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Striker Woes


Caledonian Craig

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5 hours ago, daviebee said:

Beyond that we've got to hope that this Belgian side make a player out of Shankland or that Griffiths undergoes a remarkable transformation, the former being a lot more likely than the latter.  Looks like McBurnie has been jettisoned and I'd be surprised if we ever saw him back.

Who's up front for the U21's?  What happened to the youngest-ever player who came on for Celtic and scored with his first touch a few years back?  Is there anybody out there who can give us all just a wee bit of hope?

To answer my own question - Jack Aitchison.  11 goals in 17 appearances for the U19's should've had us all drooling.  However, he's now 21 and currently on loan in the English 4th tier.

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Just now, McTeeko said:

It’s the one thing we’ve been missing for what seems forever - a world class striker. Loads of similar level countries (none of the big hitters I mean) have been blessed with them, but no us. What a difference it would make if we had someone like this from this list……

Rep. Ireland - Keane

Poland - Lewandowski 

Macedonia - Pandev

Israel - Zahavi 

Wales - Bale

Finland - Litmanen

Agreed and to be honest its something that goes back throughout our history. Only four players in our history have scored more than 20 goals for Scotland - the last of them being Kenny Dalglish who hung up his boots 35 years ago. 😮

 

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It’s not just the strikers though, we have attacking midfielders who never feed the strikers. John McGinn, Christie will take shots time and time again which have little chance of finding the net rather than pass it to a striker in a far better position. They then make this “I apologise, next time I’ll pass to you” gesture to the striker and when a similar scenario arises they invariably shoot again from an improbable angle. And this has also been going on for years, I can remember certain midfielders doing it throughout their club and Scotland career. 

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1 hour ago, er yir macaroon said:

Ethan Laidlaw just scored a hat-trick for the u17s against Wales. 

Call him up. 👍

Seriously, I've just remembered Jack Stretton from Derby - a penalty box poacher who has scored a couple in the Championship already this season and is in the Under 21 squad.

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Striker is the hardest postion to become top level at. When all is said and done we dont have the attitude to produce forwards of that standard.

A striker is normally based on his goals, so when our boys are firing in hat tricks every game going through the youth systems everybody believes they are great. They then go into the Scottish Prem and keep scoring, becoming top starts for their club. All the while they arent working on all the things they shpuld be. By the time they try and move up a level its too late and they have to settle for having a good career.

You could list numerous players this applies to just over the past 20 years.

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1 hour ago, Malcolm said:


having lower league epl strikers is not enough. We need strikers playing in a top 6 club.

Eh? We don't have lower half epl strikers other than che adams and he's not really a goalscoring striker, he's more of a second striker. 

We haven't had lower half epl strikers for about 20 years barring maybe Fletcher and naismith for brief period. 

We don't necessarily need a striker who can play for a top 6 side, what we need is a good goalscorer who can cut it at a lower half epl side. A guy like mitrovic or callum Wilson. 

If we had someone like pukki or mitrovic then games against Moldova and even teams better than them would become alot easier and more comfortable for us. 

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No doubting a talented striker would help but remember prior to the Euros we scored 10 goals in 5 games against a mixture of opposition. Out of the 10 goals, 8 of them were scored by strikers (Adams/Nisbet) or attacking midfielders(Fraser & McGinn). 

In the last 5 games, Fraser has not had the same game time for some reason and Tierney has not been on the same kind of form. Clarke has changed his team around quite a lot and probably still deciding on his best team. I think part of the problem is a lot of our players snatching when faced with the goal. Agree though that we are better placed with one striker and a supporting attacking midfield inc Christie when on form.

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4 hours ago, mccaughey85 said:

Eh? We don't have lower half epl strikers other than che adams and he's not really a goalscoring striker, he's more of a second striker. 

We haven't had lower half epl strikers for about 20 years barring maybe Fletcher and naismith for brief period. 

We don't necessarily need a striker who can play for a top 6 side, what we need is a good goalscorer who can cut it at a lower half epl side. A guy like mitrovic or callum Wilson. 

If we had someone like pukki or mitrovic then games against Moldova and even teams better than them would become alot easier and more comfortable for us. 


 

We had guys like Kenny dalglish, Alan brazil, Steve Archibald, Andy gray, all winning silverware in England and Europe.  That’s the kind of level that we need if we want to be qualifying and making a push to get out our group once there.  

Having the odd player at Norwich or Barnsley is not that.  We need an equivalent of a Harry Kane, plus probably a couple of others if we want to be challenging likes of Denmark.  We should be capable of being Denmark or Belgium, similar population to us.

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4 hours ago, Malcolm said:


 

We had guys like Kenny dalglish, Alan brazil, Steve Archibald, Andy gray, all winning silverware in England and Europe.  That’s the kind of level that we need if we want to be qualifying and making a push to get out our group once there.  

Having the odd player at Norwich or Barnsley is not that.  We need an equivalent of a Harry Kane, plus probably a couple of others if we want to be challenging likes of Denmark.  We should be capable of being Denmark or Belgium, similar population to us.

I think you need to temper your expectations. Kenny Dalglish retired 35 years ago. 

Having a Kane or a Bale would be wonderful, but there is absolutely no indication there is anyone even close to that right now. However, we have some cracking talent all throughout the squad, so if 10 out of 11 of our players are quality internationals, then the spearhead doesn't need to be as sharp. A prime Kenny Miller would be more than enough to be burying these chances of late.

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Possibly the best experience I've ever had at Hampden came from a win courtesy of a stabbed-in kinda-shot from Gary Caldwell. I don't care who scores, or how. If our strikers aren't good enough to get into good positions or shake off markers then there must be space for other players to score, as good midfielders often do.

