Strikers coming through

[Binos]

20 minutes ago, HuttonDressedAsLahm said:

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?

Every single one of those countries has a selling league

We are skewed by the money brought to our league by the OF

Definitely hampered development of players especially strikers over last 30 years 

[DAFC.]

3 minutes ago, Binos said:

Would prefer Ross Stewart 

Yep, that's fair. Would have him in ahead of Shankland too at the moment. 

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

1 hour 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. 

With the best will in the world, that demonstrates our quandary perfectly.

[Binos]

Crewe o
Sunderland 4
Including a Ross Stewart double 

 

Get the loch ness drogba in i say

[Barry Ferguson's Hat]

The most startling stat about Shonklun this season is that the goals dinna move ken and he still hasn't scored.

Edited October 20, 2021 by Barry Ferguson's Hat

[Quentin Taranbino]

Sirike Dembele is another championship striker that is probably worth a look at

[tartanbrush]

6 minutes ago, DavidMcG said:

Sirike Dembele is another championship striker that is probably worth a look at

I like the look of him, very skillful would offer us something different, can play wide or through the middle, touted for a bigger move

[Bing.McCrosby]

Just now, DavidMcG said:

Sirike Dembele is another championship striker that is probably worth a look at

He been mentioned about 250 times already and more of a winger. But deff worth a look i agree.

[Scumjob]

Stewart is an interesting one. Different style of player perhaps to either Dykes or Adams but a decent finisher.

Doesn't feel good to be calling up players from the English third tier but Sunderland are a big club and undoubtedly attract players who would otherwise be playing in the Championship so perhaps he's one of them.

Is he really pulling up enough trees to suggest he's a better shout than Nisbet or Shankland though? Neither of whom is likely to get a look in outside of injuries to Adams or Dykes anyway.

Hopefully he keeps scoring though and does the same next season st a higher level.

[Binos]

4 hours ago, Scumjob said:

Stewart is an interesting one. Different style of player perhaps to either Dykes or Adams but a decent finisher.

Doesn't feel good to be calling up players from the English third tier but Sunderland are a big club and undoubtedly attract players who would otherwise be playing in the Championship so perhaps he's one of them.

Is he really pulling up enough trees to suggest he's a better shout than Nisbet or Shankland though? Neither of whom is likely to get a look in outside of injuries to Adams or Dykes anyway.

Hopefully he keeps scoring though and does the same next season st a higher level.

9 goals in 11 games 

Top end league 1 as good/better as any non OF teams in spfl

[craigkillie]

The fact that he has scored as many goals in 12 games this season than he did in all his 41 Scottish Premiership appearances is making me question that tbh.

[Ewan8472]

On 17/10/2021 at 14:50, Binos said:

It's a double header

 

Same squad reckon

 

 run with Adams and an attacking midfielder off him for Moldova 

Then back to Dykes Adams for Denmark 

So Nisbet is the only back up striker for Moldova ?

[dave_binos]

On 18/10/2021 at 13:57, DavidMcG said:

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 

It’s Moldova we’ll be playing son -not Malta. I’ll keep you right. 

[Satoshi]

On 18/10/2021 at 22:32, HuttonDressedAsLahm said:

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?

 

Well I think, first of all, some of those players aren't that good, and some aren't strikers.

And you've only selected a fairly small sample of countries. Hungary and Austria are both proud historic footbaling nations, much larger than Scotland, who aren't producing top class forwards*. Larger countries like Romania, Belarus, Switzerland or Bulgaria don't fare too well either. And Ukraine haven't produced any great forwards since Shevchenko. Teemu Pukki is one of Finlands best ever players and isn't that good. And that's just in Europe!

*You could call Arnautovic a great player (he's certainly better than some of those mentioned above!) but this links into one of Scotlands other problem - England hoarding UK immigration. Of those mentioned above (only checked economies similar to Scotland) Ibrahimovic, King, Isak, Poulsen and Braithwaite are all second generation immigrants. Pretty much the entire Swiss team is of recent immigrant descent (mostly from the Balkans). As are most of Belgiums golden generation, and both of Frances world cup winning squads.

If Scotland was able to set its own immigration policy (even Australia states do this to a certian extent) within a few decades we would have a similarly diverse football team. It makes sense for immigrants to currently cluster in the South of England (it's usually the first point of the entry, it's the richest part of the country, has the least harsh weather and established immigrant communtities. Only devolved policy would push immigration northwards). Population is a limiter in the amount of 16-35 year old males in a country - hence why our squad will almost always be better than Northern Irelands and Luxumbourg, but worse than England or Brazil.

 But to get back to the original question, I don't think there is any specific reason Scotland struggles to produce a top class forward. It's cyclical - sometimes we have sometimes we don't. The same applies to the countries above - all of whom have had plenty of periods being rubbish. I wonder if they spend a lot of time naval gazing as to why they can't produce as many good left backs as Scotland (maybe Austria don't).

