I was just thinking... are centre-forwards becoming obsolete at the highest level of the game? It's striking (pardon the pun) to see the 3 teams dominating the EPL this season playing without anything resembling traditional #9's at the moment. City are the most radical example, of course – Pep has been building towards his "false 9" and then "double false nine" system for his entire coaching career and you have to say this season in particular their attacking play looks like a pretty conclusive proof of concept – the way they consistently cut through packed defenses by playing in the half-spaces and channels and leaving the opposition CBs without anyone to mark is really slick. Why jostle for position against defenders if you can just run into the spaces around them?
People sometimes think of Klopp as somewhat of an antipode to Guardiola with more players in clearly defined roles as opposed to the amorphous and interchangeable "total tiki-taka-ball" of City, but let's not forget that our only real striker at present is Divock Origi who has played roughly 300 minutes in all competitions this season. Our front 3 consists of 2 wing-forwards supplemented by either a diminutive winger playing through the middle or a #10 who became a false 9. Even our back-up "strikers" are the likes Minamino and Ox – there is no indication that signing a "proper #9" has ever been a serious priority for Klopp. The flexible attacking system Klopp has built at LFC is distinct, but every bit as radical and innovative as anything Guardiola has envisioned and our fans' debates about "the need to buy a proper striker" have long ago disappeared in the rearview mirror. Klopp's comments about "hoping that at some point Origi finds another manager who will play him more often" should be viewed in this vein as well – Divock might have the requisite quality to play as our striker, but most of the time, we don't actually need one!
Chelsea's example might be the most instructive of all. Lukaku was hailed as the missing piece of the puzzle, someone would replace or supplement the misfiring Werner and transform their attack. However after the first decent few games the goals dried up and the variety and fluidity of their attack has suffered with him in the side without consistent offensive production to compensate for it. The low point was the game against City when Lukaku and Werner playing as a pair together created absolutely nothing of note against City's defense and the game in Turin the same week when they were blanked and then-unemployed Conte famously went on Italian TV and proclaimed that Tuchel has no clue how to use Lukaku correctly. Then, in the first game after both Lukaku and Werner were injured, Chelsea scored 7 goals (OK, to be fair it was against Norwich), but more importantly the fluidity of their attack returned for good and in the return CL group game Juventus were obliterated 4:0 with Pulisic playing at false 9.
Now, I know what everyone will say – what about Lewandowski, what about Haaland? Well, first of all – and this might be a bit controversial – in all honesty I don't think the German league offers enough of a proof of an attacker's quality any more. Yes, before people start screaming at me, they are both great strikers, probably the best two pure #9's in the game, but my argument is not that great strikers don't exist, but that at the very top of the game they are not exactly essential. Would Klopp find use for someone like Lewandowski if he suddenly came to Liverpool? Sure, any manager would love to have a player like him. But would he improve our attack all that much, would we score 4 goals in every game instead of 3 – I'm not so sure. Would Harry Kane improve City's attack? Possibly in some moments, but they are doing just fine without him (while Kane himself has only 1 league goal to show for his season so far). And who knows – even Haaland might not take the Premier League by storm quite as much as everyone assumes he would, judging by the examples of all the big physical strikers who came to the Premier League from the continent in recent years and found it rather difficult.
I don't want people to take this as some kind of sweeping indictment of centre-forwards as a profession. I personally have a soft spot for natural-born finishers, the likes of Fowler or Raul and it would be sad for me if these kinds of players become as obsolete as the likes of Totti and Baggio. There are still plenty of strikers who are essential to their teams, the likes of Benzema, Vardy, Jimenez, Bamford etc, Kane will probably start scoring again and Lukaku might figure out how to fit in Tuchel's system eventually (although I think Tuchel would do well to take Conte's advice and only use Lukaku in a limited way as a counter-attacking threat rather than allow the whole attacking game to depend on him). But I think this trend of the gradual diminishing of the importance of strikers at the absolute top level will continue. When Lewandowski retires, Bayern will probably not replace him with a like-for-like, but instead go for a swarm of pacy wing-forwards and false double-inverted wingers or whatever the latest tactical fad will be at the time. Barcelona is building their attack around Depay, who is a false 9 and desperately want to buy City's one-time false 9 Ferran Torres to continue in that vein. Atletico are experimenting with the likes of Joao Felix and Griezmann up front. Real Madrid's main attacking threat of the future will be Vinicius and players like him – even Mbappe who is somewhere between a striker and a wing-forward. Centre-forwards will always exist, but the future does not belong to them.
