The Strikers

[2426255]

We have a thread for every other department of the team. There is a thread for strikers coming through, but not for the current situation - so here it is in all it's glory. I'll kick it off in the only proper way and that's with a quote from our leader and coach extraordinaire.

Quote

He’s a goalscorer. A goalscorer playing in a good Hearts team that’s creating chances and Lawrence is scoring the goals. He’s done well. The difference is just experience, more experience. More responsibility, he’s captain of the club. Playing in a Hearts team that is competitive at the top end of the table. All those little factors come together. Lawrence will always be a goalscorer. Playing for Hearts week in, week out he’s going to get more chances and he shows every week that he’s a good finisher. If he gets a chance to play, then we will find out. That’s the bottom line. Lawrence has done well.

I remember it was a bad night (Russia). I thought Lawrence was really good when he came into the game. I put him on and his hold-up play was good. Back to goal play was good. He actually improved us, believe it or not, although we lost four goals in the second half I thought he improved the team. It was maybe other people on the night who let Lawrence down a little bit, rather than Lawrence letting himself down. I thought he was decent. From then, you get a feel for the player, a feel for the lad. He’s always been there or thereabouts around the squad. Obviously this season his goal record is incredible and he deserved his place in the squad.

Don’t forget the other two strikers have been decent for me as well, Lyndon Dykes and Che Adams. It’s nice to have Che back. Dykes is maybe not quite getting into the QPR team at the moment, a little bit in and out - but I’ve spoken to him, he’s fine, he’s in a good place. We have three good strikers and they’ll all get game time in the matches. I think you know by now that I like my strikers. I like them. It’s good that Lawrence is in there now to keep them on their toes. Those three will definitely get game time across the two matches. It’s up to them to impress. You’ve got Jacob Brown to add to the mix. Jacob is injured and out probably until the middle to end of April. He’s another one I’ve got in my head, another one who does well. I’m always looking for more in the forward positions but, at the moment, it’s three. They will get the chance over the next couple of games to impress.

Steve Clarke

https://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/24185779.shankland-get-scotland-chance-friendlies-says-clarke/

[Hendricks]

 

[Quentin Taranbino]

Tommy Conway saying all the right things and will be going to Euros as a Scotland fan (assuming not picked for main squad)

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sport/12317976/scotland-euros-squad-tommy-conway-germany/

[Scary Bear]

Like Charlie Nicholas, I’m just sitting here thinking , why don’t we produce top quality strikers anymore?

Back in the ‘80s Charlie the thinker played for Arsenal, Kenny Dalglish was at Liverpool, and Steve Archibald played for Spurs and Barcelona. 

We are fairy good at producing wing backs / full backs and midfielders, but we don’t seem to be very good at producing great forwards in Scotland. Could it be down to modern coaching methods? 

[Molotov]

13 minutes ago, Scary Bear said:

Like Charlie Nicholas, I’m just sitting here thinking , why don’t we produce top quality strikers anymore?

Back in the ‘80s Charlie the thinker played for Arsenal, Kenny Dalglish was at Liverpool, and Steve Archibald played for Spurs and Barcelona. 

We are fairy good at producing wing backs / full backs and midfielders, but we don’t seem to be very good at producing great forwards in Scotland. Could it be down to modern coaching methods? 

Nah. It’s because we stopped playing football in mud and ash pitches. 
Get these modern day hybrid and artificial pitches to fcuk. 

[Scary Bear]

51 minutes ago, Molotov said:

Nah. It’s because we stopped playing football in mud and ash pitches. 
Get these modern day hybrid and artificial pitches to fcuk. 

An interesting hypothesis.

As someone involved with kids football, I can reassure you that we still occasionally play on pretty muddy, bobbly, uneven pitches.

I had not considered that we are missing the peril of the red ash pitches, and this could be a reason for the lack of quality strikers.

 

[craigkillie]

8 hours ago, Scary Bear said:

Like Charlie Nicholas, I’m just sitting here thinking , why don’t we produce top quality strikers anymore?

Back in the ‘80s Charlie the thinker played for Arsenal, Kenny Dalglish was at Liverpool, and Steve Archibald played for Spurs and Barcelona. 

We are fairy good at producing wing backs / full backs and midfielders, but we don’t seem to be very good at producing great forwards in Scotland. Could it be down to modern coaching methods? 

There are hardly any good forwards now, full stop. Unless you are a Haaland level player then just being able to score goals is never going to be enough to get to the top at club level, and clubs therefore favour all-rounders more.

Most of the best out and out strikers are in their 30s, from the previous era.

[PrestersKTID]

It's no surprise that Clarke uses Dykes and Adams before thinking about a Shankland. They are workhorses, put themselves about and do a job getting back. 

Same as when previous managers selected Miller, Naismith for example who worked their arses off every game.

Not saying shankland won't do that but i don't think he's got the engine for it.

That being said i'd like to see how shankland deals with the Dutch from the start but realistically he's a great option to bring off the bench with 10/20 left when we need a goal.

[2426255]

I think this'll be the most interesting part of the team tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing who plays. I can't decide who it'll be, but agree Shankland is the least likely to start. Dykes or Adams for me - but I'd choose Adams personally if we are looking to build on our possession game against a top team.

