As every season goes by, the defending in the Premier League seems to get worse. Average strikers seem to be scoring a lot more goals than in the past, defenders look slower and out of their depth and every club seems to desperately need better defenders.
The most expensive defender in the world is Kyle Walker (left), who cost Manchester City £54m but a big part of the club’s willingness to pay so much was his attacking capabilities.
In fact Walker offers more going forward than he does defensively. Benjamin Mendy is another defender who has signed for Manchester City for a crazy fee because of what he offers going forward.
There is a reason why defenders who are better at attacking are worth so much money; scoring goals has become the big priority for every club. “Goals win you matches” is no longer just a statement of the bleeding obvious, it has become the iron-clad reality of the game. Gone are the days of placing an enormous amount of priority on solid defenders who love a strong tackle or players who win every duel in the air like a Nemanja Vidic.
Strikers are gold
The costliest striker in the world, Romelu Lukaku, set Manchester United back £80m. You could argue that his price tag simply shows we have a crazy market, and there are certainly other strikers who are more prolific and dangerous than the big Belgian.
The reason United paid so much is that he is almost guaranteed to score at least 20 goals a season, and clubs without a 20-goal striker struggle to win a title. Think back to Manchester United signing Robin Van Persie from Arsenal for what was then a decent sum of £32m despite the fact that he was 30 years old and was going to be out of contract within 12 months of signing. That season is now seen as the year the Gunners sold the title to United. It is a proven fact that strikers win you titles.
Since 1999-2000, only one team has won the title without having a striker who scored more than 20 goals. Cristiano Ronaldo scored just 18 goals to help Manchester United take the title in 2008-09 but he was still near the top of the goal-scoring table, as runners-up Chelsea had the top scorer in Nicolas Anelka with 19 goals.
The demand for a top goal scorer continues to grow every season as teams become weaker at the back. The total number of goals scored in the Premier League last season was 100+ more than the total scored a decade earlier.
What’s going on?
Why is this happening? The simple reason for clubs wanting to spend big on strikers is that there are fewer top-quality defenders, so an effective striker can run riot. Defending used to be a simple trait; win headers, batter strikers and make it a physical game. In recent times, tighter refereeing decisions has made the game softer with the quicker flashing of yellow and red cards putting extra pressure on defenders.
The game as a whole has started to work in favour of attacking players who tend to get more leniency from referees, forcing defenders to be more agile and better on the ball.
When you throw in the fact that many defenders who are intelligent and more dangerous on the ball will end up being converted into holding midfielders the result is that defending is becoming something of a dying art.
John Stones is a top example, as a ball-playing centre-back who is poor at winning a tackle or judging when to dive in to win back the ball. The argument for him to play in a more advanced role has gathered some pace with Pep Guardiola playing him as a holding midfielder during some of Manchester City’s pre-season campaign despite the Englishman having spent his whole career as a defender.
So the game is not developing in a great way for defenders, with more goals being scored and more individual errors being made every week. It has actually become embarrassing to see some teams in English football try to defend. That is a big part of the reason why Premier League clubs struggle in Europe – they simply concede too many goals.
English defenders were once known to be tough and aggressive but that style of defending is almost disappeared from the Premier League. It’s time for defenders to adapt their game or we may start seeing bigger score lines more frequently than we already are.
by Nubaid Haroon
YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCtMg-fWm7awR41vM1GhVOkA Twitter: twitter.com/rambofyi
The post Football: The Strikers Are Taking Over appeared first on Felix Magazine.
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