we need a new striker

[storky 0]

I agree a1. He took a few games to get into his stride but when he did him and Huckerby were a dream partnership. He got something like 6 in the last 7 didn''t he? And just remember the home win against Wigan!!

[ncfc4eva 0]

im already pi*sed off with the sven bashers already.i for one admit he had a poor game.its his first game of the season.he finished last season superbly and had a good pre season, he had one bad game and already the moaners are calling for him to be dropped etc, u all did the same last year, and he shut you all up by scoring 6 in 6, watch super sven shut you all up again.

[First Wizard 0]

Stan the man: Don''t you dare lump me with the anti Svensson mob!. I have ALWAYS stood up for Matty, every bloody time mate, since he first came here. And not once have I got on his back, NOT ONCE!. Now say sorry, or spend the next week as a great crested newt, your choice!.

[KeelansGlove 0]

I Think the jury is out on Mr Svenson, but this is not the issue, I agree he is a key part of our squad and there is the rub of it. Yes he will have some good and some bad games but we cannot afford to have just one target man, maybe it was too early to let iwan go ??

Im sure Worthy will find the new Iwan for a bargain price !

[olster 0]

I am sorry i agree it is only one game but how many games can we play like sat up front this season is going to be a backs agaisnt the wall job and if we don''t have someone who can hold the ball up and give our midfield a chance to get up to support we are going to get stuffed every week

I wish we had of kept roberts i know he had no pace but least he played the target man role well and let the lads with pace make the runs off him and then release the ball

[can u sit down please 0]

Cant help but feel a bit sorry for svenners to be honest! ok i accept we could do with a better forward but the service he was given wasnt too good! we all know what he is like with the ball at his feet as he proved last yr but the balls he was recieving were 7ft in the air!! Maybe Rosario or Crouch would of got to em!!

[nycanary 1]

It is POSSIBLE to have opinions about this w/o getting hit with the "give the guy a chance" routine from everyone on the board!

In my opinion (aka THE FACTS):

a. Matt Svensson did well last season. But all in all, given what we know now, he is a good Div 1 striker and probably not up to scratch as far as Prem standards go. Outside of the promoted teams, it is very likely that Sven would not make the starting lineup for ANY of the other premiership sides. This fact alone is indication enough that we need a new striker.

b. Our midfield plays deep. Holt and Francis play holding roles. Bents and Jonson are finding their legs but do need to play wide. Hux is not an out-and-out striker so he''s not up there all the time in a traditional striker role alongside Sven. What does this mean? It means that someone needs to play as the link-man. This role is mostly falling to Hux. Which pulls him even further away from Sven as a strike partner. It also means that most of the pressure falls on to Sven to be the target man; the hold-up-the-play person; the poacher; the top goalscorer. This is an incredibly difficult role....one that very few strikers in the premiership are actually very good at. Van Nistelrooy is excellent at it; as was Saha while at Fulham. You saw Pauleta struggle wildly in this role in Portugal. And even England, with a similar situation were fine when Rooney was spectacular when he played the link-up man but the team struggles w/o a top person in that role and Owen was on an island. So, you HAVE to have a very good target man to make this type of system work.

c. Even if Sven is doing fine, we still need another big target man. We have NO BACKUP. We have to sign another player.

d. Crouch was NOT the answer. He may be better than Sven but still not good enough for the role we need. He needs a couple of years more of first team football before he is really worth 2 million pounds. Southampton are gambling on the fact that they still have Beattie and a few other players but they know they will lose him at some point and get good money for him -- therefore, they have a built-in backup in Crouch who may need to start playing in the first team a year from now. That''s why they paid what they did for him (it will pay for itself with the Beattie sale) and that''s why they don''t need him to start now since Beattie is locked in long-term and Soton dont have to sell him.

e. This reliance upon the solo man upfront is potentially very troublesome for us, especially with our tendency for the midfield to stay far back. We may need to consider an alternate formation. One that springs to mind is to lose some of our width but play either a diamond formation or a 4-3-2-1 formation. Both of these will provide potentially better support to the strikers:

diamond:
Green

Helveg
Charlton
Fleming
Drury

Holt

Francis
Safri/Jonson

Bentley/Hux

Bentlex/Hux
Svensson

4-3-2-1
Green

Helveg
Charlton
Fleming
Drury

Francis
Holt
Safri

Hux
Bentley

Svensson

In both situations, it does seem that Jonson might be the odd man out and I don''t believe that NW signed him for him to sit on the bench so the formations laid out above may not happen anytime soon.

