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Strikers coming through


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Christie is also suspended for the Moldova game, otherwise he would have surely played alongside Adams.

Interesting to see Rhodes mentioned here earlier (in a different context) I remember when he used to be our striking Messiah.

And I wouldn't look too much into Scotland not producing a striker - these things go in cycles for all small countries. Recently we have been producing lots of small technical midfielders (and left backs) surely putting an end to the nonsense that we only focus on physical tall players.

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14 hours ago, sergie's no1 fan said:

Fair enough, I am biased and even joked about it in my post. 

He done well for Clarke at Killie and amazingly is only 25. I thought he was a bit older than that. 

He scored a great goal at the weekend, I can't remember the last player Steve Clarke recalled to the squad.

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3 hours ago, Satoshi said:

Christie is also suspended for the Moldova game, otherwise he would have surely played alongside Adams.

Interesting to see Rhodes mentioned here earlier (in a different context) I remember when he used to be our striking Messiah.

And I wouldn't look too much into Scotland not producing a striker - these things go in cycles for all small countries. Recently we have been producing lots of small technical midfielders (and left backs) surely putting an end to the nonsense that we only focus on physical tall players.

Scotland has never really produced a top class international striker

The fact Dalglish and Law still hold the joint record for goals at 30 speaks volumes 

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2 hours ago, Clown Job said:

Scotland has never really produced a top class international striker

The fact Dalglish and Law still hold the joint record for goals at 30 speaks volumes 

Erm, but they are both top class international strikers! Law won the Ballon D'Or!

Dalglish should have certainly won it ahead of Kevin Keegan in 1979.

You could argue that academy systems are generally better at producing defenders or midfielders. Ibrahimovic and Haaland were mentioned earlier and why can't Scotland produce them - but these players aren't produced as such - they are incredibly gifted technically or physically. Freaks of nature as you will. If either happened to be Scottish their career trajcetory wouldn't have been too different.

There are very few top class forwards being produced anywhere at the moment.

Also to address a point made earlier, the sprinting statistics football use are a bit odd - no professional  footballer would be able to double up as an international class sprinter (the fitness and body type required is quite different for a start). Covered in a good Athletic article below.

https://theathletic.com/2741750/2021/07/31/how-fast-are-footballers/

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20 minutes ago, Satoshi said:

Erm, but they are both top class international strikers! Law won the Ballon D'Or!

Dalglish should have certainly won it ahead of Kevin Keegan in 1979.

You could argue that academy systems are generally better at producing defenders or midfielders. Ibrahimovic and Haaland were mentioned earlier and why can't Scotland produce them - but these players aren't produced as such - they are incredibly gifted technically or physically. Freaks of nature as you will. If either happened to be Scottish their career trajcetory wouldn't have been too different.

There are very few top class forwards being produced anywhere at the moment.

Also to address a point made earlier, the sprinting statistics football use are a bit odd - no professional  footballer would be able to double up as an international class sprinter (the fitness and body type required is quite different for a start). Covered in a good Athletic article below.

https://theathletic.com/2741750/2021/07/31/how-fast-are-footballers/

Our problem isn't that we don't create Haaland, Kane, Lewandowski, Lukaku et al.  

Our problem is that we don't create above average strikers to the likes of Danny Ings, Calvert Lewin, Bamford, or Weghorst.

If those top tier players are 10/10 or close, and the like of Ings etc. are perhaps a 7/10, our best strikers are probably a 4 or 5/10, and even then, that's Adams and Dykes.  Nisbet is perhaps pushing a 3, and no one else comes close.

(That's an entirely arbitrary ranking system, but I'm trying to demonstrate just how many rungs of the ladder below the top, that our top strikers are).

For further context, Robertson and Tierney are close to world class, and could likely play for any team in the world.  Right now, at best our strikers would play for reasonably competitive Europa League sides, or Champions League qualifying hopefuls.

Edited by HuttonDressedAsLahm
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I had forgotten about Johnny Russell as an option. Wouldn't be against him getting a call up. Experienced player who is on form. Never was or will be much more than a squad player for Scotland but occasions like the Malta game are when squad needs to be utilised and think it would be a safe call up 

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1 hour ago, HuttonDressedAsLahm said:

Our problem isn't that we don't create Haaland, Kane, Lewandowski, Lukaku et al.  