Edited October 21, 2021 by Satoshi

[albagubrath]

Why do you think second generation immigrants would help produce an international level striker? It's not just a numbers game, or China, India, Nigeria, Japan, Russia etc. would all be footballing powerhouses. All have substantial football playing communities but not world beating football teams.

My own view is that the problem in Scotland is that we are not very good at teaching people how to play football. That is beginning to change, and we are now creating skillful and well rounded athletes who can compete in the modern game. We still have some way to go to reach the level of football coaching available in other countries such as some of those you have mentioned. Why aren't we very good? It could be a number of reasons, but being on the edge of the biggest football economy in the world definitely doesn't help. Not only do our best players move to England, but our best managers, coaches, sports scientists, analysts, scouts, physios etc. all move to England too. Our entire infrastructure is at the mercy of the English system. 

So, despite being very pro immigration myself, I don't think that is in any way likely to be a silver bullet. We'll just be teaching people with different ethnic/national backgrounds to be equally shite footballers.

[Satoshi]

2 hours ago, albagubrath said:

Why do you think second generation immigrants would help produce an international level striker? It's not just a numbers game, or China, India, Nigeria, Japan, Russia etc. would all be footballing powerhouses. All have substantial football playing communities but not world beating football teams.

My own view is that the problem in Scotland is that we are not very good at teaching people how to play football. That is beginning to change, and we are now creating skillful and well rounded athletes who can compete in the modern game. We still have some way to go to reach the level of football coaching available in other countries such as some of those you have mentioned. Why aren't we very good? It could be a number of reasons, but being on the edge of the biggest football economy in the world definitely doesn't help. Not only do our best players move to England, but our best managers, coaches, sports scientists, analysts, scouts, physios etc. all move to England too. Our entire infrastructure is at the mercy of the English system. 

So, despite being very pro immigration myself, I don't think that is in any way likely to be a silver bullet. We'll just be teaching people with different ethnic/national backgrounds to be equally shite footballers.

 

To look at it a different way, had Zlatan Ibrahimovic (or Isak or Arnautovic) been born in Scotland would they:

a) Not have been footballers

b) Been worse footballers

c) Pretty much the same

I think c is the most plausible outcome. And your right population isn't the only thing, but there is no real history or culture of football in India or China. Japan may not be great on the world stage but they are the most successful team in the Asian Cup. Similarly, Nigeria has had a population boon recently and will get better but they are amongst the most successful countries in Africa (Egypt is the most successful and they are also large). The two biggest countries where football is the dominant sport is Brazil and Germany - and they have a strong claim to be best and second best of all time. Consider the Dutch - a highly regarded youth set up and footballing culture and they overperform on the world stage. But they aren't close to being the best team in Europe - Spain, France, Germany and Italy comfortably outperform them. I don't think any of those nations have a better youth set up, or maximise their talent any better, but they are good and have the raw numbers in terms of population behind them. And more population means more money, I wouldn't be surprised if the England U21 coach earns more than Steve Clarke and most other international managers. And it's isn't just the coach, this translates as better physio, sports science, data analysis etc. 

As for Scotland not being very good, for a country of our size we have undoubtedly overperformed in our history. We have 9 WC qualifications (and went to 8 ) the only nation of 5 million or less to beat that is Uruguay (and they are one ahead if you discount the fact they qualified automatically in 1930 and 1950). We have qualified more times than much bigger (and decent) footballing nations like Poland, Austria and Switzerland. Denmark are doing brilliantly at the moment and just secured their 6th qualification - but they are still three behind us. We have qualified more times than Wales, ROI and NI put together.

WC qualification is not the only metric of course, but our h2h record against most nations is also pretty good. Our WCQ would have been even better if we had tried at all in the 30s.

So I don't agree we aren't that good. We could be better of course, Uruguay and Croatia do much better at youth development than we do and part of the reason is that their domestic leagues are so weak and their FAs have much greater control over youth development. I would love that to be the case in Scotland but alas Celtic and Rangers are too powerful (and we hire buffoons like Malky Mackay into key positions). There's a case that we should outsource all youth development to English clubs who have virtually unlimited resources (this is what all the other home nations do) but I think a hybrid Uruguay system would be best. But for incremental improvements to be made you have to start from the basis that things aren't that bad currently, we do a lot of things right, we are producing some pretty fantastic players at the moment. There's probably not an international team in the world who wouldn't start Robertson at left back.

There is no silver bullet, I expect Scotland, Croatia and Uruguay will all fluctuate wildly in quality even if nothing changes. Our h2h record vs. Croatia is actually very good...

[Gordopolis]

The fact that he has scored as many goals in 12 games this season than he did in all his 41 Scottish Premiership appearances is making me question that tbh.

Fair enough to question it, but tbh it's not a black and white a comparison.
For one thing he's playing for a dominant side in Sunderland, quite the opposite to last season's struggling Ross County. That he's scored more goals in an attacking, successful outfit doesn't necessarily mean league one is worse that the spfl prem.

