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[jonnymac1979]

Football365 Article

On a night when Liverpool's strikeforce were failing to find the net for the second time in four days, ex-Anfield flop Fernando Morientes was knocking in a hat-trick for Valencia. It's a situation oddly symptomatic of the last decade and a half at England's most successful club. Dirk Kuyt and Craig Bellamy should be very worried.

Morientes had scored more than 200 career goals before signing for Liverpool. He's managed four in two games since departing for pastures Valencian, and shows every indication that he's going to find the form that has won him three Champions League medals and two Spanish titles, and seen him fire an unfancied and ordinary Monaco team to the Champions League final in his one season with the club.

So why, in his time at Anfield, did he only hit the net 12 times in 60 games?

The answer, if you believe the long-running rumours in F365 Towers, comes in the form of Liverpool's training methods with strikers. The (usually big-money) new signing is taken to the Reds' training ground, where he is locked in a dark room, possibly with a tap dripping in the corner, and made to repeat the mantra: "I am a rubbish striker. I am a rubbish striker."

It may or may not be an accurate representation of what occurs behind closed doors at Melwood, but the fact remains that Liverpool have not bought a striker who has been a major success since the Eighties.

Oh, there have been strikers who have scored plenty of goals at Liverpool - Robbie Fowler and Michael Owen the obvious examples - but they have come through the youth system. For some reason, the Anfield club are incapable of buying a top-quality striker, even when they spend top-quality money.

Take Emile Heskey (no, really, do. You'll be doing Wigan a favour). By the age of 22, Heskey had won the League Cup at little Leicester, been named man of the match on his full England debut - against Argentina, no less - and was regarded as one of the most promising talents in the country. So promising, in fact, that Liverpool were happy to part with a club-record £11 million to secure his services.

In his first full season with the Reds, Heskey notched 14 goals in the Premiership. Things went rapidly downhill. Under Liverpool's guidance, his tally dropped to nine the next season, and six the year after.

Heskey had never been a truly prolific striker at Leicester, and some would argue (Liverpool fans certainly will) that he played his role at Anfield as foil to Michael Owen perfectly. But there can be no doubt that a man regarded as one of the best talents in the country became, over his time at Anfield, a laughing stock.

Being a prolific striker before your move to Liverpool is no protection against the curse. Djibril Cisse - or, more correctly, Lord Djibril Cisse - had knocked in 70 goals in 128 games for Auxerre, and helped himself to two Golden Boots in the French League, before the Reds decided to splash out £14 million on him.

Their immediate repayment was a paltry five goals in 23 games. Following his broken leg (part one) he did manage to knock in a more respectable 19 for the club, but any who would argue that he was a success would also have to explain why he was shipped out to Marseille on loan even with a broken leg (part two).

Heskey and Cisse are far from the only strikers that can be used as examples. Milan Baros and El-Hadji Diouf both arrived touted as the next big thing and then left, in Baros' case with a Champions League medal and in Diouf's case with his reputation in tatters, without ever achieving what was hoped of them.

Jari Litmanen had won the European Cup with Ajax in 1995 and been top scorer in the competition the season after. He arrived at Anfield after an injury-hit spell at Barcelona with Gerard Houllier proclaiming him "one of the most exciting signings Liverpool have ever made". He scored five goals.

They even spent £2.6million on Titi Camara.

The issue doesn't stop there. Even the strikers that are seen as a success for Liverpool have their problems. No discussion of recent strikers can avoid mentioning Stanley Victor Collymore - a man who scored a goal every other game for the Reds and helped them to third in the Premiership table, and yet can in no way be regarded as having done anything other than waste arguably as much potential as any English striker of the last 20 years.

Heading back to the present, Peter Crouch is currently the darling of the media, and his goalscoring feats for England have seen the odds on him becoming the country's record goalscorer slashed. But Crouch has scored just twice in ten games against Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal, and found the net just once in the Champions League for his club.

Crouch might turn out to be the wonderful striker Liverpool are desperately searching for. His international form certainly suggests it is possible. Likewise the past records of Kuyt and Bellamy. The problem all three face is the fact that international records and past form traditionally count for nothing once a striker pulls on a Liverpool shirt.