It wasn’t intended to be an argument. It’s your inability to be civil in any reply that makes it so consistently.
I think the main point being missed here is that we need a goalscorer regardless of whether they have played in the PL or not. The one player that sticks out that would fit the 443 model and we could realistically sign is Armstrong from Blackburn. Now I know everyone will say he’s too expensive but this is where we hit a crossroads as a club and the reason why the forward position in the Pozzo era has been absolutely dire bar a select few. Good strikers cost money and you generally get what you pay for. The Pozzos spend poorly whether that be too little or way too much. I think a sensible 15-20 million would be a good acquisition and not out of reach financially for us. Since the Venkys takeover Blackburn have nosedived and I think still heading in the wrong direction. Not saying they need the money, but there is definitely an opportunity there for a hard bargain and I’d imagine Armstrong would not want to stay at a mid to lower table championship side if a Prem side come calling. His wages could be offset against one of Deeney or Gray leaving meaning the transfer fee is the only extra outgoing funds. Armstrong is a natural goalscorer and regardless of what league I think he will get goals when the opportunity presents itself which is huge in the PL where you have to take your chances or get punished. I still think we overpaid for Sarr but look at what you can get for money you spend. It is about spending wisely but for a striker and the potential to stay in the richest league... spend the FCUKING MONEY GINO!
What was it intended to be then? It certainly wasn't a "civil" comment from you; it was snarky, moronic and needless, and it deserved the response it got.
Armstrong has missed an awful lot of chances despite his goals. I don't think he's a guy you can rely on to take the one or two chances he might get a game. I'd pass especially when you consider the money we'd have to spend to get him.
Oh I don't think it's just us, I think pretty much everyone thinks you're being a complete **** at the moment for whatever reason.
I for one agree 100% with Armstrong. The two games against us I thought he was excellent and ran our defence ragged. Whoever gets him will get an excellent little player who will no doubt score goals. @RS2 yes he missed loads of chances and a few penalties. My theory on this was that he took to much responsibility and shouldered the burden of scoring for Blackburn. Firstly he would have a much better quality of player around that would take the burden away somewhat. Imo I believe if you can get him between 10-15m including add ons it would be an excellent signing. Good age, second in the charts to Toney and has a very good turn of speed on him. He's far superior to anything with have now and I include Pedro in this.
Anywho back to the o.p. It is unlikely that we could outbid many teams for a proven striker Also , Ighalo for example got worked out very quickly and the goals soon dried up . Lastly if we shook the tree and an unknown top striker dropped out of it he would be gone in the January transfer window. A 12-14 a season striker is what we need IMO
That is a key stat , for sure . Although someone with a good goals per shot rate is unlikely to be available . Poorer ones will be available for around £18M and can demand reportedly 75K a week .
I read that Boulaye Dia had at one point a conversation rate of 34.2%, this year. He has been linked with West Ham for around £10 Million.
West Ham were 6th, top scorer Antonio with 10. West Brom were 19th, top scorer Pereira with 11. Make of that what you will.
Chelsea finished 4th with Jorginho top scorer with 7 (all from penalties, a record that would make Deeney blush!). Across the board it seems there's been fewer goals (outside of a crazy start to the season), but I don't know if that will continue as we return to something like normality next season
That Pereira is a very good player and West Brom were basically a one man team - something which we may also be again next season with Sarr unless we sign some additional quality attacking players to chip in.
That is going to be applicable to any striker we are linked with. Frankly, that statement applies to quite a lot of top strikers at big European clubs. Premier league survival is worth £100m. To get a striker and / or forward of the caliber to keep us up is going to cost a decent amount. They have rotated between four different strikers and they have a midfielder on penalties which makes this look worse than it is. The issue with this strategy is that we do not have many goal scorers in this side generally. Cleverely, Hughes, Chalobah, Sema, Gosling just don't score goals in the way say Doucoure or even Abdi used to do. Quina / Zinkernagel are capable of it, but failed to show it in the championship so no expectation we will do it in the premier league.
