Summer Transfer Frenzy: Are Strikers Worth Their Weight in Goals?
Topics: Best of SL, Carlos Tevez, Fernando Torres, Football Transfers, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Wayne Rooney
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Very well written! Interesting stuff. A striker is valued on their goals and Huntelaars record speaks for itself, even the 8 in 20 at real. Players like ruud and trezeguet have stood the test of time. As an arsenal fan, the flair players dont necessarily get you the goals. Van persie n arshavin r ezamples of this. Ive always admired huntelaar, wenger probably wouldnt do it, but hed dfntly do the job. Would be interestin to see how well our “prolific” eduardo would rank if he was fit.
June 27th, 2009 @ 12:48Hello there,
I “googled” Tevez and this link came up, I can honestly say very good article with witty comments. Do keep it up old chap. Oh and that Fergie is a derailed idiot, letting me and Beckham go, what was he thinking. He did come back up with results however, but is it going to happen again this season? I think not, with an squad that is pushing the average age up, Fergie will find it much more difficult this season. Anyway I digress, Tevez will score many goals in Man City. Watch this space.
Warmest regards
June 27th, 2009 @ 12:49Van Nistelrooy
oh no! we have an imposter!
June 27th, 2009 @ 15:25Imposter? How do you mean?
June 27th, 2009 @ 16:12I honestly don’t know why Madrid wants Huntelaar out. One of the daftest criticisms of him I’ve heard from Madrid fans is that he “doesn’t create, like David Villa can”. I don’t know, but having seen Raul trying to play striker and Higuain being forced to score AND create I’d be very glad to have a striker who can put the ball in the back of the net if you can get it to him inside the area.
I think Van Nistelrooy is still potent, but I can understand why they want to move him on, with his injury record and his age, especially in light of the changes taking place at Real Madrid. However I think we’re stupid if Huntelaar isn’t wearing white at the start of the season. Sadly I think he’ll be moving on.
If you consider that most of Huntelaar’s career has been in the Eredivisie, and that most of Villa’s has been in La Liga, then Villa looks more impressive especially when you see that his international scoring ratio is higher than Huntelaar’s. But that also points to how potent Van Nistelrooy has been in every league he’s played in.
June 27th, 2009 @ 18:36This is a very good article and shows how it isnt how some people would think. I think Torres is world class but I feel the only reason people believe this is because he is one of the only striker doing anything in the premier league right now. Every striker in the league has some input but no-one has quite dominated the league on the goal scoring list. Ronaldo, a midfielder, has out shown most of the strikers. I wonder how a list would compare with the others if it was down to stats in the premier league. Because the league is one of the most fastest competitive leagues in the world and I would like to see how strikers in this league compare. (For eg. Shevchenkos AC Milan stats compared to his Chelsea stats would be interesting to see)
June 27th, 2009 @ 19:45pretty interesting stats. huntelaar is difinitely worth the money for any interested club ,though, i would like to see him prove it through a full season in another league like van nistelrooy did. maybe united should inquire the possibilities for huntelaar as well as bring in benzema. rooney’s numbers i think is not very indicative of his value as he tracks back away from his penciled/designated position more than any other forward i’ve seen. next season maybe will see as his play for england so far this time have shown more goals at centre forward. anyway, thanks for the info.
June 27th, 2009 @ 22:23How do goals come without creating it?
You talk about strikers who score goals yes thats what they are supposed to do but do they create any like Rooney or Van persie, villa and the best striker this season even if he hasen’t scored I’ve been a fan of him “Torres”.
Talk about adebayor and toni they just sit front of goal never likely to defend nor go past defenders. what about a team has two strikers who score 20-30 goals each and don’t defend then concede 50-60 goals. Torres, Rooney do it all the time now but even i’ve seen tevez in his won box defending and trying to get the ball.
Now Tevez scores less goals than others but he scores vital ones. If he wasn’t there for Man U the previous season then they would never had won the champions league. wanna bet. So how do you see a striker as?