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

16 hours ago, craigkillie said:

There are hardly any good forwards now, full stop. Unless you are a Haaland level player then just being able to score goals is never going to be enough to get to the top at club level, and clubs therefore favour all-rounders more.

Most of the best out and out strikers are in their 30s, from the previous era.

This is it. Growing up in the 90s you could take your pick of favourite number 9s, with most major countries having multiple options.

Italy, Portugal, Spain etc don’t have anyone of any serious note. Days of Raul, Torres, Villa… Vierra, Inzaghis, Montella, Del Piero…

The likes of Immobile and Morata are footnotes - quality wise - in the modern history of their countries.

Probably merits a Jonathan Wilson piece on the disappearance of number 9s (though I suspect he’s already done one).

Football is cyclical so no doubt it’ll come back round.

Edited March 21 by HuttonDressedAsLahm

[Claudia Gentile]

It was frustrating watching the principality last night and they seem to have a decent level of front players in Johnson, Wilson, Brooks and Moore. Also have James and Broadhead who can score and assist.

[2426255]

It's knee jerk to judge Lawrence Shankland on a singe game or any of our strikers for that matter, so this isn't me having a go at him. If any of our other strikers missed that chance then people would have been saying Lawrence Shankland would've scored it.

I think there's a double standard in the sense that when Jacob Brown missed that chance against Norway fans were saying he's had his chance and failed to take his opportunity, but when it's Shankland the discussion is trending toward how effective his hold up and link play was. I think there's a bit of favouritism basically.

I'm not looking to kick off a long debate about this, just wanted to get it off my chest.

[No_Problemo]

4 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

It's knee jerk to judge Lawrence Shankland on a singe game or any of our strikers for that matter, so this isn't me having a go at him. If any of our other strikers missed that chance then people would have been saying Lawrence Shankland would've scored it.

I think there's a double standard in the sense that when Jacob Brown missed that chance against Norway fans were saying he's had his chance and failed to take his opportunity, but when it's Shankland the discussion is trending toward how effective his hold up and link play was. I think there's a bit of favouritism basically.

I'm not looking to kick off a long debate about this, just wanted to get it off my chest.

I don’t think that’s a fair analysis of the Jacob Brown situation though, that was said about Brown because his all round play was very poor that night too. 

I do agree with your general point that we shouldn’t be writing anyone off Brown or anyone based on one game though. 

Shankland has been labelled not international class all over twitter this morning too. I think with Brown you would possibly get the pro Shankland people overstating his poor performance, whereas now you have the anti Shankland people pretending Shankland was generally terrible last night. It’s just lots of people blinded by club bias though, which infuriates me. 

[Tony Wonder]

Shankland in general was good, it's churlish to say he wasn't. For 70 minutes we were the better team and he played his part in that.

There's no getting away from the miss though, it was poor and 9 times out of 10 he tucks it away.

Overall I don't think he done enough to show he should be starting over the others but he never done his cause any harm in terms of a squad place as he was effective and helped us play well for the spell he was on the park. Enough there to show he should be involved IMO.

[RandomGuy.]

Only saw highlights of the game, so can't comment too much, but did feel sorry for Shankland for the miss. Careers can hinge on those split second moments.

Unsure whether it shows he can't handle the pressure at the very top level, or whether he just hasn't got his timings right at that level yet. Goalkeepers react better at closing you down and then saving the shot at the top end and I'm not sure how often he's played against that? He'll have more time to set the shot up then a larger area to hit in the league so it's all about whether you think he just needed that miss to realign the sights or whether he can't do that and he's a split second too slow.

[BroraBoy]

With no U21 game this week, does Clarke invite Tommy Conway & Kieron Bowie into the camp (not suggesting they play) but maybe start integrating them into the set up, considering we don’t have many other options……

[tree house tam]

12 minutes ago, BroraBoy said:

With no U21 game this week, does Clarke invite Tommy Conway & Kieron Bowie into the camp (not suggesting they play) but maybe start integrating them into the set up, considering we don’t have many other options……

It's an option I'd like to see.

[eez-eh]

2 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

Only saw highlights of the game, so can't comment too much, but did feel sorry for Shankland for the miss. Careers can hinge on those split second moments.

Unsure whether it shows he can't handle the pressure at the very top level, or whether he just hasn't got his timings right at that level yet. Goalkeepers react better at closing you down and then saving the shot at the top end and I'm not sure how often he's played against that? He'll have more time to set the shot up then a larger area to hit in the league so it's all about whether you think he just needed that miss to realign the sights or whether he can't do that and he's a split second too slow.

As much as it was a bad miss, I thought Flekken did very well at coming out and making himself as big as possible.

[2426255]

Yeah spot on, same for Jacob Brown. The Norway goalie made himself big, it was a wet pitch and the ball sped up as it took a bobble. Probably just needed a miss to realign his sights and get his timings right.

[DC92]

I was at the other end of the ground from Brown's miss and didn't really notice it at the time. The main thing that stuck out from his performance was how easily he was nudged off the ball when he tried to play with his back to goal, which isn't an ideal quality if the key requirement from our striker is to bring the wing-backs and attacking midfielders into play.

Judging by where he plays for his club, maybe he's more suited to playing off the main striker or as a wide forward, but that's not necessarily a role that we're likely to see much.