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Why does England struggle to produce an abundance of quality strikers?

aussie

Hall of Fame Member
Still better than England TBH. Only major European country that we have an edge in that area ATM are Portugal & Germany (to an extent).
 

aussie

Hall of Fame Member
Matteh said:
Andy Cole scored goals for fun in the early days of the Premiership, Fowler was second only to Shearer around the 94/95 time in terms of goals scored and Ferdinand had that gun season or two in about 96/97.Le Tissier wasn't a striker as such either, definitely should have played more than 8 times for England though.
Neil Pickup said:
You are far too young, then. Watched the Football/Premiership Years on Sky today (half term rocks) whilst eating loads of Jammie Dodgers and I swear the finishing ten years ago was infinitely better than it is today. The class of players like Fowler (three minute hat trick anyone) and Ferdinand - who barely got a look in for England, remember - not to mention someone like Ian Wright, when compared to the current crap that keeps getting caps (Andrew, Darren, Jermaine...) is, quite frankly, ridiculous.

When did it all go wrong? Clearly with the renaming from Premier League to Premiership.
Goughy said:
He scored a goal approx every 2 1/2 games for the Saints which is an amazing record given where he played.

Damn seems like i missed out during those so called glory days..
 

TT Boy

Hall of Fame Member
Still better than England TBH. Only major European country that we have an edge in that area ATM are Portugal & Germany (to an extent).
Portugal's main striker is Helder Postiga, who no disrespect is ****. They have numerous wide men but they are not centre forwards or indeed second strikers and Germanys forward line is pretty poor.

For me Italy have the best attacking resources in Europe, Fabio Quagliarella, Luca Toni, Alberto Gilardino, Vincenzo Iaquinta, David Di Michele, Filippo Inzaghi, Cristiano Lucarelli, Antonio Di Natale, Tommaso Rocchi, Alessandro Del Piero and Francesco Totti. The list of decent to excellent strikers is pretty endless and Italy’s World Cup success was built upon their ability to change attacking line ups given the opposition and fitness of their players, Portugal could never afford to drop Pauleta and England can never correlate dropping Owen or Rooney, Italy can and do.
 
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aussie

Hall of Fame Member
Haha, mate yo one fuuny kid yo. I hope you know i mean Spain though lead by the brilliant David Villa.
 

Pup Clarke

Cricketer Of The Year
For me Italy have the best attacking resources in Europe, Fabio Quagliarella, Luca Toni, Alberto Gilardino, Vincenzo Iaquinta, David Di Michele, Filippo Inzaghi, Cristiano Lucarelli, Antonio Di Natale, Tommaso Rocchi, Alessandro Del Piero and Francesco Totti. The list of decent to excellent strikers is pretty endless and Italy’s World Cup success was built upon their ability to change attacking line ups given the opposition and fitness of their players, Portugal could never afford to drop Pauleta and England can never correlate dropping Owen or Rooney, Italy can and do.
Not sure I agree entirely there. Toni, Totti and Gilardino are all very good but the likes of Quagliarella, Iaquinta, Rocchi and Di Michele are completely unproven at International level which is a completely different ball game from Serie A. It might be a case of quantity over quality imo. Then you have the likes of Del Piero and Inzaghi who are shadows of 5-10 years ago.
 

Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
Well we know Henry & Saha are injured. Don't know whats the case with Treseguet, Wiltord & Cisse though.
Henry- Quality but injured
Saha- Ordinary Prem level player. Wouldnt be out of place at Sunderland next year
Trezeguet- Excellent club record but showed little in 98 and 2000 when France won titles. No doubt a good player but seems short of that very top class. (granted Ive not seen much of his last couple of seasons)
Wiltord- Big man in little league. Never been a top player and was certainly short of special at Highbury
Cisse- Liverpool reject that doesnt know the offside rule and cant score.
Anelka- Plays for Bolton and has declined massively from his teenage prime.

Hmm, wouldnt call that even close to Englands resources. Its partly what I said earlier in the thread with people overrating average foeign players.
 

TT Boy

Hall of Fame Member
Henry- Quality but injured
Saha- Ordinary Prem level player. Wouldnt be out of place at Sunderland next year
Trezeguet- Excellent club record but showed little in 98 and 2000 when France won titles. No doubt a good player but seems short of that very top class. (granted Ive not seen much of his last couple of seasons)
Wiltord- Big man in little league. Never been a top player and was certainly short of special at Highbury
Cisse- Liverpool reject that doesnt know the offside rule and cant score.
Anelka- Plays for Bolton and has declined massively from his teenage prime.

Hmm, wouldnt call that even close to Englands resources. Its partly what I said earlier in the thread with people overrating average foeign players.