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

7 hours ago, Satoshi said:

 

Well I think, first of all, some of those players aren't that good, and some aren't strikers.

And you've only selected a fairly small sample of countries. Hungary and Austria are both proud historic footbaling nations, much larger than Scotland, who aren't producing top class forwards*. Larger countries like Romania, Belarus, Switzerland or Bulgaria don't fare too well either. And Ukraine haven't produced any great forwards since Shevchenko. Teemu Pukki is one of Finlands best ever players and isn't that good. And that's just in Europe!

*You could call Arnautovic a great player (he's certainly better than some of those mentioned above!) but this links into one of Scotlands other problem - England hoarding UK immigration. Of those mentioned above (only checked economies similar to Scotland) Ibrahimovic, King, Isak, Poulsen and Braithwaite are all second generation immigrants. Pretty much the entire Swiss team is of recent immigrant descent (mostly from the Balkans). As are most of Belgiums golden generation, and both of Frances world cup winning squads.

If Scotland was able to set its own immigration policy (even Australia states do this to a certian extent) within a few decades we would have a similarly diverse football team. It makes sense for immigrants to currently cluster in the South of England (it's usually the first point of the entry, it's the richest part of the country, has the least harsh weather and established immigrant communtities. Only devolved policy would push immigration northwards). Population is a limiter in the amount of 16-35 year old males in a country - hence why our squad will almost always be better than Northern Irelands and Luxumbourg, but worse than England or Brazil.

 But to get back to the original question, I don't think there is any specific reason Scotland struggles to produce a top class forward. It's cyclical - sometimes we have sometimes we don't. The same applies to the countries above - all of whom have had plenty of periods being rubbish. I wonder if they spend a lot of time naval gazing as to why they can't produce as many good left backs as Scotland (maybe Austria don't).

Every one of those strikers/attackers was picked because they had impressive goalscoring records in one of Europe's top leagues.  Who is our best in living memory?  Steven Fletcher? 45 across 7 seasons?

Every one of those attackers has a better goal return than anything we've produced.

As for Austria, the lad who scored twice against us in March is significantly better than anything we've had in decades.  He had 16 in 33 in the Bundesliga last season.   

For the record, 16 is equal to the number of goals Adams, McGinn, McBurnie, Burke, and Phillips managed between them in four more games in Premier League last season.  You get my point?

If you're interested, this is our leading scorers since the creation of the Premier League in England.

 

[Craigieboy86]

Scotland try best find new striker with Dykes and Adam 

 

Sam Gallagher (Blackburn Rover)

Jamie Paterson (Swansea)

Karlan Grant (West Brom Brom)

Sirki Dembele (Peterborough Utd)

Ross Stewart (Sunderland)

Ryan Hardie (Plymouth)

[Satoshi]

13 hours ago, HuttonDressedAsLahm said:

Every one of those strikers/attackers was picked because they had impressive goalscoring records in one of Europe's top leagues.  Who is our best in living memory?  Steven Fletcher? 45 across 7 seasons?

Every one of those attackers has a better goal return than anything we've produced.

As for Austria, the lad who scored twice against us in March is significantly better than anything we've had in decades.  He had 16 in 33 in the Bundesliga last season.   

For the record, 16 is equal to the number of goals Adams, McGinn, McBurnie, Burke, and Phillips managed between them in four more games in Premier League last season.  You get my point?

If you're interested, this is our leading scorers since the creation of the Premier League in England.

 

I'm not going to check them all, but Mitrovic has scored less goals than Steven Fletcher in the Premier League (and struggled to even get a game for Fulham last season). He isn't great.

Sasa Kaladjdzic (as you can tell from the name) is of Balkan descent and the son of Bosnian War refugees. So is your point that Austria, a nation with 50% more people, who can set their own immigration policy, are able to produce a better striker than we can? You would expect that, as a team we are better than them which you would not expect.

Do you think if Sasa Kaladjdzic had been born in Scotland he wouldn't have made it as a footballer or been far worse?

I don't think there is much evidence we have great striking talents that we are messing up with coaching, rather we are missing the raw ingredients because we are a small country anyway, and unlike most of our neighbours hardly have any immigrants who around the world (and for various reasons) disproportionaley produce more footballers relative to their share of the population.

Leigh Griffiths had enough talent to be a great striker but chose to throw it away. Even Ross McCormack, Steven Fletcher, Garry O'Connor and Derek Riordan hardly made the most of their talent. Perhaps our academy coaching system is better suited to producing technical and competent players rather than direct or flair players. 

We can do better of course, but there's no silver bullet as to why we aren't producing great forwards. We could improve our coaching and still not have enough talent to make a top striker. We could do nothing and the next Kenny Dalglish, Denis Law or Hughie Gallagher might be born anyway.