In my opinion he must
June 28th, 2009 @ 05:34first assist goals and score as many as you can, don’t be selfish.
Secondly defend as a team than staying up front is like his team playing with 10 men so play as a team rather than a lonely striker who complains he has got no support having the ball.
A very thought provoking article which got me thinking about why Torres is so keen for his fellow countryman to play alongside him @ Anfield. PrettyP makes a great point that in the EPL a lot more midfielders are playing in the pocket like a second striker like Gerrard, Lampard, Fabregas & Ronaldo and scoring a lot of goals phasing out the 4-4-2 system in favour of the 4-1-3-1 thus pushing guys like Huntelaar to the midfield, this may explain why Real thought he wasn’t a creative striker? fearflash makes a good point about Rooney being an industrious player defending in front of the back 4,which would put him in the holding midfielders roll. It begs the question if their numbers as a striker are down on goal count are their numbers up when it comes to assists? Maybe we’ll leave that for another day!
June 28th, 2009 @ 05:43Interesting how will Shevchenko has done even though he was horrid at Chelsea and his horrid with his loan at Milan. Diego Forlan might be higher if it wasn’t for his time at Man U. With that said I think it would of been better to take into account the last 5 seasons or so of the players because again Shev’s stats are completely off. If you buying Shev to get back on form look at the AC Milan days but if you looking at now well look at the Milan Loan plus Chels. And age does make a difference. Owen might be way up the pecking order if it wasn’t for Newcastle injuries and the Real Madrid graveyard.
June 28th, 2009 @ 06:04I think the reason why van Persie is so low on the career list is because he was a winger in his Feyenoord time and still is in the Oranges.
International career is probably also the reason why Berba is so high. He has the best goals/games rate internationally having scored 41 goals in 68 matches. Huntelaar has only scored 13 in 23 matches, for example (although he did score an amazing 18 goals in 22 matches for U-21).
Also, Mutu seems to be missing. He’s played a lot, and scored a lot as well, with a games/goals rate of 2.413 over the whole of his career, which is quite impressive.
June 28th, 2009 @ 09:10goals are a useful indicator of a striker but not be all.
June 28th, 2009 @ 09:48For instance berbatov scored more goals in less appearances then tevez but he also had a much greater assist tally.
Some strikers are pure goal scorers who are generally in the penalty area to get goals.
Torres is the kind of striker who provides more then just goals, he by being fast and strong keeps both CB’s busy and opens up the game for kuyt and gerrard.
Same goes for drogba and to an extent adebayor and berba.
They are the focal points of the central attack and are there to bring team mates into the game.
@Brandon: Thanks for the comment and I can tell you that Eduardo’s career stats are highly impressive:
In table 1 he’d come in at No.2 with a highly impressive 1 goal in every 1.55 games or 32 in a 50 game season. But in table 2 he’d come in at a clear No.1! 1 goal in every 1.317 games or 38 in a 50 game season(remarkable, and helped by his incredible 45 goals in 44 games in his last season at Zagreb). Even in his limited Arseanl career (only 35 games) he scores 1 in 2.333 which is exactly the same as Van Persie.
Thanks for pointing that out….those numbers are scary!
@PrettyP: Shevchenko’s Milan stats, ignoring last season’s loan spell, are 30 goals in a 50 game season compared to just half that(15 in a 50 game season) at Chelsea.
@Jake: Agree totally but I suppose the point is that the likes of Owen and Shevchenko were top strikers in their day but are now past their sell by date!
@ish: Spot on! This analysis was never going to be conclusive on anything and your points are well made. I said I rated Torres as my number one and you make an excellent point as to why that’s still a valid choice despite him not topping the stats.
June 28th, 2009 @ 10:59Fantastic article!
June 28th, 2009 @ 11:13Important to note for Chelsea fans that Anelka is no.4, surely that provides backing that he is better than Drogba?
