We play with a lone forward and in recent years any club that has a well established CF also struggles to have a reasonably competent back up, unless the back up is forced to play out on the wing and adjust. When Torres was Liverpool's lone striker, they had N'gog. Chelsea's difficulties in getting Anelka/Drogba and Torres/Drogba into form at the same time have been well documented. When Berbatov joined Man Utd he was relatively poor while Wayne Rooney scored 30 odd goals comfortably. As soon as Berbatov was a part of a two man attack, and played regularly, his goal tally almost doubled.
Now all those back up strikers are clearly better than Chamakh will ever be and that's why they chipped in with at least 10 goals a season, but I don't think you can discount the effect of form here. We need to find the right balance and bring in a player who is very good but doesn't need a run of games to deliver: Henry was ideal for this. Or we switch formations and play two up front. Otherwise we'll never be satisfied whomever we bring in.
I don't think we can expect our back up striker to perform miracles, the focus should be on making sure our other wide forwards can win a game whether or not van Persie is leading the line.