People sometimes think of Klopp as somewhat of an antipode to Guardiola with more players in clearly defined roles as opposed to the amorphous and interchangeable "total tiki-taka-ball" of City, but let's not forget that our only real striker at present is Divock Origi who has played roughly 300 minutes in all competitions this season. Our front 3 consists of 2 wing-forwards supplemented by either a diminutive winger playing through the middle or a #10 who became a false 9. Even our back-up "strikers" are the likes Minamino and Ox – there is no indication that signing a "proper #9" has ever been a serious priority for Klopp. The flexible attacking system Klopp has built at LFC is distinct, but every bit as radical and innovative as anything Guardiola has envisioned and our fans' debates about "the need to buy a proper striker" have long ago disappeared in the rearview mirror. Klopp's comments about "hoping that at some point Origi finds another manager who will play him more often" should be viewed in this vein as well – Divock might have the requisite quality to play as our striker, but most of the time, we don't actually need one!
Chelsea's example might be the most instructive of all. Lukaku was hailed as the missing piece of the puzzle, someone would replace or supplement the misfiring Werner and transform their attack. However after the first decent few games the goals dried up and the variety and fluidity of their attack has suffered with him in the side without consistent offensive production to compensate for it. The low point was the game against City when Lukaku and Werner playing as a pair together created absolutely nothing of note against City's defense and the game in Turin the same week when they were blanked and then-unemployed Conte famously went on Italian TV and proclaimed that Tuchel has no clue how to use Lukaku correctly. Then, in the first game after both Lukaku and Werner were injured, Chelsea scored 7 goals (OK, to be fair it was against Norwich), but more importantly the fluidity of their attack returned for good and in the return CL group game Juventus were obliterated 4:0 with Pulisic playing at false 9.
Now, I know what everyone will say – what about Lewandowski, what about Haaland? Well, first of all – and this might be a bit controversial – in all honesty I don't think the German league offers enough of a proof of an attacker's quality any more. Yes, before people start screaming at me, they are both great strikers, probably the best two pure #9's in the game, but my argument is not that great strikers don't exist, but that at the very top of the game they are not exactly essential. Would Klopp find use for someone like Lewandowski if he suddenly came to Liverpool? Sure, any manager would love to have a player like him. But would he improve our attack all that much, would we score 4 goals in every game instead of 3 – I'm not so sure. Would Harry Kane improve City's attack? Possibly in some moments, but they are doing just fine without him (while Kane himself has only 1 league goal to show for his season so far). And who knows – even Haaland might not take the Premier League by storm quite as much as everyone assumes he would, judging by the examples of all the big physical strikers who came to the Premier League from the continent in recent years and found it rather difficult.
I don't want people to take this as some kind of sweeping indictment of centre-forwards as a profession. I personally have a soft spot for natural-born finishers, the likes of Fowler or Raul and it would be sad for me if these kinds of players become as obsolete as the likes of Totti and Baggio. There are still plenty of strikers who are essential to their teams, the likes of Benzema, Vardy, Jimenez, Bamford etc, Kane will probably start scoring again and Lukaku might figure out how to fit in Tuchel's system eventually (although I think Tuchel would do well to take Conte's advice and only use Lukaku in a limited way as a counter-attacking threat rather than allow the whole attacking game to depend on him). But I think this trend of the gradual diminishing of the importance of strikers at the absolute top level will continue. When Lewandowski retires, Bayern will probably not replace him with a like-for-like, but instead go for a swarm of pacy wing-forwards and false double-inverted wingers or whatever the latest tactical fad will be at the time. Barcelona is building their attack around Depay, who is a false 9 and desperately want to buy City's one-time false 9 Ferran Torres to continue in that vein. Atletico are experimenting with the likes of Joao Felix and Griezmann up front. Real Madrid's main attacking threat of the future will be Vinicius and players like him – even Mbappe who is somewhere between a striker and a wing-forward. Centre-forwards will always exist, but the future does not belong to them.
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But younger blood is what we do need
