Strikers coming through

[Skyline Drifter]

14 hours ago, craigkillie said:

If these brilliant young Scottish strikers are out there and just aren't given a chance then how come they aren't popping up in the Championship and scoring 30 goals a season?

I understand, and agree with, the wider point you are making here but it's worth noting that is exactly what Kevin Nisbet and Lawrence Shankland to name but two did. Unable to get a look in at the top level they both restarted their careers in the lower leagues and bounced around a club or two before making their name as top scorers in the Championship and getting big moves back up.

Dykes' career has followed a different trajectory but we shouldn't really just dismiss him as a parachuted in foreigner in the same way as for instance Adams. Whilst his adoption of Scottish nationality may have come later, he's played his entire professional football career in Scotland prior to his QPR move and he was playing for QoS in Development League West when he was 18. Indeed he played one game for Dynamo Oscars in the Dumfries Saturday Amateur League even before that!

Edited October 14, 2021 by Skyline Drifter

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

10 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

I understand, and agree with, the wider point you are making here but it's worth noting that is exactly what Kevin Nisbet and Lawrence Shankland to name but two did. Unable to get a look in at the top level they both restarted their careers in the lower leagues and bounced around a club or two before making their name as top scorers in the Championship and getting big moves back up.

Dykes' career has followed a different trajectory but we shouldn't really just dismiss him as a parachuted in foreigner in the same way as for instance Adams. Whilst his adoption of Scottish nationality may have come later, he's played his entire professional football career in Scotland prior to his QPR move and he was playing for QoS in Development League West when he was 18. Indeed he played one game for Dynamo Oscars in the Dumfries Saturday Amateur League even before that!

I'm not sure that's quite fair though, is it?

Shankland and Nisbet were both given chances, and didn't exactly light the heather.  Nisbet admits he didn't apply himself, and only once he got a grip did the performances start to come.

Shankland's stats are below. 4 goals in the Championship in 33 games at the age of 22 doesn't strike me as a potential Scotland cap.

They have both done fantastically well, but to paint them as frustrated youngsters not being afforded a chance despite showing huge potential isn't quite true.

 

Edited October 14, 2021 by HuttonDressedAsLahm

[Turkmenbashi]

28 minutes ago, Binos said:

Wake up 

No u 

[Skyline Drifter]

8 minutes ago, HuttonDressedAsLahm said:

I'm not sure that's quite fair though, is it?

Shankland and Nisbet were both given chances, and didn't exactly light the heather.  Nisbet admits he didn't apply himself, and only once he got a grip did the performances start to come.

Shankland's stats are below. 4 goals in the Championship in 33 games at the age of 22 doesn't strike me as a potential Scotland cap.

They have both done fantastically well, but to paint them as frustrated youngsters not being afforded a chance despite showing huge potential isn't quite true.

 

Yes, that's fair. I wasn't really trying to paint them as frustrated youngsters as such, just to highlight that they did, eventually, restart their careers in the Championship (or probably actually in League One in both cases) before getting right up to international level. Throw in Dykes and we've got three strikers there to have come through extensive playing time in the lower leagues. That's pretty unusual.

Edited October 14, 2021 by Skyline Drifter

[Tartan Blood]

1 hour ago, craigkillie said:

The best two youth players of recent years are Billy Gilmour and David Turnbull, the latter of whom wasn't from a performance school. I think the performance schools are a good thing, but I think Billy Gilmour was destined to make it regardless.

I did think of Turnbull, but it was, what, 3 years ago he won YPOTY? So not quite as recent as Patterson and Gilmour. But I do agree, he is a supreme talent, and if it weren't for McGinn being undroppable he might have had a handful of caps by now.

Regarding Gilmour and Patterson, it probably was inevitable they'd make it, but would they have made it so early? The in-game intelligence and maturity that comes with experience has clearly been trained into them. So when they were chucked in the deep end, they already knew how to swim.

[tartanbrush]

In the last 20 years we have produced a couple of decent strikers, Steven Fletcher played at a high level and scored goals and Ross McCormack is still the all time leading scorer in the English Championship, those two should have been a partnership for years but due to one thing or another it never ever happened

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

7 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

Yes, that's fair. I wasn't really trying to paint them as frustrated youngsters as such, just to highlight that they did, eventually, restart their careers in the Championship (or probably actually in League One in both cases) before getting right up to international level. Throw in Dykes and we've got three strikers there to have come through extensive playing time in the lower leagues. That's pretty unusual.

Yeah it is - not quite Jamie Vardy (yet!) but a similar pathway. Adams, whilst not playing football in Scotland, also went the same way.

At least we have four solid strikers all around the right age of 24-26, which hopefully gives us 5-6 years of consistency, whilst we search for a real international quality striker. 

We probably won’t create a Lukaku or Haaland, but a country of our size should be absolutely capable of making a Zahavi/Dolberg/Braithwaite/Schick/King/Sorloth/Bamford-level striker capable of performing for a Europa League, or low-level Champions League team.

I wonder if it weren’t for English football, whether we’d have these guys more regularly. You’d imagine the best English Championship strikers are probably still good enough to play for some decent European teams, playing non-attritional football.

Would Adams be good enough to play for Ajax or Leverkusen? I’d have thought so.

[Skyline Drifter]

10 minutes ago, tartanbrush said:

In the last 20 years we have produced a couple of decent strikers, Steven Fletcher played at a high level and scored goals and Ross McCormack is still the all time leading scorer in the English Championship, those two should have been a partnership for years but due to one thing or another it never ever happened

Due to one being a huffy clown and the other being a complete waster latterly. He's not the all time leading scorer incidentally, he's one behind David Nugent, but that's nit picking He'll also likely drop behind Billy Sharp (3 behind) and Jordan Rhodes (5 behind) this season. Maybe even Lewis Grabban though that's more of a reach as he's 16 behind McCormack.