England’s Resources

David Nugent- If the dismissal of the ability Nick Anelka has is that he plays for Bolton then playing in the Championship is far worse.
Peter Crouch- Club goal scoring record for Liverpool is no better than what Djibril Cisse’s was and he currently bench warms to Holland’s third choice forward.
Darren Bent- Good goal scoring record in the Premiership also has fantastic pace and knows where the goal is but is he international quality? Unless he joins a ‘big’ club and fails to score he will never be selected.
Jermaine Defoe- Bench warms to Dimitar and Robbie Keane and is not held in the greatest of regard.
Theo Walcott- Done nothing at club level yet was selected for a World Cup.
Gabriel Agbonlahor- Talent but goal scoring record for Villa is poor.
AJ- Clichéd retort but a considerable amount of his goals are spot kicks, David Trezeguet has scored over 30 goals for France and coming on 200 in his club career, how many of those were penalties? Single digits at best and none at international level I believe.

I agree with your sentiments on France and in particular Louis Saha but I really don’t think are resources are very good and probably the worst at any major international side. Chris Coleman once remarked that if Brian McBride was English he would have gone to the World Cup and personally I don’t think Coleman’s comment is that sensationalist given what McClaren has to work with.
 

aussie

Hall of Fame Member
England’s Resources

David Nugent- If the dismissal of the ability Nick Anelka has is that he plays for Bolton then playing in the Championship is far worse.

Theo Walcott- Done nothing at club level yet was selected for a World Cup.
Gabriel Agbonlahor- Talent but goal scoring record for Villa is poor.
All three are young though and seem to have great potential so we never know what can happen with them. Walcott of the three is my big hope though, that Henry style goal he scored for the Under 21's had to make your jaw drop yo. Hopefully next season he scores a wonder goal a-la Rooney & another star can be born.


Peter Crouch- Club goal scoring record for Liverpool is no better than what Djibril Cisse’s was and he currently bench warms to Holland’s third choice forward.
Well not really, this season Benetiz has shuffled up & down between Kuyt/Coruch/Bellamy.

Darren Bent- Good goal scoring record in the Premiership also has fantastic pace and knows where the goal is but is he international quality? Unless he joins a ‘big’ club and fails to score he will never be selected.
Word out, fact that he scored for a struggling Charlton shows that he is good bloke. But really even if he goes to a big club i somehow don't think he make a big case for himself on the international stage.

Jermaine Defoe- Bench warms to Dimitar and Robbie Keane and is not held in the greatest of regard.

But he's not the worst, he was starting ahead of Keane for a period this season, scored some pretty good goals along the way. But

I agree with your sentiments on France and in particular Louis Saha but I really don’t think are resources are very good and probably the worst at any major international side. Chris Coleman once remarked that if Brian McBride was English he would have gone to the World Cup and personally I don’t think Coleman’s comment is that sensationalist given what McClaren has to work with.


Don't have to look that far, just as was the case when i was like damn why couldn't Giggs play for England, same can be said about Bellamy ATM.
 

sledger

Spanish_Vicente
Don't have to look that far, just as was the case when i was like damn why couldn't Giggs play for England, same can be said about Bellamy ATM.
he could have done...he just chose not to..
 

sledger

Spanish_Vicente
tbh i really wouldnt say there are many european nations who have a host of decent strikers at the moment, a few teams have one (debatably two) standout front men, besides...the most logical reason for england not producing quality players is simply down to the fact that the youth development system in this country is pretty much inferior to those in place across the rest of central europe.
 

GIMH

Norwood's on Fire
he could have done...he just chose not to..
I don't think he could have done tbh. He played for England Schoolboys simply because the only criteria for eligibility at that level is current residency. However, I am pretty sure he was born in Wales to two Welsh parents who had Welsh parents themselves.
 

gio

U19 Cricketer
Not sure I agree entirely there. Toni, Totti and Gilardino are all very good but the likes of Quagliarella, Iaquinta, Rocchi and Di Michele are completely unproven at International level which is a completely different ball game from Serie A. It might be a case of quantity over quality imo. Then you have the likes of Del Piero and Inzaghi who are shadows of 5-10 years ago.
Quagliarella has already scored for Italy (twice IIRC) and is a real top drawer player. Gilardino on the other hand, I'm not a fan of. He's had a very poor season, and it has taken the likes of a 33 yr old Inzaghi, and a 30yr old Ronaldo to rescue Milan's season... He has to have a good season next year to convince me. Pazzini looks like the better prospect.
 

Mikey B

Cricket Spectator
Peter Crouch- Club goal scoring record for Liverpool is no better than what Djibril Cisse’s was and he currently bench warms to Holland’s third choice forward.
Crouch brings more to the team than Cisse ever did, Cisse was a lazy so and so..

Crouch is probably the 3rd best striker for England atm
 

NUFAN

Y no Afghanistan flag
The amount of foreign strikers in the Premier League is the problem. If English fans want there national team to develop more players they need the Premier League coaches to pick more local guys. Spurs are doing there best picking Defore and now Bent, while Wenger is more keen to help African football, rather then developing local talent. .
 

sledger

Spanish_Vicente
The amount of foreign strikers in the Premier League is the problem. If English fans want there national team to develop more players they need the Premier League coaches to pick more local guys. Spurs are doing there best picking Defore and now Bent, while Wenger is more keen to help African football, rather then developing local talent. .
rubbish, the simple fact is that the english youth development system in general is just massively atiquainted in comparison to most of the other european leagues.
 

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