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Why do we lack top quality strikers?


Big Ramy 1314

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2 hours ago, mccaughey85 said:

Whys that? surely he was our star player. 

Not only that but he was out of the squad altogether after the WC.  It's not a popular opinion, but his performances until then had largely been lacklustre with occasional flashes of brilliance which made them all the more frustrating.  Even Brazilian journalists at the '82 WC were asking him why he played so differently for his club compared to his country.

At the same time Kevin Keegan was dropped from the England squad and the difference between the 2 players was stark.  Keegan whined like a fairy while King Kenny said, "I'll keep working hard and hopefully it'll be impossible to leave me out."  After he was brought back in - and his performances for Liverpool demanded it - we saw the real Kenny Dalglish, the world class genius in dark blue that we should've been seeing for 10 years before.

Did he just need that boot up the arse of being dropped or did we finally use him the best way, i.e. being the target man for Nicholas, Johnston, McAvennie to play off?  There was speculation that he felt inferior to the players we had in the 70's and that's why we didn't see the best of him.  There was also talk that he was so far ahead of everyone else that he'd play passes expecting other players to read them but they couldn't.  I don't know.  IMO though there was a world of difference in his performances before and after he was dropped and it was a real privilege to have watched him.

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3 hours ago, mccaughey85 said:

Whys that? surely he was our star player. 

Big Jock was furious after the New Zealand game and he was looking for players to make an examples of. Scapegoats if you like. Dalglish was one of them. Danny McGrain was another, he didn't have a good game. Ironically he was playing in his favoured right back position that day. He also decided to drop Evans as well. Pity he hadn't dropped Hansen instead. 

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12 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

Big Jock was furious after the New Zealand game and he was looking for players to make an examples of. Scapegoats if you like. Dalglish was one of them. Danny McGrain was another, he didn't have a good game. Ironically he was playing in his favoured right back position that day. He also decided to drop Evans as well. Pity he hadn't dropped Hansen instead. 

These were the days - when we could tell European Cup winners to GTF out the team!

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21 hours ago, daviebee said:

Dalglish came on as a sub against Brazil and didn't feature at all v the USSR.

Yeah, wasn’t even on the bench for USSR game! I read in his biography that he knew he wasn’t in the Brazil game team before the game as stein picked his 11 starting players for a training match and he was in the ‘other’ team... he called it the ‘mugs’ team...  appArently the mugs team won and roughie who played a half outfield for them scored a goal 😂.

I still don’t think stein knew his best team for that tournament...  I also think there was something personal going on there with stein putting Kenny in his place. Archibald seemed to be the chosen one then.

 

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I think the point here is the early 80s was the last time we had lots of good strikers to choose from.....    dalglish, Archibald, Jordan, Brazil, Andy gray, sturrock, Nicholas, McGhee....  that’s a world class striker plus at least three or four top European or English league level. The whole list better than anyone we have had for twenty years or so.

before we all get carried away....the facts are we have nothing up front now... nothing compared to the quality above.

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7 minutes ago, Malcolm said:

I think the point here is the early 80s was the last time we had lots of good strikers to choose from.....    dalglish, Archibald, Jordan, Brazil, Andy gray, sturrock, Nicholas, McGhee....  that’s a world class striker plus at least three or four top European or English league level. The whole list better than anyone we have had for twenty years or so.

before we all get carried away....the facts are we have nothing up front now... nothing compared to the quality above.

Add Eric Black to that list as well.  A player like that would walk straight into the team now.

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Mentioned this on another thread. England probably have at least 20 strikers at the moment who would be a first pick for us. Law of averages suggests we should have at least a couple of strikers at a similar standard.

But yeah, historically we have also struggled to find a consistent goalscorer. For example there are 99 countries who's all time top scorer has bagged more than Scotland's...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_top_international_men's_football_goal_scorers_by_country

 

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