn't make it into a Sunday league team let alone a professional one. That's football culture and it's foolish to say that a person's country doesn't affect how they play football.
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The issue was purely someone reducing it down to all players from Argentina are like this...

If you qualify your statements then it’s a much better post and we’ve have some much better justification and discussion as a result of people clarifying blanket statements.

Of course culture has some influence over players but there are equally many players who go against the grain and still succeed.

I genuinely think we’ve had a much better discussion because of it.
 
It’s clear as day now what we are still missing at this stage. If we address that RW situation finally along with a young understudy for Matic, we wil be looking a lot better. Retaining Pogba, however, is a necessity if we want to go forward. Ighalo will need replacing in January if he goes too.
 
@devilish tbf to Cole, he really adapted his game to suit United. The player we bought from Newcastle was not as complete as the player united developed him to be
 
golden_blunder said:
@devilish tbf to Cole, he really adapted his game to suit United. The player we bought from Newcastle was not as complete as the player united developed him to be
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I agree and let me add to it. Cole was also an important member in our treble side, he fitted our system like a glove and he was the blue print of the modern striker. If Cole played in today's football then he would be comfortably among the top 3 strikers in the EPL.

Cole was an excellent striker who played at a time when football was shitting WC strikers for fun. Not to forget that football back then relied on two forwards, the mezza punta whose job was to create chances and the goal poacher who scored them. Cole was an all rounder who didn't excel in either role. He lacked the creativity and the technique that a Cantona, a Baggio or even a Zola had while he lacked the killer instinct of an RVN, a Vieri, a Batigol or a Shearer. These two combining factors lead to Cole not being appreciated as much as he deserved.

He wasn't the only player who were at the receiving end of criticism though. Guys like Vialli, Ravanelli, Zola and Bergkamp were treated badly at one point of his career with all of them having to leave Italy cause deemed either 'not good enough' or too old. This excess of talent in such position also meant that WC players such as Batigol and Baggio weren't immune from criticism either. The former lamented of being forced to score at least a goal per game in a bid to keep critics off his back while Baggio saw his career being derailed at the Milanese clubs
 
I dont see any proper links to a Striker from us, and not sure long term we will sign a "Back up"

If the rumours are true and we sign Sancho and Grealish - i dont think we necessarily need a Striker.

Now im not saying Sancho and Grealish are strikers, but consider our options:
Rashford
Martial
James
Greenwood
Sancho
Grealish

All are capable of playing across the front line, none seem to be a "specialist" in any position.

Martial appears to be our main Striker, but he can play LW.
Rashford similar.
James can play LW/RW

Now each player may be better at a certain position, im thinking James is better LW than RW and we've seen Grealish more on the LW for Villa BUT having these players gives us flexibility and quite a dynamic interchanging front line.

I wouldnt rule out a new striker of course, but right now with the links to Grealish and Sancho and Ighalo staying short term i think thats the way we will go.

Paying insanse fee's for a Moussa Dembele for example, makes no sense at this point for me
 
Ighalo on a permanent. Martials's nailing down the number 9 spot and all we need is a backup, especially with Rashford and Greenwood in the squad as well.
 
Harry Kane. Anything else is a waste of time. On the day Liverpool won the league, let's remind ourselves that we haven't got a world class manager like Klopp to be able to turn average players into good players. Just get the finished article in Harry Kane.
 
Keeping Ighalo as a back up would probably be fine. We have a young squad so if not him then we could consider someone like Raul Jimenes.

That said, I wouldn't be against the idea of signing Haaland when we get the chance, which I'm sure we will. Ole coached him before as we know, and I just think his next stop after Dortmund is supposed to be Man Utd.
 
I'll give Martial another season to prove his worth and give Ighalo another six months contact if possible and from there I will see if i'll go for an upgrade on Martial or a back up for Martial
 
Mohammed Kudus. Young Ghanaian. DoB: 2-Aug-2000. Plays for FC Nordsjaelland in the Danish SuperLiga. Contracted till: 31-Dec-2021. This season he has: 21 starts (23 appearances). 1641 minutes, 11 goals, 4 yellows, 1 red (a 2nd yellow). Main position: centre forward. Also plays: right wing, and midfield. Left-footed.
 
Get Grealish and Sancho and we will have options for the striking role:

Rashford-----Martial-----Sancho

or

Grealish----Rashford----Sancho

or

Rashford-----Greenwood----Sancho

or

Rashford-----Martial----Greenwood

or

Grealish----Martial----Greenwood

I mean all of these combinations look really good.
 
Very confident that after January when Ighalo goes back we will get linked to a host of strikers, still believe that the top target is Haaland and certain we will be in the race for him
 
croadyman said:
Very confident that after January when Ighalo goes back we will get linked to a host of strikers, still believe that the top target is Haaland and certain we will be in the race for him
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I think we would only pursue Haaland depending on how Martial fare and whether we see Greenwood future at CF or not .
Prior to Haaland transfer to Dortmund he was available for reasonable transfer fee would have been more amenable to being rotation option depending on the form of our forwards that no longer would be the case he would certainly demand to be a starter now so I am not that sure whether we would actually be in race to sign him in future.
 
Dinghy said:
Alexander Isak. Developed really well at Sociedad. Great movement, quick, good link-up play and can finish.
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Dinghy said:
He's slowly been integrated to their team, getting more and more starts lately and have done really well. If we wait another year his price will be doubled. We probably won't be able to compete for someone like Werner or Martinez and it would make much more sense to pay £30-35M for this guy in the summer than someone like Callum Wilson or Joshua King.
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Some people just know ball. Most on here where desperate for Timo Werner.
 
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