The striker position has evolved. How we think about strikers hasn't
Strikers have always been judged on scoring goals but there's a lot more to the position than that
In August 2016, Manchester City raised a few eyebrows around the league when they spent £47.5 million to sign Everton’s 22-year-old centre-back John Stones, making him the second-most expensive defender in history at the time. Stones was a highly regarded player but the fee raised several eyebrows because he had one particular flaw: when it came to the defensive parts of his game, he was pretty bad.
At the time the feeling among English football fans was (still) that centerbacks needed to be big strong players who got stuck in, made tackles, and were dominant in the air. Stones was not that player.
This didn’t bother City’s new manager, Pep Guardiola. He was interested in the player because of Stones ability to play with the ball at his feet. This was the priority for Pep. That Stones might struggle to actually defend was of no concern.
Stones struggled that first season but he’s ultimately carved out a nice career for himself. He’s appeared 292 times for City and 87 times for England. He’s started just about all the most important games for each team.
In that time how the rest of us look at centerbacks - and what we ask of them - has changed. Centerbacks still need to block shots and make tackles but now they also need to be able to push up and play in a high line, have recovery pace, be able to defend in the wide areas, and oh yea, heading the ball is still important too. The position has evolved. Along with that evolution we have changed how we think about centerbacks.
Centerbacks aren’t the only ones to change. Wingers used to play on their dominant side and be tasked with getting by their fullback and whipping a cross in. Now they play on the opposite side and it’s about getting to to the middle and shooting on their dominant foot.
The fullback position used to be about defending wingers 1v1, and maybe doing a little support for the attackers. Now fullbacks are expected to bomb up and down the pitch, take on big roles in buildup play, hold the width in the attack, and offer creativity for the attack.
Evolution has reshaped every part of the pitch. More importantly, it’s changed how we think about each position. There’s just one exception: the striker.
The striker is simple. Get the big lad in the middle, get him the ball in the box, score goals.
In recent years the false nine has become part of the lexicon - albeit almost always used incorrectly - but it still has a tendency to be dismissed as one of those getting too cute tactics. Many don’t care about the striker getting involved in buildup play or how many touches he gets on the ball. They just want him in the box scoring goals. When teams do deploy a less traditional player as their center forward you can bet the first thing fans (and the media) will suggest will take them to the next level is to get a ‘proper goal scorer’ as the striker.
Rarely is their an acknowledgement that a team’s goal scorer might be someone out wide and bringing in a different type of center forward might mess up the dynamic. Nonetheless the plague comes for everyone.
Two years ago Arsenal scored 91 goals but just missed out on the title. The diagnosis was a lack of experience but also a lack of a goal scoring striker to push them to the next level. Two years later Arsenal are well on their way to a Premier League title, but that’s more in spite of their £70 million striker rather than because of him1. Liverpool signed Darwin Nunez to eat into Mohammad Salah’s production, winning a title when Darwin was dropped. Manchester City added the most dominant center forward in the game, but have started to become less dominant.
Our view of the striker as ‘the goalscorer’ comes from English football boasting a proud lineage of prolific center forwards. Guys like Shearer, Rooney, Cole, Fowler, Henry, Owen, Drogba, Van Persie2 who scored goals by the boatload.
We remember those guys quite well. Maybe we even lament that they just don’t make them like that anymore.
What we often forget is that these strikers had a bit of an advantage over their modern day counterparts. They weren’t lone strikers, they had partners!
The early days of the Premier League was the land of 4-4-2 formations and prolific strike partnerships. Though the word prolific might be doing some heavy lifting here.
When Manchester United fans think of those old school, prolific, strike partnerships they’re sure to think of Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole. They’ll harp on that magical 1998-99 season when Yorke scored 18 (PL) goals and Cole 17 - or the following season where Yorke scored 20 and Cole 19.
That’s about as prolific a partnership as they come but the truth is the duel output of Yorke and Cole is far more of the exception when it comes to strike partnerships than the rule. For the most part strike partnerships featured one guy who scored the bulk of the goals, and another player who… helps make that happen via various means like creating space or facilitating play.
Strike partnerships came in all shapes and sizes. You had the big man little man combo with the big target man who could win headers and flick on the ball the smaller skilled striker who could run in behind. The target man/thumper paired with the more clinical finisher.
