In the day of Thierry Henry, strikers were glamorous. Now, as thebigman said, everyone is trying to emulate the exciting players like Iniesta, Xavi,etc.
The false 9. If u look at a graphic of our average position it was all in the number 10 spot Congestion
honestly, this trend started with the Vieiras/Keanes and Chelsea's first great sides under Mourinho. Great strikers have been declining since the mid aughts.
The Villareal teams w/ riquelme use to play w/out a true CF as did Spaletti's Roma teams. Totti was the original "false 9"
According to many, Puskas was for Hungary. Iirc, those Villarreal teams had Forlan as well. Spalleti brought it back with Totti.
But in the same vein, who can we really say came through after Thierry to keep the position interesting. Benzema? He's hardly dynamic, everyone who could play as a striker wanted to play outside-in like Thierry, which leads to a front 3 because lets be honest Henry was accidentily good at a lot of CF forward play and had this telepathic link with Pires. But you take a step down in vision and size/strength and you get Rues or a Griezman (sp?) who aren't exactly 30 goal scorers. Then we went through the phase of trying to preserve the 442, any kid who was 5'8", strong or black was thrown in CM and expected to be PV reborn. Forgetting of course that PV4 could run with the ball with his head up, make runs off the ball, and pass. Look at Obi Mikel's development path, he grew up playing as the CAM, and Mourinho turned him into a shitty clone of a 34 year old CDM. What is really sad is how badly the world football actually needed a player like Diaby to come through. Toure was/is WC but it was mostly just being technically good, and physical beast, he's not glamourous or going to pull off a cute dribble or turn. Personally I think money in the EPL has a lot to do with it. Managers and clubs so afraid to lose out on the money created this defence first attitude, and have bred like 2 generations of mediocre defenders who need 8 or 9 men to defend, and CFs trained to be the first defender. Which then becomes self perpetuating. This whole Stones transfer saga is depressing he's worth 20 mill plus because he's English and confinent enough on the ball to put his head up and pass the ball out of the back? ...now that I've actually read that in black in white, man football looks like shit. Curious is this what old age feels/looks like? Everything is worse than it used to be, with no hope of getting better?
I doubt it at this point. But to be honest he can be great without it. Sanchez's off the ball is pretty mediocre, but he can get open for a forward pass well enough. If Ox turns into the battering ram version of Sanchez I would be over the moon.
I don't know. I like Ox and given what we've seen so far this year I'd prob start him ahead of Ramsey at this point but for now what Ox can grow into is less important than what he is now. And right now, he is not that player.
the great man has a point, but then he caused his own problem. others followed/follow his own methods... i'd rather an Henry, Aguero, Suarez or Messi type striker than ugmos like Andy Carroll or other so-called "old-fashioned" centre forwards.....
keane, scholes, seedorf, davids, ronaldinho, weren't glamourous? i think it's jsut because msot of the top strikers are locked into the big clubs. not that there are less available. he also mentions it's mostly foreigners, it has been for years. Weah, Ronaldo Brazil, Batistuta, Eto'o, were hardly European.