 

We're not good enough to employ Total Football but a wee bit less Job Demarcation would be good.

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17 minutes ago, KirkieRobRoy said:

Possibly the best experience I've ever had at Hampden came from a win courtesy of a stabbed-in kinda-shot from Gary Caldwell. I don't care who scores, or how. If our strikers aren't good enough to get into good positions or shake off markers then there must be space for other players to score, as good midfielders often do.

 

We're not good enough to employ Total Football but a wee bit less Job Demarcation would be good.

Yeh we need other players to chip in with more goals, apart from john mcginn none of our players seem to score very often. 

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1 hour ago, KirkieRobRoy said:

Possibly the best experience I've ever had at Hampden came from a win courtesy of a stabbed-in kinda-shot from Gary Caldwell. I don't care who scores, or how. If our strikers aren't good enough to get into good positions or shake off markers then there must be space for other players to score, as good midfielders often do.

 

We're not good enough to employ Total Football but a wee bit less Job Demarcation would be good.

Indeed. Denmark's two full backs scored their goals against us.

 

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12 hours ago, Tartan blood said:

I think you need to temper your expectations. Kenny Dalglish retired 35 years ago. 

Having a Kane or a Bale would be wonderful, but there is absolutely no indication there is anyone even close to that right now. However, we have some cracking talent all throughout the squad, so if 10 out of 11 of our players are quality internationals, then the spearhead doesn't need to be as sharp. A prime Kenny Miller would be more than enough to be burying these chances of late.


 

It’s the law of diminishing returns at the top level.  Yes a decent striker might put away a few more chances but we need more than that. We are way off where we need to be in that position.  Two levels below.

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On 9/6/2021 at 4:29 AM, Malcolm said:


 

We had guys like Kenny dalglish, Alan brazil, Steve Archibald, Andy gray, all winning silverware in England and Europe.  That’s the kind of level that we need if we want to be qualifying and making a push to get out our group once there.  

Having the odd player at Norwich or Barnsley is not that.  We need an equivalent of a Harry Kane, plus probably a couple of others if we want to be challenging likes of Denmark.  We should be capable of being Denmark or Belgium, similar population to us.

We all need to start somewhere though. There's nae harm in being a striker at a wee team when you're in your early-20s, providing you're playing and scoring regularly, because you can move on to bigger and better things. Steve Archibald started out at Clyde, Andy Gray at Dundee United; Ipswich Town were a lower end English First Division team when Alan Brazil began his career there.

If someone is, say, 28 and still playing for a wee team, though, then it's probably unlikely they're going to cut it at international level.

 

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  • 2 months later...

I was sceptical when Adams got involved (more for thinking he just wanted to play in the euros rather than not good enough) but he's looking another masterstroke from Clarke.

Has air of Miller (before 2009) in how busy he is upfront and also can chip in with crucial goals.

My main doubt was he's never really played upfront on his own at club level but done well in Dykes absence last two games.

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  • 4 weeks later...

No-one setting the world alight at present heading into the Xmas period - forwards and some attacking midfielders. Nisbet is not doing much, Brown lost his starting slot this weekend, Christie (and Bournemouth) form has taken a dip, Stuart Armstrong not played for ages, Fraser looks a gonner and on the bench now also, so potentially still a place or two to play for in the squad. Definitely worth keeping an eye on McKinstry though he's classed as a winger and will need a bit more game time with Leeds. With the busy Xmas period coming up there should be an opportunity for one or two.

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2 hours ago, gkm_vancouver said:

No-one setting the world alight at present heading into the Xmas period - forwards and some attacking midfielders. Nisbet is not doing much, Brown lost his starting slot this weekend, Christie (and Bournemouth) form has taken a dip, Stuart Armstrong not played for ages, Fraser looks a gonner and on the bench now also, so potentially still a place or two to play for in the squad. Definitely worth keeping an eye on McKinstry though he's classed as a winger and will need a bit more game time with Leeds. With the busy Xmas period coming up there should be an opportunity for one or two.

"...Brown lost his starting slot this weekend..." I was just about to ask how he was getting on. 😌 Fingers crossed he can get his place back. And hopefully Christie, Armstrong and Fraser will regain their best form soon.

 

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Were two injuries' (both of which both are injured at the moment) away from being significantly weakened in our striking department 

I think our first team squad in whole is at a good level but our problem is when we have 1 or 2 injured in the same position most positions in the squad reduce massively - outwith the 30 or so top players quality levels drop dramatically 

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23 minutes ago, borojock said:

Were two injuries' (both of which both are injured at the moment) away from being significantly weakened in our striking department 

I think our first team squad in whole is at a good level but our problem is when we have 1 or 2 injured in the same position most positions in the squad reduce massively - outwith the 30 or so top players quality levels drop dramatically 

Hmm first of all I am pretty sure Che Adams is nothing more than a niggle and not long-term.

Striker is a position we'd toil with say both Dykes and Adams out. Midfield would cope fine as we have a fair few options in there. Central defence - likewise we have a good amount of cover there. Even left-back I'd say we could call on Aaron Hickey if Robertson and Tierney were out and at right-back we could have Ramsay and Ralston as back up to Patterson and O'Donnell. The goalkeepers then we would struggle.

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Tony Watt is top of the SPFL scoring chart at the moment but he failed yet again to score against one of the OF yesterday.

In the same game though I noticed that David Turnbull played as 'false 9', which intrigued me.  Despite being a midfielder his goalscoring record would be regarded as decent for a centre-forward.

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