Recruiting strikers

For me, the defining thing we managed under Lambert when we snaked up the leagues, was always having a decent roster of strikers to backup and take the pressure off of Holt.

The failure we got into was in not recruiting/developing a Holt replacement and ending up restructuring our whole frontline in one go.

The past few years we seem to have been trying to follow the modern way of ramming the team full of attacking midfielders and none of the Pukki backup have really clicked (apart from Rhodes, potentially).

The clear hope was that in getting tzolis/rashica/Sargent in alongside Dowell and Todd we'd have enough firepower in midfield to support pukki.

Still a bit surprised we let Hugill go, as I reckon he would have bludgeoned some space for those guys to shine.

Being lightweight in the front third is, I think, also what makes it hard to slot in someone like Gilmour. I really like Dowell, but crikey, we need someone up top (other than Pukki) to worry oppo defences.

Sargent is probably the closest we've got, and I reckon he'll come good eventually, so long as he doesn't end up having his confidence completely wiped out.

And jeepers, the injuries and timing of them has really beggared our cohesion.

Smith has done okay, but it has highlighted issues like getting a song out of Todd and Gilmour were more to do with Todd and Gilmour than the manager.

Be interesting to see what tweaks we look to make with the squad in January. Personally, I'd prefer us to make a few Rudd like signings to strengthen for a promotion tilt next year than sling money at a striker who would want away in the summer...

Posted By: Cardiff Canary, Dec 15, 07:27:41