Kudos to Bale and Benzema

But what is the modern striker? what does that mean? and i will find you a player in the 80s who fit that description lol, maybe a couple.

R9 is a freak, simple as that, and as i said, there is no overarching philosophy around the world to make strikers like CR.

So even if you want to talk about tactics, who today fits that description of creator? there are not enough for it to be a trend. Because i would ask you to show me 5 under 23 CFs who are the next gen complete strikers

Players become as good as their talent allow them to be, it's always about talent, because as much as peter crouch could have wanted he was never becoming like Ibra. I mean, you look at a young Icardi, the dude comes straight from the falcao line of CF lol. He can wish to be as good as R9 that is not happening.

I am sorry i just dont see it, all the guys that you named, R9, Henry, they are exceptional players, not regular greats of their times.

Not from what I saw. The closest thing to a current modern striker was Bebeto to me back then... but that's because he moved to the 10 role with Romario there on NT while being the main striker at club level.

Player's didn't switch in the game from left to right to center... and didn't regularly drop into the midfield. They stuck to a specific area. That was the huge difference

The ones that roamed were the 10s. Sometimes teams played with two 10s, like Brazil did with Socrates and Zico.

R9 changed that in the sense that he played 10, CF and winger (both sides) in the same game AND he dropped into the midfield to recover balls. It was a level of adaptability that you just didn't see before.

FennecFox7 wrote:i'll keep it simple. benz needs to start scoring, i have absolutely no problem with any other part of his game, but at the very least he needs to keep it simple and bang 15-20 goals (at the very least) because at the end of the day goals win you games. if he really can't score he should play as an attacking midfielder and tbh i don't see him playing as bad in a withdrawn role

Nobody is arguing against that fennecfox7. if u seen my posts in the preseason thread I've said as much. what my posts on the modern cf and the rise of wide forwards is about is that cfs like Benz has more responsibilities than just goalscoring. he is expected to contribute in playmaking as well as changing his position to suit the attack. Think like a false 9 but with more responsibilities.
A modern forward must be able to play outwide, in the middle, and from behind in the deep on the fly competently.

Sports and TMO you have my appreciation for your insight. I would make more appropriate responses but right now im not feeling too good atm. first time in a while ill be seeing a doctor....

[quote="Turok_TTZ"]

FennecFox7 wrote:first time in a while ill be seeing a doctor....

get well, hope its nothing serious

So I have the flu... hope its not them new strands.

titosantill wrote:you've wisely now mixed the two in the same pot for the sake of argument. last year iirc you listed a bunch of strikers, still active and lumped them into your group of modern CFs, (and i have problems with that tag in and of itself), and how they're thriving, now you say they're obsolete and have now categorized them as classic 9's (whatever that means)

and there's no evolution, its not like last decade or two decades ago, had only fox in the box type strikers. for your rvn there was a henry, for your inzaghi there was a ronaldo for your owen there was a bergkamp your vieri a del piero....all in the same era and more. so all the talk about forwards doing more is not a new concept

Back then the CFs were primarily viewed as the goal getters and the tactics were set for them to be the reference point of attack. they were setup to not really leave their instructed area. or to do anything else really.

all the guys you listed with exception to del piero and maybe bergkamp were the main goal scorers and most of them stayed to their box with exception to Henry and to some extent del piero. wasnt del piero more of a support striker? I recall trezeguet had higher priority? they focused mostly on their scoring.

There is an evolution occurring. not for the lower levels but the high level yes. the cf spot will assume more responsibilities than just scoring. they must assist in the build up and on the wing if necessary.  why? because at the very top clubs, cfs are no longer being catered to compared to back then. Back then yes you had your RVN and Henry but the setups back then were so that the finishing play was for them to feed on almost exclusively. Can you honestly say that is still the case now?

Just look at Real Madrid and Barcelona. Barcelona spreads the responsibility around in the frontline and we cater to CR7 who is not a cf. When PSG signed nerman, they bent over backwards to appease the guy, even so much as giving the pens to Nerman which then led to a conflict with Cavani. makes sense to leave the pens to a cf but PSG and Nerman had other ideas.

Back then the cf spot was a key part of the machine. now? merely a cog in a much more complex machine as tactics have changed to reflect this.