You also had the fast goal scorers paired with someone who liked to drop deeper, get on the ball, and could play them in behind Players like Cantona and Bergkamp, who these days would be considered number 10s, loved to be the center of the attack and facilitate play, while their partners tended to be far more prolific3. Wayne Rooney played the role in similar fashion when paired with Ruud van Nistelrooy and Robin van Persie - both of whom scored about 0.17 goals per 90 more than Rooney when on the pitch together.
Occasionally you’d get a partnership made up of two players who both could either drop deeper to facilitate play or stay on the last line of the defense and run in behind, like Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez. These provide the most dynamic partnerships, but really needed superstars to be prolific. Robbie Fowler (0.50 G per 904) and Michael Owen (0.53) are a rare case of both players being equally prolific in this dynamic. Tottenham had two combinations with pretty equal distribution. The 90s duo of Teddy Sheringham (0.44) and Jurgen Klinsmann (0.5) and the mid ‘00s combination of Jermaine Defoe (0.43) and Robbie Keane (0.51). Rooney and Tevez were fairly even in scoring when playing together but surprisingly not tremendously prolific (Rooney 0.42, Tevez 0.51) - their unique partnership saw them both actually playing to create for Cristiano Ronaldo.
This holds true for even the most prolific partnerships. Thierry Henry scored about 0.76 goals per 90 when appearing with Dennis Bergkamp, who scored just 0.24. Mike Newell (0.13) took a back seat to support Alan Shearer (0.93) before giving way to the more famed SAS partnership, which had a similar breakdown, of Shearer (0.83) and Sutton (0.31). Michael Owen (0.68) and Emile Heskey (0.31) was the partnership when Owen was a the height of his powers.
None of the best goal scorers ever did it alone. They always had a very selfless teammate who was doing a lot of work that allowed them to do what they do best. Score tons of goals. It also left the door open for players with a bit less footballing ability but that one crucial of being able to put the ball in the back of the net to be really impactful.
As the 2010s progressed teams wanted more and more cover in midfield. One of the strikers made way for an extra midfielder as teams moved from 4-4-2 systems to more 4-3-3 based ones. As teams made the shift, which striker do you think stayed in the team? Obviously the one who scored the goals.
When playing with one striker up top, the avenues for those center forwards to score goals centered around either being played in behind the defense, or being a presence in the box who could get on the end of crosses.
Over time these avenues began to close. One striker going up against two center backs made winning headers difficult. Wingers shifting from players who put in a lot of crosses to players who cut inside to shoot meant there were fewer crosses coming in to win those headers on. Meanwhile as defenses got better, and more compact, it became more difficult to play through balls in behind - especially shorter through balls that originate near the striker like from the number 10 position. As more and more goalkeepers became adept at sweeping up behind the defense, the margin for error on through balls became even tighter.
Scoring goals as a striker became far more difficult. There was nobody to help you out and do the work. If you were the big physical type, you got isolated. If you were the one who, let’s charitably say had more of the footballing ability, you got bullied by the physicality of the centerbacks. Despite their skill, they couldn’t do it on their own.
Ultimately these players either dropped deeper on the pitch (like Wayne Rooney) or got moved out wide (players like Rashford, Mbappe, even Mbeumo) where they could make angled runs in behind and thrive in the half space.5 Teams realized you still needed someone up top who could occupy the centerbacks, hold the ball up, and provide link up play.
Team realized they still needed someone who could do the work but they also needed to be highly technical footballers too. Link up play wasn’t just flick ons and short passes anymore. You needed to be able to catch passes and move the ball to your teammates, often out wide. These were now the most important traits.
At first we saw an influx of wide players who were good finishers get moved inside. Eventually we started seeing players who had been attacking midfielders get deployed centrally. Occasionally you’d find yourself someone that could do both. Players like Kane, Lewandowski, Higuain, Benzema who could occupy defenders, play with the ball at their feet, facilitate/create space for their teammates and be lethal finishers. These players are a rarity.
The strike partnership hasn’t disappeared, it’s just shifted out wide. Martial & Rashford, Benzema & Ronaldo, Suarez & Messi, Firmino & Salah and later Diogo Jota/Luis Diaz & Salah.
