Well that was better, much better! As Liverpool completely destroyed Maribor in the Champions League last night Red’s fans must have been relieved to finally see Liverpool converting their chances into goals. But even though we managed to get seven last night I can’t help but think Liverpool really need an out and out striker.
I think most fans will agree there is something missing in this Liverpool side that all the great Liverpool sides in the past have had, and that is an out and out goal-scorer. From Keegan to Dalglish, Rush to Fowler and Torres to Suarez, Liverpool teams throughout the years have always been blessed with natural goal-scorer, someone who can just simply put the ball into the net even if they didn’t do much else within the team. However if you look at this current crop of players we don’t seem to have anyone who I think can bag us 20 to 30 goals a season, and I can’t help but wonder if this is why we have had such a dip in form. If you look at other teams in the league all of our main rivals have an out and out centre-forward, someone who the team can rely on for goals. However Liverpool’s system last season relied on the goals being shared out amongst all of our attacking players and although this worked for large parts of the season, when times got tough this was an area that we really struggled with, especially last January.
Personally I was hoping that this issue would be fixed going into the new season. I was very surprised when players like Lacazette and Aubameyang were made available in the summer and Liverpool did not show an interest in them, I know there were other areas of the team that needed strengthening like the defence, however when it became clear that we were not going to get Van Dijk would it not have been a good idea to invest that money into a centre-forward? I don’t want to criticise FSG and this article is not what about whether they should stay or go, however what I am questioning is Liverpool’s transfer policy this summer and how that could effectively cost of the season. The fact is in the Premier League we simply have not scored enough goals compared to the chances we have created and because of this we are not able to kill games off when we are on top. We saw this right from day one against Watford when in the second half after somehow managing to get our noses in front, we were unable to kill the game despite dominating for the next 20 minutes and as a result ended up conceding a last minute equaliser. It was a similar story against Manchester City where we absolutely dominated the first 15 minutes but wasn’t able to score as a result ended up losing that game. As much as I love watching our front three in Salah, Mane, and Firmino play together and personally I think they work really well when they are all on form, I still can’t help but look at all three of those players and think who is going to get us 20 Premier League goals on their own this season. I know the argument is they will probably get 20 goals between them but then who is getting the other goals for us? Again if you look at our rivals although they have an out and out goal-scorer, other members of the team will also chip in with a fair amount of goals, so for example let’s take Tottenham, their main striker is Kane, who will get them a guaranteed 20 to 30 goals every season, but they also have players like Alli and Eriksen who will help out with maybe 10 to 15 each a season. Same with United, Lukaku is their main goal threats but the other forward players will also chip in with their fair share. My point is if our front three is scoring the 30 goals that Kane is getting on his own for Tottenham, then who are the players from our team that will score the other amount of goals that Alli and Eriksen get? Either way the maths doesn’t add up.
I don’t take anything away from last night performance and I don’t want to sound like a bit of a killjoy, believe me I was over the moon with the results last night but I still think this is a major issue within our team and to be honest I think it’s one that we might have to seriously look at come January. I know the priority for the owners in the winter window is to get to centre-back in the door, ideally Van Dijk but a centre-forward is still needed at this football club. We haven’t had a goal-scorer since Suarez left and if you actually look at it that was the season where we almost won the league, I don’t want to make a suggestion that if we buy a goal-scorer we are going to win the league but I think it could go a long way in helping Klopp finally bring the title back to Anfield, and let’s be honest this is what we are all desperate for.
Article by Imraan Adam