It wasn't so long ago that there were two approaches to building a team: build around your biggest attacking threat OR building around your most creative playmaker. most of the time if it was possible the latter was chosen. why? because playmakers when having a team built around them usually make sure the cfs get the ball and get their goals. even when teams werent built around the cf, the cf spot were still given their due service and being fed proper.

now it is different. at the highest level it is whoever is the biggest attacking threat and the midfield and potentially the frontline must accommodate said main man regardless of whether he is a cf or not. cf get marginalized and this couldn't be more true with Benz and CR7. and rightfully that was the correct thing to do. CR7 is a beast after all.

look at liverpool where this is spreading. back in benz prime years he had around 20+ goals whilst CR7 had double the amount. Firmino is usually played in the center and he had 27 goals last year in all comps. Salah the main man? 44 goals.

Lets add how many chances Firmino gets: 136 shots taken in all apps(epl,fa,ucl). liverpool is more similar to barca in that while the main man is designated the responsibility is shared and salah aint selfish. but now that i got that out of the way lets look at salahs shots: 192 shots taken in all comps. salahs numbers are bigger even though he aint the cf. thats because he is the main man and the main man gets priority though thanks to klopp who favors teamplay. the cf is not necessarily marginalized but as you see, firmino is just another cog in the salah machine.

now lets look at Barca where Suarez is the cf and Messi is roaming around doing w/e he likes. Suarez has a respectable 31 goals in all comps (la liga, cdr, cl) 174 shots... thats good numbers. now lets look at messi. 44 goals.... 279 shots. hot damn thats quite the difference even though Barcelona attack is quite balanced and more team oriented than ours. if we go back to the older days. would you find such numbers with such disparity? I doubt it. the cf always got their lion share but the emphasis has changed. the cf is no longer viewed in the same importance as back then at the highest level of football. though tbf mehssi is one of the greats of this era. like I said, at the highest level, cfs aint being fed the same compared to the lower levels of football..

now that we seen liverpool and barca chance distribution lets look at ours.

Benzema 12 goals 66 shots taken.
CR7 41 goals 260 shots taken
Bale 20 goals 79 shots

Man Benz really needs to work on scoring. but the numbers seem about what I expected. even bale has more shots than benz despite being barely fit and it aint by accident. its by design. benz plays support and has so for years. only the last 2 years has he really taken his foot off the pedal and just focused more on support. though i think this will change. it has to.

CR7 is gone after all. we might see benz switch from support to a more mixed role as he will have to take more responsibility or be sold for failing. but bale willl now be the new main man and he will now get that lion share despite his injury record. we'll see how it plays out this upcoming season.

PSG's chance spread is the closest one to where the cf is still relevant. cavani gets the lion share but I think since the emergance of Mbappe for France in the WC and his number switch to 7, things will start changing in psg as Mbappe will sooner or later usurp the Nerman and take his place as the main man for psg.

i know i havent answered all the questions or responded to every counter pooint but im very tired and i have a nasty headache. so ill continue this when i feel better.

FennecFox7 wrote:just a correction.. even peter crouch can playmake/move out to the wing by no means is he great at it.. but i've seen him do it multiple times

He just got lost. It was an accident in his case lol.

Benz' lack of shots recently has more to do with passiveness than lack of opportunity though... he refuses to shoot in good positions lol. I put the blame for his low attempts entirely on his shoulders the past 2 years.

That's going to be the interesting part. He must be much more aggressive... but will he produce in playing like that? It's a cataclysmic shift in how he views football remember lol.

cristiano was the most reliable scorer on the team, simple, not rocket science. same with messi at barcelona, its not some sort of paradigm shift, its a natural occurrence; if one player is missing clear cut chances, the tendency is for the team to feed the guy who isn't, whether he's a striker or a winger. and part of what happens to players when they miss clear cut chances is, their confidence drops, they take less shots and then champion their abilities to do "other things" that don't require the pressures of missing chances

its about talent and who your most effective scorer is, nothing the least bit complicated at all. and whether we like it or not we still need our cf to score goals, especially now. with 40 plus goals now subtracted from our team, unless we are winning games 1 nil. 15-20 goals each for anyone up front including bale is not going to cut it, at all, we need more than that. i still believe we'll go into the market, summer's not over yet

Or we take the tact of France NT... we only open up play when necessary. Otherwise, we focus on defending. I would suggest that our talent on defense, goalkeeping and the midfield far surpasses our attacking talent today... so although I don't suggest taking it to extremes until we get into the "money" stages of the CL... I would suggest that we protect our scorelines as opposed to attacking all the time.