10 minutes ago, HuttonDressedAsLahm said:

Yeah it is - not quite Jamie Vardy (yet!) but a similar pathway. Adams, whilst not playing football in Scotland, also went the same way.

Yeah, conscious Adams did too but I was concentrating on Scotland at the time.

[tartanbrush]

2 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

Due to one being a huffy clown and the other being a complete waster latterly. He's not the all time leading scorer incidentally,

Seems to be a theme with the strikers we do produce... Kris Boyd another huffy clown and Gary O'Connor and Derek Riordan another 2 wasters

[Tartan Blood]

58 minutes ago, tartanbrush said:

Seems to be a theme with the strikers we do produce... Kris Boyd another huffy clown and Gary O'Connor and Derek Riordan another 2 wasters

You've mentioned 5 of the players afflicted with the curse. Fletcher especially should have double the caps he does. As should McCormack. I never quite knew what to think of Boyd. He was prolific everywhere he went, but there was just something missing. Very few managers trusted him in big games. 7 goals in 7 starts for Scotland. (I think 8 or 9 more sub appearances on top of that)

Throw in names like Goodwillie, Watt, Cummings, Beattie, McBurnie and you can see just how many failed to live up to their potential.

Kenny Miller and Steven Naismith are the only 2 that I would say became proper servants to the national team this millenium. There should be more.

[Binos]

13 minutes ago, Tartan Blood said:

You've mentioned 5 of the players afflicted with the curse. Fletcher especially should have double the caps he does. As should McCormack. I never quite knew what to think of Boyd. He was prolific everywhere he went, but there was just something missing. Very few managers trusted him in big games. 7 goals in 7 starts for Scotland. (I think 8 or 9 more sub appearances on top of that)

Throw in names like Goodwillie, Watt, Cummings, Beattie, McBurnie and you can see just how many failed to live up to their potential.

Kenny Miller and Steven Naismith are the only 2 that I would say became proper servants to the national team this millenium. There should be more.

Cummings and beattie is scraping the barrel 

[Gordopolis]

In the last 20 years we have produced a couple of decent strikers, Steven Fletcher played at a high level and scored goals and Ross McCormack is still the all time leading scorer in the English Championship, those two should have been a partnership for years but due to one thing or another it never ever happened

Didn't they both score their first Scotland goals in the same game (Vs Iceland at Hampden in 2009)?
But aye, both could have been used to much better effect (particularly McCormack).

[craigkillie]

McCormack only ever played at Championship level and was never anything beyond OK when he played for Scotland. He wasn't close to the same level as Fletcher.

[Tartan Blood]

40 minutes ago, Binos said:

Cummings and beattie is scraping the barrel 

Those were just off the top of my head. There are umpteen more examples. Cummings and Beattie both played for the old firm, and that's generally enough to get some buzz surrounding them. But all the other names mentioned were, at various points, hyped as the next big thing. 

My original point was, there have been dozens of strikers to come through that underachieved for Scotland (and their clubs) for myriad reasons. Right now, the well seems to have dried up completely. Thank God for Dykes, Adams and Nisbet.

[Barry Ferguson's Hat]

McBurnie would have come good by now. Biggest loss since John Kennedy.

[Barry Ferguson's Hat]

John F. Kennedy.

[accies1874]

Dykes will be our Dzyuba.

So ture

It’s unreal. Last week it was Ross Stewart, this week Lyndon Dykes. Then again, Declan Gallagher has just been called up - visas permitting.

If we are going to start pinning our hopes on diddies from the scottish premier league then we might have as well chuck it

Dykes is utter pish for f**k sake. He works hard and that’s it. If he’s being considered for Scotland we are totally fucked. He looked out of depth in the Scottish Championship at times.

Unlucky lads

[Gordopolis]

McCormack only ever played at Championship level and was never anything beyond OK when he played for Scotland. He wasn't close to the same level as Fletcher.

He was absolutely Scotland level (for that era) though.

[RandomGuy.]

10 hours ago, Binos said:

Dykes an Australian,  Adams  English,  Nisbet through the lower league routes

Our top flight clubs refuse to give their young strikers any top flight game time

Looking at U23 strikers, who featured in 15+ games in the top flight last season, gets you Oli Shaw, Callum Hendry, Bruce Anderson, Louis Appere, Andy Winter, and Callum Smith.

I refuse to believe if theres better U23 strikers than these lot then they'd be playing less, tbh.

I'd guess, if we're looking at U21 strikers, then the likes of Kyle Joseph (Swansea), Dapo Medube (Watford), Aaron Pressley (Brentford), and Jack Stretton (Derby) are the obvious ones to keep an eye on. All under 21 and sort of regularly playing at one level or another, which is generally a decent indicator of having a chance. Maybe even James Scott at Hibs, whos still only 21. I'm not hugely convinced any of them will ever make an impact for Scotland though, tbh.

A lot of decent young Scots get taken down South pretty early these days and don't play senior football until their 20s, its not hugely fair to blame Scottish top flight clubs for that. They can't produce enough quality players every year to both lose the best ones but still have ones capable of starring for Scotland.

Edited October 14, 2021 by RandomGuy.

[Guest Bob Mahelp]

Ross Stewart has started well at Sunderland, but he's not exactly a youngster. And he's not really been a prolific scorer in Scotland. Maybe this could be the start of something though..

I honestly can't think of the last young striker brought through by a Scottish team that went on to have a long career as an internationalist. 

Probably Steven Naismith. 

Edited October 14, 2021 by Bob Mahelp