The Centre Forward Stop-Gap Market

Hansi Fick

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Sport is a horrible source as it's basically concocting Barca company line fan fiction, who want to get rid of Depay since he flopped there rather badly and also receives wages from them, which is something they object to.
Most definitively it would be not a good move at all to sign him. He's not a great player. Not to mention it already went wrong once.
 

Lynty

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Can't see why not. He's available.

The alternative option is Rashford regularly starting centrally if Martial can't stay fit.
 

Messier1994

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With Ronaldo gone, should we close this stop-gap thread? Now it will be for a full on signing.
With the upcoming sale of the team — I think a stop gap loan/signing is more likely.

Any new owner coming in will want to make a big splash on the transfer market, right? Glazers aren’t picking up the tab for any January signing, never have before. We don’t have the cash, they would draw on the credit line. Any buyer will 100% take over the debt. If we spend 100m in January, it’s 100m less to be spent by the new owner in the summer.

Against that, it’s of course huge for the club — and the new owner — to have a club in the CL in 23/24. So I don’t expect the directions from the Glazares will be ‘to do nothing’. Right?

I am just speculating, but it would surprise me if we spent big in January.
 

Messier1994

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The alternative option is Rashford regularly starting centrally if Martial can't stay fit.
If Martial isn’t fit, will Rashford play 3 games a week for 5 months in a row?

Ideally, you want three fit strikers going into a stretch like this. The striker is the most sub position. One guy gets hurt, you can put one guy on the field and one guy on the bench.We have what, 0.5 fit strikers? One striker that cannot stay fit. One LW who can play there. Elanga.

We needed a striker before Ronaldo left, ideally we need two now.

I don’t think the talk — about how we should not get one stop gap striker because he would be average anyway — really is in touch with reality given how our schedule will look as of the ball is kicked off in the Caraboe Cup game against Burnley.
 

Red00012

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We could do a lot worse than sign Kieffer Moore as a stop gap. He is a perfect ETH striker, a target man that gets stuck in. He has a release clause of €6m, but could definitely do a job for us.

If we sign young players like Sesko and / or Moukoko in the Summer, I think Kieffer Moore would be a great role model of someone who has worked hard his whole career, and at the age of 30, finally makes it to the Premier League and to the World Cup.
:lol::lol:
 

croadyman

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In the January market, Memphis might be as good as we get. And he's not bad at all. Very different from the young man that left us. Leaves room for the starting striker we still need. That person won't be available in January, no matter how much we fantasise.
Yeah definitely matured in last few years
 

NoPace

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Good post and I agree all the way.

One thing though, with Schmacca and strikers like him you do lose a lot of pressing ability. Like in a classic situation where say there is an air duel and then a loose ball, a big striker like him will just not nearly get going after it as fast as a smaller quicker type. With someone like Antonio, I think one of his biggest strengths is that he is good in the air due to being really strong, but he is also like glue going after possession and pressing. Tough bastard to play against.
Yeah, that's true. We've seen almost our worst defensive game without Martial up top (though to be fair we're not keeping clean sheets with him in the side either) so it probably increases our rates of getting ripped apart.

Relatedly, everyone is down on Jonathan David (including me, he didn't get into the box enough to get on the end of crosses) after the Belgium game but I bet if I rewatched it I would think a big part of Canada being able to break up Belgian play so often quite high up the pitch involved his work. Whenever I see him I'm struck by how his stance and decisions defensively seem to be that of a midfielder and not a forward.
 

ROFLUTION

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:lol:

I played that version of Championship Manager for years, as I wasn't as fond of the more complexed later versions that took ages to play even one season.

Maxim Tsigalko, Kevin Kyle and Wartan Ghazarian were always quality as well.
Dont forget Nikiforenko
 

ROFLUTION

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If vardy is available and not starting regularly for Leicester, we should make a bid for him. Won’t be too expensive. Will be motivated to play in Europe, yet, not too choosy about champs league. Will press defenders like crazy and good finisher in the box.
Cant do it week in week out though, but it might work for a season if rotating a bit / subbing him
 

ROFLUTION

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Mitrovic if available for me, or else a loan with option to buy for Depay where we pay something for the loan for 6 months. Just to see if he floats. If he does, he could be a shrewd signing
 

jesperjaap

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Our transfer plans will be helped a lot if we finish 4th as opposed to 6th. I don’t agree that it’s irrelevant if we finish 3rd or 13th as long as we don’t win the title.

Playing guys too much or being prevented from playing our preferred way due to not having the personnel will cost us pts in the standing. Guaranteed.

We are heading into an unprecedented tough 5 months of soccer this club. We have glaring holes on the roster:

(i) We don’t have a winger who can play wide on the right side besides Antony. When Elanga plays, we have to deviate from the game plan.