My two cents.

[olster 0]

How about going for someone like chris sutton or john hartson i know probably too much money and i am not a celtic fan


Or even like loads of people have said on here go in for dean ashton

[king of latvia 0]

thank god for the people sticking up for svensson ,we must give the whole team a chance i feel that to many people are expecting a little bit to much ,we must look at the portsmouth supports who kept behind the team last season,also i felt the mood at carrow road was very tense on saturday,also the palace fans were fantastic.

[Jim Smith 2,349]

I think that the Board need to seriously consider whether it is worth taking a "signing of Huckerby" type risk and trying to bring in a player with that little bit of extra quality to play up front with hucks. Svennson tries his heart out but he doesn''t win enough in the air for me and given the way we play we need someone who holds the ball up better.

I know that we need to be careful and don''t want to risk the future of the club but if we could find £1.5 or even £2 million from somewhere to bring in a big (ish) name striker that could fulfil the target man role then it could in my opinion make all the difference.

[ZLF 275]

I keep coming back to angelos charisteas. OK it would be a risk taking a greek national - they have hardly set english football alight in the past - but he has performed at international level for 4 years and worked very hard for the greek cause in the summer. He should bring the same sort of quality we see in Hux and Helveg.

He apparently is looking to leave bremen as he is now 4th choice striker following a change of manager but remains popular with the fans. Asking price is at the top end of our hopes - £2m - but he has to be a better bet than the £2m soton spent on Crouch?

OTBC

[Being Jan Kristiansen... 0]

Just a quick thought, Silvan Wiltord still doesnt have a club.

[rich 0]

Zipper I totally agree that Charisteas is the man to solve the problems, he showed in euro 2004 that he''s perfect for what we need/ He''s only a few million and a far better investment than some player who isnt good enough for other premier league clubs. Lets take this risk and who knows what will happen.

[0Amarillo<P><FONT color=#cccc00 size=4><EM> º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ Amarillo ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°<EM><FONT><P>ddMMyyyy0Falseen-US<P><FONT color=#cccc00 size=4><EM> º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ Amarillo ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°<EM><FONT><P>True 0]

It may not be about risk. If his wages are, say 20k per week, that''s £1m this year alone, plus perhaps a £2m transfer fee is £3m in total out of this year''s player budget, possibly even before signing on fee etc. I''d be surprised if there was that much left in the budget, let alone that Worthy would spend it all on one player. So I expect our limit for a transfer fee may be well below the £2m mark....

If we do talk about risk... presumably that means borrowing the money, i.e. increasing the debt. Which is hardly compatible with ''this season, even if we''re relegated, secures the financial future of the club'' so like it or not, the board aren''t going to take that kind of risk. And I doubt the fans would dip into their pockets to the tune of seven figures again.

[Morph 19]

In response to "Turn To...."

What does Wiltord give us that we don''t already have in the form of McKenzie. Yeah, I know several years of Premiership experience which counts for something. But he strikes me as the same sort of player as McKenzie and the thing you would have to say is that so far Leon hasn''t been given the starting chance.

Svensson gives us an aerial threat but he lacks pace. If City keep the ball on the deck, which they should do, why shouldn''t they play with slighter players up front.

Why not play:

Green
Edworth, Charlton, Fleming, Drury
Holt/Helveg, Francis
Jonson, Bentley, Huckerby
McKenzie

and give the three players behind the front man license to roam. I don''t think either Bentley or Huckerby really likes being asked to play in a specific positional role, whereas their biggest threat appears to be from them popping all over the opposition backline.

[bananaman 0]

How old is Charisteas? And why haven''t we heard of him before?

I am totally against spending a lot of money on a reserve from a German league club who had one good tournament.

Imagining he sat on the bench through Euro 2004, how much would we have to pay for him then? 250k? 500k?

"Only a few million"? Ridiculous.