The modern day partnership still comprises the guy who does a lot of work and the goalscorer. It’s simply that the roles have shifted. The guy who does the work is now the guy who plays centrally. The goal scorer has moved further out wide. It’s not a coincidence that the two greatest goal scorers of all time spent most of their careers playing out wide. Or that most of the top goal scorers today - Mbabbe, Salah, Vinicious Jr, Yamal - all prefer to play out wide.
We’ve seen this at the international level for quite some time. In 2014 Germany’s attack centered around Thomas Muller, who often started on the right wing while not-quite-a-goalscorer-anymore Miroslav Klose played down the middle. Klose would often be replaced by attacking midfielder Mario Gotze. In the final Germany came up against an Argentina side where striker Gonzalo Higuain went from being someone who created space for Cristiano Ronaldo at club level to doing the same for Lionel Messi internationally.
Four years later France tried to deploy a dynamic front three of Kylian Mbappe, Antoine Griezmann, and Ousmane Dembele. It lasted one game before they turned to Olivier Giroud. Giroud didn’t score all tournament, which was derided, but that wasn’t his job. His job was to be there for Griezmann and Mbappe to ping balls off of and get themselves into space.
Between the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, Giroud only started 32 league matches for his club. Yet when France took the pitch in Qatar, Giroud was back in the starting XI helping France make another run to the final. They faced an Argentina side who had shifted Messi back out wide and played Julian Alvarez - another attacking midfielder type - down the middle.
This doesn’t mean the old classic number 9 is extinct. These players are still particularly lethal coming off the bench - after the center backs have been tired out for 60-70 minutes and the game gets more open. Those conditions lend themselves to these types of players6.
Every so often we see a classic number 9 pop up with a monster season. Chris Wood scored 20 goals last season. Danny Ings scored 22 goals for Southampton in 2019-20, albeit he had a strike partner in Ralph Hassenhuttl’s 4-2-2-2 system. Neither of them came close to the 20 goal mark again. It’s the consistency that’s the tricky bit. Ollie Watkins has only hit 15 non-penalty goals in the Premier League once, Dominic Solanke has only hit double digits once. It’s simply too difficult to be a prolific goal scorer as a lone center forward these days.
This impacted some of those greats too. Didier Drogba had seasons of 20 and 28 goals for Chelsea, but never hit more than eleven in any other campaign. When Cristiano Ronaldo came back to Manchester United and was deployed as a striker, on multiple occasions he lobbied to play two up front to help him out. Even the great Ronaldo couldn’t do it on his own.
Ironically the Premier League has almost gone the other way this season. Arsenal, Manchester United, and Liverpool all spent big money on classic number 9s. Of the top five goal scorers in the league this year, Antoine Semenyo is the only wide player on the list, although Joao Pedro is a former no 10 now playing up top, and Danny Welbeck has always been the workman striker who is now enjoying the most prolific season of his career.
Perhaps this is related, but goal scoring is down in the Premier League this year. Meanwhile scoring from set pieces is way up. This could be related. More teams are playing classic no. 9’s to help them on set pieces, which in turn is hurting their ability to create chances from open play and thus making them more reliant on set pieces? Maybe there’s just a dearth of quality wide players throughout the league this year?
Scoring goals will never go out of fashion. But as the game changes so do the traits coaches are looking for.
Winning headers and being aerially dominant are still important traits in center backs, but they’re no longer the first traits coaches look for. The same type of evolution is happening at the other end of the pitch. Scoring goals and being a good finisher are still important traits, but they’re no longer the most important traits.
Center forwards used to be judged by how many goals they scored. Maybe if we were being generous we’d factor in their role in how they helped their partner score. The partnership has shifted. The goal scorer has moved, but the strike partner who helps make it all happen is still there, still playing down the middle. A striker might not be scoring a ton of goals because it might not be his job to do that. The position has evolved. Perhaps it’s time we evolve in how we think about it.
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Six of Viktor Gyokeres’ nine non-penalty goals have come against newly promoted sides this season. A third of his npG have come off the bench. Arsenal are scoring at a lower rate this season than two seasons ago.
There are plenty of guys who came along before 1992 but for simplicity I’m keeping this to Premier League era.
Cantona never hit 15 league goals in a season for United
When playing with the listed strike partner
It’s a lot more effective to play through balls to a player running inside from a wide area than to someone centrally running into the channel out wide
Benjamin Sesko is thriving in these conditions this year
Very insightful article Pauly. Thanks.