but if it is sterling, then we lose pace, directness, ability to beat a man and 20 goals a season (baring this season).
Lastly, though not that this matters on the pitch (mostof the time) - he comes across as a billy big bollocks
But football isn’t just about scoring goals. It’s about scoring one more than the opposition.
With the extra midfielder, we dominate possession so the opposition have very few chances to score.
So these dozens of other games you could mention....did we win them or not?
& saying having a striker means we win more games isn’t simplistic?
Yes we need a finisher......the amount of chances we waste is beyond a joke and in big games it culd come back to haunt us.But do we need a striker at all?
We’ve hardly used strikers all season, even when Jesus plays it’s not in a traditional striker role, but we’re having maybe our best season ever with a tighter defence and goals coming from all directions as ‘midfielders’ interchange across the front making it impossible to mark out the striker that doesn’t exist
Our game play has evolved to become more fluid, we press better, we’re harder to pin down and we’re more effective for it. Perhaps this demonstrates how much we don’t need a striker?
It could be that the traditional striker role disappears from the game in future years, in the same way that traditional keepers who hug the line and can’t pass are now rightly seen as dinosaurs.
I did also say in a previous post about his ball retention being a quality....does he really bring othrs into play better than foden, kdb, jesus, gundogan or bernardo silva (marhrez can be greedy and not pass when he should and sterlign does lose the ball - but he is a dribbler so he will by design lose the ball more)He brings exactly those qualities and more......He holds the ball up and brings others into play better than anyone in our current squad.
As for his character,yes he's made some daft decisions,but he has been frequently lauded by other professionals as a top lad who only wants to be the best and never gives less than 100%.
He was nowhere near the first team at the time and was earmarked for a spot in the squad alongside Phil Foden.Based on what? How it turned out last time?
We often forget we only have saints in our squad... heheAs for his character,yes he's made some daft decisions,but he has been frequently lauded by other professionals as a top lad who only wants to be the best and never gives less than 100%.
This has been talked about multiple times on the thread. The notion we would need to make room to bring him isn’t necessarily trueWhy is there so much talk of us selling Sterling. If we buy Grealish we would keep both of them.
I don’t think grealish would play on the wing. I think he’d be competing with Bernardo
I don't,the hypocrisy is off the scale.We often forget we only have saints in our squad... hehe
I think we’re going round in circles, so the last point I’ll make is that you saying it’s a lie that we have been playing better without a striker is nonsense in my opinion as we’ve won the league, LC & made the semi of the CL. We’ve never done that playing with a strikerI’m not sure you’re replying to the point I was making. You can score one more than the opposition in a scenario where the reality of the game is fulfilled, and not count of chance for that.
Dominating possession has nothing to do with an extra midfielder or not. Again, I can give you countless examples of us playing two strikers and having unbelievable possession stats. Same with Pep’s Bayern. And you can also look at for instance the tactical setup at Anfield this year when we only had 44% possession.
Again, it would be simplistic, except that’s not what I was saying...