(ii) Martial helps with his pressing and ability to hold up the ball. Rashford has many times disappeared from games when we need a striker that can hold up the ball the most.

(iii) Martinez ability to play the ball for us is essential for Ten Hag’s style. Lindelof can fake Varane football, it’s not what we need, but it’s a place holder. None of our CBs can provide backup if Martinez is hurt.

(iv) Not to mention the lack of backup at RB that we have and how counting on Eriksen to be a total workhorse for us is stretching it.

I 100% agree with you that we have to get the right type of players for these holes on the squad. BUT — if they fit the requirements, I think having the right types at his disposal is worth much more to ETH than being forced to plug a square plug into a round hole.

In addition, for a football player to function — nothing is more important than team structure. We have not had a functioning team in the past. We are starting to get that under Ten Hag. I think we are seeing that with Eriksen for example. Would he have made a massive difference for Ole? Never. Ole’s equation didn’t add up, the groundwork wasn’t there for the players to succeed.

Lastly, you can definitely get a lot of football, real high level football, from many many players out there — (a) if they are healthy at the moment, (b) if they are put in a positioning to succeed, and (c) if they aren’t given a too heavy work load. Put differently, if you want a player to provide play at the same high level and the player is (a) half injured, (b) put in a position that doesn’t really fit him and (c) have to play a ton of games — there are very few who can provide it.

If you have watched a lot of football and a lot of different kind of competitions, the above is apparent. You regularly see examples of lesser teams in like the Europa League all of a sudden have a name you recognize and that you thought had retired a decade ago — play really really well. For national teams it’s basically more of a rule than an exception if you look at like teams outside the top 10-12 nations. There are literary examples of like players in the 2nd tier league in Belgium doing a really good job for their national team at a high level.

To summarize, a ton of names have been spittballed in this thread that probably aren’t even remotely good fits. You can’t just pick a name out of a hat and expect to find someone who can perform based on what you saw of the player in question 3-4 years ago. Someone can have been at an awful place 3-4 years ago, and recovered his career, completely turned it around. But if you put the right guy at the right time at the right place — definitely, they can help, even if they aren’t long term solutions. Someone who has failed at a bottom tier PL league and only is doing so-so in some lesser European league, could definitely perform for us. Help ETH to get this team into the top 4.
Pellestri, Amad, Hannibal, Sancho.....we are over loaded with players can play there even if several are on loan.

Name a striker from your descriptions that is a stop gap and helps us get in the top four against the current competition? Sure there may be some, I cant think of any though
 

croadyman

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Mitrovic if available for me, or else a loan with option to buy for Depay where we pay something for the loan for 6 months. Just to see if he floats. If he does, he could be a shrewd signing
Second one for me as Fulham won't sell Mitrovic
 

Loon

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Depay would surely be better as a stop gap than Ighalo, who is such a nailed on candidate for future "players you forgot who played for United" threads, I had to recheck the spelling of his surname...
 

croadyman

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Depay would surely be better as a stop gap than Ighalo, who is such a nailed on candidate for future "players you forgot who played for United" threads, I had to recheck the spelling of his surname...
Yeah he definitely would be,problem with buying Gakpo is no money for striker in summer
 

SSSSnake

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Just not a fan of players returning. Maybe it’s just because of what happened with Ronaldo & Pogba in recent years.
 

Loon

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Yeah he definitely would be,problem with buying Gakpo is no money for striker in summer
Yeah, I hear that, but I really think we need someone now. Best solution would be going balls out for ten Hag's first choice in Jan.
 

croadyman

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Yeah, I hear that, but I really think we need someone now. Best solution would be going balls out for ten Hag's first choice in Jan.
I get that but what happens if a Kane/Osimhen/Sesko/Vlahovic suddenly becomes available in the summer
 

Messier1994

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Pellestri, Amad, Hannibal, Sancho.....we are over loaded with players can play there even if several are on loan.

Name a striker from your descriptions that is a stop gap and helps us get in the top four against the current competition? Sure there may be some, I cant think of any though
I think we have to agree to disagree here.

From a striker, ETH — besides all ‘spectacular things’, presence in the air space, dribbling/shooting, counter attack ability — wants:
(a) the ability to press, to have the defender just clear the ball so that we can regain possession instantly, and
(b) the ability to take a pass high up the field, shield of pressuring defenders, to keep possession of the ball.

Right? When Ronaldo have played we didn’t get the press and when Rashford played we didn’t get the hold up ability — and it has shown a lot. With Martial we get both, and it helped us a lot.

