Big Willie I guess it's pretty clear by now that I don't fully like how we build up and feel we don't take enough risks in the final third and through the middle. Thay said, we simply do not have a CF who is in the box often enough to get on the end of the many great balls thay get flashed in by Saka and Odegaard. Instead we're seeing Havertz and Jesus comstantly dropping near the halfway line and collapsing our shape on us.
I agree about our build up play and we saw against Liverpool and in the past that our strikers do make runs they don't get picked up, we move the ball too slowly and by the time a run is spotted a lot of the times our players aren't looking for it. Our CM and AM need to be a lot more proactive in that sense.
Having a mobile CF will definitely open up the option for more through balls but a lot of the time we don't get chances to put through balls in because teams are usually camped in their own box. However I agree we have little to no counter attack threat, in transition we are too slow and indecisive.
Big Willie That's completely untrue. Liverpool first of all ha e Salah who is effectively playing as a CF for them no matter what nominal position he takes up at kickoff. He's always high up the pitch. Similar to Ronaldo at Madrid and United. Yeah maybe a winger on the team sheet but he's the striker when the game actually starts.
Meanwhile City themselves have Haaland who is by definition a CF that scores a bucketload of goals. And if we want to go back to before that, they had Aguero etc. Even ignoring that, they play a completely different game to us and put more emphasis on having 2 attacking midfielders whilst we play with only 1.
Liverpool fans also used to moan about Firmino, saying they need a pure CF who scores more. Players like that help facilitate those around them and the team plays better. I'd rather have goals spread around the whole team than a single focal point.
City in 21/22 scored 99 league goals and their top scorer was De Bruyne with 15 league goals. The next season they signed Haaland who scored 36 PL goals and they scored 94 goals. There were a lot of arguments made that signing Haaland actually made them play worse, they looked less fluid and more robotic whereas before they were a lot more dynamic in attack . We need more goals from everywhere, especially RW and AM.
We also need to sign the right CF, I'd rather we spend less this window on someone than spend £60m+ on someone who might not be right.
Big Willie I'm the opposite. What is the point of our CF if the goals and creativity should be coming from our wide players who are also doing do much defensive work whilst being double teamed any time they get near the box? How often do we see our CF setting up our wide players with chances?
If we could get a CF that occupies defenders and has them on their toes for fear that he'll drive towards goal and take shots at any given moment, it'll free up our wide players who are constantly double teamed far more than getting in another wide player without getting a prolific CF would.
Wide players doing defensive work isn't as a bad thing, against top sides if your entire team isn't putting in a shift you'll be made to look silly. You can't press teams and you're then leaving your defensive line more exposed.
I don't think just having a CF would free up Saka, he's being double marked because Odegaard & Martinelli are slacking so teams know they can cut off Saka and the rest won't step up. Our CMs aren't doing enough creatively and not enough of a threat rather than the lack of CF. Of course having a top class CF will certainly help.
flobaba what if you’re looking at this backwards…
Maybe.....maybe not 😉
Rohit A quality center forward enables more chance creation. We need a player upfront that makes everyone around him better while providing goals. Havertz actually does that with his graft. We need more craft to go along with it.
I'm not against signing a top class CF but if given a chance of signing two top wide players ahead of a CF who I'm not entirely convinced about I'd go with the former and I'd argue it would make us a lot better team. If we kept our players fit we'd have scored another 15 or so goals this season.
