I was thinking about everything a classic goal scoring striker does and it never really changes no matter what country or league they’re in, but can it be a downside, too?
When you look at a classic number nine, like a Rickie Lambert or someone who has played in the lower divisions and done well at all levels including the highest in England, he has basically built a career of just scoring loads of goals. Him and Darren Bent are probably England’s best natural finishers we have at our disposal and as an Englishman looking at other International team is rather depressing. They’re not the more common complete forwards who can play on either flank or drop into a central attacking midfield position, they’re just their at the point of the attackers or alongside normally a player who can win aerial duels (I.E, Emile Heskey knocking the ball on for Darren Bent.) They’re usually playing on the edge of the last man or knocking about in the box and are usually described as predator-like, not running the channels or going wide to be crossing the ball in, they want to be on the end of it!
The only thing that really changes when they go up a division is the amount of opportunities they have to score, in the Championship they may get four or five clear shots on goal, but when they go up a level they may only get one or two a game and that adds a large amount of pressure onto a player who bases their entire game around being a clinical finisher. I suppose they’re shooting themselves in the foot because if they don’t score in three or four games, the fans will notice even more when that may be his only identifiable trait as a player.
I think this is why Darren Bent is struggling at Aston Villa, he just doesn’t seem to get a streak of games for him to break the hex above his head and then gets dropped and without playing, he can’t really reclaim his place. You look at Tevez, now of Juventus, he can do the whole finishing side of football but if he doesn’t score in a game or two, the fans won’t jump on his back because he will run himself into the literal ground for his team – and he would do this at Manchester City and apparently he didn’t even like the manager! I think Rickie Lambert is an anomaly and can just score loads and loads of goals for Southampton in the Premier league, I think they will shock a few people next year, too.
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