[Huge Canary 0]

Shut up you moaners, negative vibes are bad for morale !
The team played very well but lacked a cutting edge. That''s all.
I would argue that we already have the striker we need - Mackenzie to replace Svensson, with Bentley playing behind the front two if needed. It has been apparent for ages now that we are no longer relying on crosses to a big man so the lack of aerial power should not be a problem - do Arsenal play with a centre forward ? No, they play the ball to feet and play one-two''s on the edge of the box to pick their way through the defence, and that is what Worthy is trying to mimic. True, we need better distribution from the back to achieve this, which is why you will see Mackay being gradually phased out.
However, I think that perhaps Worthy should have played the tried and tested players (McVeigh, Edworthy) against Palace who are a tough Division One type team. He could then have brought the likes of Bentley, Helveg, Jonsson on to get them used to the team in time for the trip to Old Trafford, where their skills may be more in evidence than against the Palace cloggers.
I agree we need to buy a back-up striker, but please, not Dean Ashton of Crewe, as someone suggested. I have seen him and he is slow and lazy ! The new striker must have pace as well as height and strength, otherwise we might as well have kept Iwan ! Such strikers are very few and far between, which is why Worthy is biding his time.
I trust Worthy to come up with the goods - he is not stupid and he must have seen the same problem in the match on Saturday as the rest of us. Let''s be glad that the defence looked rock solid and that we have an excellent goalkeeper - at least that gives us a fighting chance in the Premiership.

[ZLF 275]

Bananaman - Charisteas is only 24 and has only moved to the german champions 4th choice striker due to a new manager. He has scored at international level for 3 years and played in the bundesliga for the last couple of seasons. He had an excellent qualifying tournament as well as a ''one off'' summer so the risk should be minimal - he has proven talent far more than Beckett, Ashton Crouch and the other strikers we have mentions...

I agree with most of what you say Huge Canary but dont feel we have been moaning on here. Sven had a below average game for him on sat, but even before he kicked a ball Worthy highlighted that he wanted to sign 2 more players before the end of August - and one of those was a further striker. Many more below average games will make Worthy step up his search.

As far as the 4-2-3-1 you suggest playing with Hux in the middle will mean he becomes a left winger, his natural tendency, and weakens the defensive part that role needs. He would also clash with Leons runs up front, who plays in a very similar manner to HUxPutting Hux up front with McVeigh in the middle gives a more defensively able middle three who can break with pace. . In this formation Hux could be our henry even more than he is already! However I am confident that Leon up front would work well too...

OTBC

[Being Jan Kristiansen... 0]

Hi Morph,

Worthy does not seem to think that McKenie is ready to play regularly judging by the amount of times he played him in preseason (I think he is) and Wiltord has proved that he can do a job for the Gunners and France.

He is not the ideal big man that we are looking for but I would be happy to play two smaller, quicker men up front.

It probably wont happen for a number of reasons but he might take less money now than what he might of earlyer in the summer.

[bananaman 0]

I''m glad you know your stuff Zip, cos I''m a bit out of touch! I have seen many a team make a mistake of signing someone who had a good tournament, and would be loathe to make the same mistake - especially if he would become by far and away our record signing, in the current climate of possible relegation/financial ruin.

One player I do know about is Wiltord. I am fully aware that he is OVERPRICED rubbish, and we have better in Mackenzie, as well as Hucks, probably Bentley, definitely McVeigh and possibly even Malky Mackay.

A more predictable donkey than Wiltord is hard to find these days, and I would rather have Rosario back than line Wiltord''s pockets with gold. Sorry, I''m ranting!

[nycanary 1]

no way. his wages alone would be crippling.

wiltord would not succeed if it were not for his arsenal/france teammates.

i dont think leon is ready for the prem yet but i think he''s a better alternative (cost vs talent profile) than wiltord.

does anyone have charisteas'' club record? games played/scored etc. career stuff. i thought he looked very handy in the euros but technically he was a right sided midfielder in their lineup....not their upfront man. he just seemed to pop up in the 2nd half up front a whole lot.

i really really really want svensson to prove me wrong...then we can all stop this discussion!

i simply CANNOT wait for old trafford.