Apologies, said the wrong thing completely!
Meant to say – Drogba is 13 and 11, surely that’s a case not to sell him?
June 28th, 2009 @ 11:26Destrier: You are right, somewhat, in that in the grey area between a 4-4-2 and a 4-2-3-1, a midfielder in a very advanced position can effectively be performing as a second striker, or vice versa. The difference, as it applies to Madrid, is that it is not Huntelaar, but Higuain, who is dropping back to be a creative midfielder. We had a very strange situation last season where we often had no true targetman on the pitch. I believe Raul was meant to act as one, but he’s not as clinical as he used to be and not as ruthless as Huntelaar and Van Nistelrooy. Also, he tends to drop back to get involved in play when he’s not getting the ball. What I saw last season was the midfielders being unable to put the ball through to the strikers, so Higuain would drop into midfield to try to get the ball himself, and then look up and see that there was no targetman to put the ball through to! Neither Higuain nor Raul are aerially outstanding, so Marcelo and Robben tended to cut inside instead of cross. As for our stable of creative midfielders, they didn’t quite work out. Sneijder had lots of problems last season and Guti was himself. Van Der Vaart has actually been the most efficient in creating assists, but he simply wasn’t played.
So we had a case where Higuain was essential to both scoring and creating goals. I’ve said elsewhere that if you don’t count penalties, Higuain and Huntelaar scored an average of one goal every 146 minutes last season. But when you do a direct comparison between Higuain and Huntelaar, Huntelaar’s statistics look inferior because Higuain has more assists, and is more involved in play in general. This is why I think Huntelaar comes across as not being a creative player. Creating is not what he does best, but no one can doubt he’s very, very good at scoring goals. I still wonder what would have happened if Juande Ramos had the guts to bench Raul and play Higuain and Huntelaar up front, forming a true 4-2-3-1. Imagine Higuain, Robben, Marcelo, Ramos, and Lass all feeding Huntelaar from everywhere on the pitch!
June 28th, 2009 @ 16:09Most of the top players on this list are 30 and up. More are 27 and up. Torres is only 25, and his stats are approaching those of guys who have been around much longer. Most of Huntelaar’s goals were for the Dutch league, and I believe that he has not been with a top European team long enough. I like Huntelaar and Torres (treacherously I am an Arsenal fan), but Torres will be higher on the list in the years to come. He has great years ahead of him, unlike many of the players on the list.
June 29th, 2009 @ 03:14@Ryan: I understand your point but that can actually cut both ways. For example, the biggest fallers in terms of average from the career list to the last 3 years list included Fabiano, Crespo, Owen and Shevchenko. In all of these cases their stats have fallen away as they’ve passed their peak and are no longer as prolific as when they were younger.
June 29th, 2009 @ 07:34Very good article, cheers for that. Two things though:
I like Huntelaar a lot, and it tends to somewhat irk me to hear the criticism “oh, but he’s only played in Holland so far”, as this is often meant to imply he can’t cut it at a higher level. But I am of the opinion that for a player of his ilk this is a rather irrelevant point. It’s true that he’s not an incredibly technical, modern centre-forward that creates his own chances; instead, he’s the ultimate goal poacher. But the skill to be good off the ball, the ability to be in the right place at the right time every time is the same, whether in the Spanish league or in the Dutch.
I can understand, and agree to, your decision not to include players like Ronaldo and Arshavin into this. But I would argue that players like Rooney and Van Persie fall into the same category.
June 29th, 2009 @ 10:31Just hoping that Huntelaar and Van Nistelrooy will join a new club (i hope in England) where they can prove their scoring skills each week. Can’t wait to hear the good news!!
P.S. Maybe other interesting post to read on Huntelaar:
July 14th, 2009 @ 20:16http://www.oleole.com/blogs/realmadridtalk/posts/is-selling-huntelaar-the-right-thing-to-do