It’s odd this, as not every successful team has someone like Kane who gets 20 goals a season. So Chelsea have got champions league football without anyone in the team managing double numbers. But it’s a squad that achieved top four, with a +22 goal difference. So as a squad we definitely have to improve on our goals scored. Sub 40 goals is not good enough to guarantee survival. Whether we can find a proven EPL >12 season goal scorer in our price range, may be too narrow a question. Can we enter next season with a squad that can score enough goals to win more than ten games?
This is an interesting read. https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...hampions-league-final-manchester-city-chelsea You do wonder if we can't get a great striker, but could get a Dan Joomer or Deulofeu type on the left, if we could manage without a no. 9. I don't think we've the quality however. More likely to get someone at 9 who can hold up play and bring others into the game rather than scoring hatfuls, and keep trying to develop Pedro as another option.
The tactical formations that most teams play these days precludes strikers from getting the high proportion of goals they used to, exceptional players like Kane aside. So teams need more goals from other sources. Sarr will get his share but our current central midfielders are not known for their goal scoring and we rarely score from free kicks. The transfer activity will be crucial.
Striker and left-winger have to be the most important incomings this summer (I don't know if Cucho or maybe even Young count as a left-winger, or indeed if they are good enough or if they will chip in with enough goals). Last season we didn't score enough goals, but for a time, with Sarr and Deulofeu, we looked like we'd pull clear, and that was with Deeney not pulling his weight
Hard to judge Cucho either way really after last season as he was injured for a lot of it and when he wasn't he was playing for a very defensive side in awful form. What is clear though is that he hasn't kicked on as many of us would have hoped. He is still young and has time to turn it around but if he is first choice at either striker or left wing, I will be very concerned.
Batshuayi seems to be one of the more old-school strikers who's good at taking chances, but who doesn't get involved in play much, which I suppose you'd need in a team like Palace who don't create much
The one thing we can say about Armstrong is he scored a hell of a lot more goals in an average championship team, compared to all our strikers combined in a top two team. He therefore has to be a significant improvement on what we’ve got, it’s just whether he’d be suitable value for money. Can’t see Gino even considering it though, so it’s all moot.
Will be very interesting to see what buying clubs value him at! They're not going to get anywhere near the valuation they want with the risk he goes for free the following Summer. He would definitely be in my list of top targets just from the couple of games against us.
Yeah, and presumably if he doesn’t make it at PL level you can always sell him to a relegated club with Parachute money, or indeed we’d have a ready made championship goal scorer ourselves.
If we were interested we're more than capable of sweetening the deal somehow with options of loans and swap deals. I could see Success thrown into a deal which would be even better.
Yeah he is clearly better than any of ours, but I would say that while Blackburn are an average side, they have a decent attacking unit and play suicidal, attacking football (which comes at the cost of their defence).
Luther missed loads of chances, but he still scored 27 in 82/83 and 21 in 84/85 in the old First Division.
We need to sign 2 players we believe can score 10 goals from open play as a #9 in a 433 simply because our track record of signing goalscoring PL strikers under Pozzbury has been so abysmal. The odds of us signing 1 striker and it being a successful signing are so exceptionally low. In fact if we signed 15 strikers this summer, I wouldnt be surprised if none of them scored more than 5 goals. When it comes to signing PL strikers Pozzbury are gash - plain and simple. Unless they change their ways we are very unlikely to sign a better goalscorer than Andre with his 22 PL goals from open play, 1 (from open play) every 255 minutes. Because of club favouritism Troy will start ahead of Andre despite his hilarious strike rate from open play. Let's face it right now it's looking more likely than not that Troy will be 'leading the line' for much of next season and to think we have had Luther Blissett, Mo Johnstone and John Barnes play as our main striker in days gone by, its really gutting. Limiting our talented young players by giving them nothing to work with as our #9. we'd be starting the season with one hand tied behind our back like in 19/20.