by stmichael » Tue Nov 28, 2006 9:58 pm
By miles the best forward we've got at the club
I was arguing with someone yesterday that if you look at the strikers at other clubs they cost fortunes. Henry cost £11.5M 6 years ago, man United's current striker force costs £40M, Chelsea's £55M - and if you look at the league table you can see that top strikers cost big money usually.... its rare to find 'gems' who will come for peanuts unless they come through the system like Owen and Fowler did.
We got Dirk for £9M and he is a bargain, and expected to the job of Rooney or a Drogba - both those players cost near on £30M - so our expectations are high on players who cost a fraction of what our rivals are spending. By that token our boys are more than holding their own, but I still don't believe we will see the top class striker we want and are used to seeing at Anfield (Kenny, Robbie, Mikey, Rushey, Aldo, Beardo etc) unless we go out and spend top dollar.
No it is not a sign big names rant, its just that proven strikers cost money as its goals/assits/creativeness that they are judged by.
For that Kuyt is an abolute bargain.
He's been told to play as the deeper striker when he plays with Crouch. If you want to point the finger at someone for not getting in the box it's Crouch.
Crouch is the centre forward and Kuyt is being told to drop deep to split the defence. Watch next time we line up Kuyt is doing what he's told to do by running the channels and dropping into midfield.
He usually plays differently when he plays with Bellamy (Kuyt is more the centre forward) although at times I've seen him do the same where he drops off into midfield and out wide.
For the first time in years we've got a proper centre forward who runs channels, comes deep and also plays off the last man. His movement is superb and the fact he is likely to get double figure assists if he plays with a decent strike partner is just an added bonus.