Who should be number one striker

There's been a lot of talk about our striking options recently, and whether or not we'll need to recruit foreign-born attackers in the near future; so I thought I'd compile a list of the strikers currently available to us in the top 4 English divisions, the SPL, and a few select others plying their trade elsewhere.
*(Only those who have made senior appearances included)

EPL:
Shane Long- Southampton, 30 years old.
Jon Walters- Stoke, 33
Courtney Duffus- Everton, 21
Sam Byrne- Everton, 21

Championship:
Daryl Murphy- Newcastle, 34
Anthony Pilkington- Cardiff, 28
David McGoldrick- Ipswich, 29
Anthony Stokes- Blackburn, 28
Joe Mason- Wolves, 25
Leon Best- Ipswich, 30
Reece Grego-Cox- QPR, 20
Frank Mulhern- Huddersfield, 20

League One:
Simon Cox- Southend, 29
Paddy Madden- S****horpe, 27
Aiden O'Brien- Millwall, 23
Dave Mooney- Southend, 32
Conor Wilkinson- Bolton, 22
Rory Gaffney- Bristol Rovers, 27
Billy Clarke- Bradford, 29
Joe Quigley- Gillingham, 20

League Two:
Noel Hunt- Portsmouth, 34
Eoin Doyle- Portsmouth, 29
Gerry McDonagh- Cambridge, 19
Rhys Murphy- Crawley, 26
Padraig Amond- Hartlepool, 28
Liam McAlinden- Exeter, 23
Pat Hoban- Mansfield, 25
Barry Corr- Cambridge, 32
James Collins- Crawley, 26
Rowan Roache- Blackpool, 17

SPL:
Adam Rooney- Aberdeen, 28
Conor Sammon- Kilmarnock, 30
Graham Cummins- St.Johnstone, 29
Dean Ebbe- Inverness, 22

Polish Ekstraklasa:
Cillian Sheridan- Jagiellonia Bialystok, 28

A-League
Andy Keogh- Perth Glory, 30
Roy O'Donovan- Central Coast Mariners, 31

MLS:
Kevin Doyle- Colorado Rapids, 33

All in all, with that list of players (plus a few guys in the LOI like Maguire, McMillan, Fagan, and Akinade that may be options) I reckon we have enough depth to get by for 2, or perhaps even 3 years. It would certainly be beneficial to bring a few of the eligible players on board though, and longer term it will become a necessity if our younger talents like McAuley, Hale, Idah etc. don't make the breakthrough. I'd suggest that Bamford, Jutkiewicz, Keane, and Robinson are all realistic targets. I think Hogan and Wickham would be harder to convince.




Edited by The O'Shea - 09 Apr 2017 at 12:28am

We've never looked better than when playing the diamond with two strikers up top and a playmaker in the hole. In the absence of a primary striker, it gives us to option of playing straight up to a big man to hold up the ball, or play through the middle. After this last round of games, I'm thinking the following for Austria:

pre Madonna wrote: alihau41 wrote: I'm surprised scott 'hulk' Hogan isn't included on the list considering the amount of f**king airtime he gets on here Airtime being the appropriate word, on many levels.

I'm surprised scott 'hulk' Hogan isn't included on the list considering the amount of f**king airtime he gets on here

Can't see us playing 3 at the back anytime soon.

shakeyshamrock wrote: Terzino wrote: The midfield is a problem generally for us, but at least with a 4-4-2 we can play a more traditional longball game. There are some remedies to consider. When we don't have the ball Long could drop back into midfield to make a 5. Alternatively, the answer could be to play with 3 in the middle and use only one out-and-out winger. Or we could try and turn McClean into a box-to-box centre-midfielder. I know he's a winger, but he has so much energy and likes a tackle that it would be great if he could be converted to play in there. And I'm not sure about Walters and Long as the combo. This has been the partnership most used so far, Walters on the right but pushes forward and tries to win headers, but I'm not sure it has worked. Walters is not great as a targetman, and neither of them seem to be on eachothers wavelength. Murphy has taken a long time to get going for Ireland, but I think he is a better option as a targetman for Long to work off of. said it before, but I think a 3-5-2/5-3-2 is the answer with the players we have - we can set that up as a defensive one or a more attacking one.. either way it protects us in midfield and still gives us 2 up front.  defensive: GK O'Shea Duffy Clark Coleman Ward McCarthy Whelan Hendrick Walters Murphy (very) attacking: GK Coleman Clark Ward McGeady McClean McCarthy Arter Hoolohan Long Murphy

We dont have coleman tho.... and brady?

The midfield is a problem generally for us, but at least with a 4-4-2 we can play a more traditional longball game.

There are some remedies to consider. When we don't have the ball Long could drop back into midfield to make a 5.

Alternatively, the answer could be to play with 3 in the middle and use only one out-and-out winger.

Or we could try and turn McClean into a box-to-box centre-midfielder. I know he's a winger, but he has so much energy and likes a tackle that it would be great if he could be converted to play in there.

And I'm not sure about Walters and Long as the combo. This has been the partnership most used so far, Walters on the right but pushes forward and tries to win headers, but I'm not sure it has worked.

Walters is not great as a targetman, and neither of them seem to be on eachothers wavelength.

Murphy has taken a long time to get going for Ireland, but I think he is a better option as a targetman for Long to work off of.

MC Hammered wrote: pre Madonna wrote: He has scored 9 goals  from 36 starts  and 8 from 37 off the bench. Of his five competitive goals, 4 have been scored when he came off the bench. His competitive goals are: Russia (H) 2010 Poland (H) 2015 Gibraltar (A) 2015 Germany (H) 2015 Moldova (A) 2016 Interesting. Cheers for that.

pre Madonna wrote: He has scored 9 goals  from 36 starts  and 8 from 37 off the bench. Of his five competitive goals, 4 have been scored when he came off the bench. His competitive goals are: Russia (H) 2010 Poland (H) 2015 Gibraltar (A) 2015 Germany (H) 2015 Moldova (A) 2016