Not going to happen though.

the problem with the france routine is, players can buy into hard nosed defending for 7 games . in a 60 plus game season with ramos, marcelo, kroos all not particularly known for super defensive attributes, that's very hard to enforce, not to mention a relatively thin defensive line. nacho is still the only semi viable defensive replacement for all defensive spots, even cb...i mean there's vallejo, but he's meh.

let's not forget, the thought of madrid fans who want to be entertained at all cost, to the point of bashing a less than entertaining manager whose team delivered 2 straight european cups

mind you, i would like our defending to improve. and improve significantly, even if it means some boredom....that game against girona last season should be a tutorial on how not to defend. the one where they just kept scoring the same kind of goals against us, where every corner/cross set piece was like a pk.

the redistribution of chances is certainly something to keep an eye on. CR was our volume shooter, and he was scoring 50 goals per year but also takes 3-4 times more shots than any other player. From a purely statistical point of view, the goal output from other players is bound to increase when they increase their shot taking. This applies to Benzema too lol.

Then you have one's ability to actually convert chances into goals, and an added layer to that, converting chances to goals in big games. This is the one area which is a bit uncharted.

There's a reason he took more shots than that numpty Benzema. He's really good at it, and his shots are powerful enough to make the opposition tremble and make it their life mission not to give him space to execute them.

Now, you could give Benzema as many shots as you want, he'll not convert that many from outside the box. In fact, I'm pretty sure most of them would not even be on target.

Yes CR has an excellent shot, and he is a deadly finisher.

But you seen as many madrid games as i (maybe), dont tell me you did not see our players all looking to put CR in shooting positions.

But i am sure you are aware of that because the general call on here has been to sign a number 9 that will finish those chances we created for CR, more efficiently than Benzema could.

@tito... yeah. I means with the defensive talent we have, we really should be a lot better at it than we are lol. There's a Marcelo conundrum... and despite what people, I still don't think Ramos is that great of a defender. He has too many howlers.

@nick... that's my concern as well. There will be 2-3x more opportunities for the CF without CR. But can Benzema take his chances? Will he actually want to lol? After 15 or so games, if he shits his pants, it's time to panic. But he has the talent (and then some) to be great at it. It's not like it's such a stretch for him to regain his form of 3 years ago.

Well that's the high risk gamble we are currently playing with.

It doesn't matter how Benzema looks imo, he can score 10 goals in 4 games in preseason but that will not change the fact that we need a second CF on the squad. And I am not talking about Mayoral or Mariano lol.

So we go back to who is available at what price.

It's reasonable to assume that Benzema will score more if we continue to create a lot of chances but competition and doubling positions everywhere matters. Our squad is already pretty amazing everywhere but at CF

Mr Nick09 wrote:Well that's the high risk gamble we are currently playing with.

It doesn't matter how Benzema looks imo, he can score 10 goals in 4 games in preseason but that will not change the fact that we need a second CF on the squad. And I am not talking about Mayoral or Mariano lol.

So we go back to who is available at what price.

origi is up for grabs only 25mil.

Icardi doesn't impress me AT ALL. And I want to be impressed. Every time I see him, i feel meh.

morata with a return to madrid.

Unique wrote:morata with a return to madrid.

lol i know that's a joke but it doesn't make no sense. return to madrid with the coach who didn't pick him for the world cup? why would a coach bring someone he doesn't trust and why would a player go to a coach who doesn't trust him?

titosantill wrote:

Unique wrote:morata with a return to madrid.

lol i know that's a joke but it doesn't make no sense. return to madrid with the coach who didn't pick him for the world cup? why would a coach bring someone he doesn't trust and why would a player go to a coach who doesn't trust him?

sounds far fetched but benz is the only striker you have plus the manager had more players to pick from with spain. also how many strikers are up for grabs before the window ends. im not saying it will happen but it is a option.

I honestly had to google to see if Origi still plays for Liverpool, he does! 15 million and you have yourself a deal.

Doc wrote:I honestly had to google to see if Origi still plays for Liverpool, he does! 15 million and you have yourself a deal.

we will find a sucker to give us at least 20mil for him.

Heard Everton buying up whomever for whatever price these days

sportsczy wrote:Icardi doesn't impress me AT ALL. And I want to be impressed. Every time I see him, i feel meh.

I feel the same way about him. Granted, I've only watched him play somewhere between 5 and 10 matches, ever. I don't know what he's capable of. At 25 years of age, and him being the most price-wise reasonable player that we've been linked to, it's not impossible that he could end up being the "big signing" that Florentino talked about. He might even be a last resort, if the pursuit of more high-profile targets falls flat.