Our problem is that we don't create above average strikers to the likes of Danny Ings, Calvert Lewin, Bamford, or Weghorst.

If those top tier players are 10/10 or close, and the like of Ings etc. are perhaps a 7/10, our best strikers are probably a 4 or 5/10, and even then, that's Adams and Dykes.  Nisbet is perhaps pushing a 3, and no one else comes close.

(That's an entirely arbitrary ranking system, but I'm trying to demonstrate just how many rungs of the ladder below the top, that our top strikers are).

For further context, Robertson and Tierney are close to world class, and could likely play for any team in the world.  Right now, at best our strikers would play for reasonably competitive Europa League sides, or Champions League qualifying hopefuls.

Naismith and Adams are both good Premiership standard players but a bit below those you describe above.

Your examples are from England and the Netherlands, much larger countries we don't benefit much from comparing ourselves to.

You final statement is bang on, but there is probably no hidden reason for it. Currently we are producing great left backs and not great strikers. Countries of our size rarely have good players all over the pitch at one time. Dykes is clearly effective in international football, against good and bad sides. Adams is certainly good enough to be playing regularly for us. Guys like Jan Koller scored over 50 international goals!

Nisbet is ahead in his career at his age than Jamie Vardy was...

He might grow into a proper player, dedication and professionalism can take average talents quite far.

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24 minutes ago, Satoshi said:

Naismith and Adams are both good Premiership standard players but a bit below those you describe above.

Your examples are from England and the Netherlands, much larger countries we don't benefit much from comparing ourselves to.

You final statement is bang on, but there is probably no hidden reason for it. Currently we are producing great left backs and not great strikers. Countries of our size rarely have good players all over the pitch at one time. Dykes is clearly effective in international football, against good and bad sides. Adams is certainly good enough to be playing regularly for us. Guys like Jan Koller scored over 50 international goals!

Nisbet is ahead in his career at his age than Jamie Vardy was...

He might grow into a proper player, dedication and professionalism can take average talents quite far.

But...

  • Croatia (population 4m) - Perisic, Kramaric, Mandzukic (recently retired)
  • Denmark (population 5.8m) - Dolberg, Wind, Olsen, Poulsen, Braithwaite
  • Bosnia (population 3.3m) - Dzeko, Ibisevic
  • Serbia (population 7m) - Jovic, Mitrovic,
  • Sweden (population 10m) - Isak, Ibrahimovic
  • Uruguay (population 5.5m) - Suarez, Cavani, (Stuani?) 
  • Norway (population 5.4m) - Haaland, Sorloth, King

And that's before we talk about Czech Republic (10m), Belgium (10m) or Portugal (10m), any of which would be equal to Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland combined.  If we put our combined teams together, we still wouldn't have a true Premier League/Serie A/La Liga/Bundesliga level goalscorer.

Every one of those strikers above would start for us.

Population has an effect, sure, but it's not remotely significant enough to justify our poor returns in that area.

Adams and Dykes are, and will be decent for us, but neither really can be seen as a product of our system(s), and they're still some way off being great goal scorers.  Beyond, we have almost zero strength in depth.  

If we hadn't been able to claim those two, we'd have Nisbet, Shankland, and?

Edited by HuttonDressedAsLahm
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5 minutes ago, HuttonDressedAsLahm said:

If we hadn't been able to claim those two, we'd have Nisbet, Shankland, and?

Shankland is at a team sitting bottom of the Belgian league, hasn't scored this season and only played 1 full game. 

I'd have Johnny Russell, Tony Watt and Siriki Dembele (Peterborough) ahead of him at present. 

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5 minutes ago, DAFC. said:

Shankland is at a team sitting bottom of the Belgian league, hasn't scored this season and only played 1 full game. 

I'd have Johnny Russell, Tony Watt and Siriki Dembele (Peterborough) ahead of him at present. 

Would prefer Ross Stewart 

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