Without adding a striker we will with Rashford, Elanga, Diallo, Antony, Eriksen, Bruno and co not get the hold up ability. PL defenders are merciless when pressing an attacker in those situation. If you aren’t good in those situations, you will sit there with 4-5 bags of ice and a ton of lost balls after 90 minutes. You don’t have to be John Hartson 2.0 to get it done, Jesus handles it perfectly, but it’s not easy.

From my POV, having a player at a position that doesn’t meet the minimum requirements in essential areas, is very costly for a system oriented team like ours. I for example think it’s more important for ETH to have a striker that can hold up the play and press really well — but that has zero flash and dash — as opposed to having someone there who can dribble really well but will go into hiding the very second a PL CB pressures him from behind, or a great finisher that can’t press and so forth.

And I mean, this is surely the reason for why a team like Bayern carry a striker that was a failure at Stoke, and PSG carried the same striker before them, in Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, right?

Martial and Rashford starts a game. We are up 1-0 with 20 minutes to go away against a mid tier PL team and both are really tired. Who do you sub on, tell me that? Elanga at striker and Sancho at LW? Garnacho? You can’t play up the ball on any one of the available striker options, to get some rest and get up field. The striker is the most subbed position. With the schedule we have, should Martial play the full 95 minutes no matter the score? He should come of when he can. We don’t have anyone who is a good fit if he comes off. And imagine if Martial keeps getting hurt, like he constantly have. Then you have a miss-fit there, and no sub for the misfit.

So I believe that someone like Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting could help ETH. Could come in as a sub on occasion. Could start when Martial and or Rashford can’t. And so forth. Definitely think he can help us to get pts.

I don’t pretend to have up to date correct views of the Choupo-Motings of the football world, that might be available on loan or cheap. Per definition, it’s hard to have great track of these guys since they aren’t playing a ton presumably. I can only mention some names on which I don’t have updated info on, haven’t seen in a year or two, or whatever.

How about a Yussef Poulsen? Don’t know his current status, but he isn’t playing much. Like 120 minutes in the Bundesliga and I think I saw him on the bench for Denmark meaning that he is healthy. Would Milan loan us Divick Origi? I would bet that Zlatan is done, but he is rumored to be back for Milan and they already have Giroux. What is Origi’s status?Former Bournmouth striker Jousha King was always a bit of a coach’s dream. Someone said he is done, I don’t even remember the last time I saw him. He was really could for Norway in a game I saw, but don’t remember if that was 1 or 2 or even 3 years ago. They upset a bigger nation IIRC. He could be in worse state than Suarez was for Uruguay for all I know, who obviously don’t even remotely got it anymore. But he is only 30, if he is not done he would help. There are many guys like that out there.
 
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izak

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Cavani again for the remainder of the season anyone?
 

Drizzle

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Cavani again for the remainder of the season anyone?
Absolutely not. Have you forgotten he spent his last season with us pretending to be unfit then turned out for every Uruguay game.
 

Messier1994

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Yeah he definitely would be,problem with buying Gakpo is no money for striker in summer
The upside is his versatility. Gakpo is as much depth at striker as he is depth at AMC or LW (which isn’t needed).

If we get Gakpo, we can surely sell Donny for example, for what 20m?
 

captaincantona

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Got to admit…not just based on yesterdays performance…Richarlison at 9 with Antony and Rashford either side would be an exciting prospect…not least because of the work ethic and shithousery from the Brazilians. Martial Garnacho and Sancho backup.

tasty.
 

izak

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Absolutely not. Have you forgotten he spent his last season with us pretending to be unfit then turned out for every Uruguay game.
Club official statement read he was injured but for you to say this that's a big claim.

Anyways Watched him come on yesterday for Uruguay against South Korea and is hold up and link up play was very good not to mention he's a very good finisher.

Sad injury and other things ment we had to let him go but other than that I'll take him right now for 6 months.
 

therealtboy

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Enner Valencia? To take the no7 like his compatriot and country legend Antonio. :wenger:
 

Gandalf

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Club official statement read he was injured but for you to say this that's a big claim.

Anyways Watched him come on yesterday for Uruguay against South Korea and is hold up and link up play was very good not to mention he's a very good finisher.

Sad injury and other things ment we had to let him go but other than that I'll take him right now for 6 months.
Whether we believed him about his fitness or not it is fair to say that ship has sailed. He was pretty adamant at the end of last season that he wanted to experience playing in La Liga and he only signed a 2 year deal with Valenica in August so it is fair to say he is not going to be available unless we offer a daft fee. Of course paying a transfer fee for a player we released on a free a few months ago wouldn't be the craziest thing we have done in recent years.

I would personally cast my vote for Dembele. He fits the system and with only 6 months left on his deal Lyon may well be happy just to get a nominal transfer fee at this point. I would think he would be reasonably willing to accept a squad role with us and so it would not rule out moving for a bigger target in the summer.