There was once a time when guaranteed goalscorers were worth their weight in gold. Power, height, pace, technical ability and all that jazz certainly helped, but the likes of Ruud van Nistelrooy and Robbie Fowler got by for long enough without it.
They simply found a way of getting the ball into the net one week to guarantee a start the next; an entirely logical cycle that had even the most attritional of managers prepared to overlook workshy tendencies in favour of that one thing needed to win football matches - goals.
Traditionally, strikers have commanded the largest transfer fees, the largest salaries and unrivalled importance in the starting XI. But fast forward to 2016/17 in the Premier League and the job security of the guaranteed goalscorer isn’t as sure as it once was. Have we reached a point where most, if not all, predatory net-finders are suddenly expendable?
On the surface, that may seem absurd. A beautiful game without a consistent supply of goals would be a wet dream for Sam Allardyce and a nightmare for the rest of us. But no star striker doesn’t mean no goals; indeed, there is a growing trend of managers looking to find their goals from other areas of the pitch. The traditional poachers, meanwhile, the men who’ve forged careers almost exclusively from getting on the scoresheet, are suddenly being sacrificed.
Take Sergio Aguero and Daniel Sturridge. On paper, both are amongst the best goal-getters in the Premier League, if not world football. The Argentine proved as much against Burnley, when he came off the bench to fizz in a strike from the most impossible of angles, somehow finding a gap between a goal-line defending Michael Keane and the post to give his side a 2-0 lead. But that’s precisely the point; a fully-fit, world-class striker, unrivalled in his position throughout the City squad, had to make a difference from the bench.
Of course, Aguero has largely been selected when fit; barring his three and four-game suspensions. Yet, it’s hard to imagine any of Pep Guardiola’s predecessors voluntarily extending his exclusion from the starting XI by an extra game after such a long absence, like the Spaniard did against Burnley. In fact, Aguero’s spent most of his City career sacrificing his health and risking injury by being rushing back into the fold as soon as possible.
And the trend rings even truer at Anfield, where Sturridge has spent the majority of the campaign watching from the sidelines. Once again, few can dispute the England international’s talent, but Jurgen Klopp has consistently preferred Roberto Firmino in the false nine role as part of his high-pressing, fluid front three rather than a traditional centre-forward. Even Divock Origi, more a roaming forward than a predominant front-man, has found himself selected ahead of the former Chelsea and Manchester City starlet.
Yet, that hasn’t affected Liverpool’s capacity to find the net - in fact, quite the opposite. They’re the top scoring side in the Premier League with 48 goals - seven more than Barcelona after just four more games - and perhaps even more intriguingly, their top scorer isn’t even Firmino, the closest thing their strongest starting XI has to a conventional front-man. That title belongs to in-cutting winger Sadio Mane.
It's a similar case at Arsenal. Although Olivier Giroud has come back into the fold recently amid a run of fixtures against predominantly defensive and physical sides, Alexis Sanchez has lead Arsenal’s line for the most part this season. The Chilean forward is certainly capable in terms of scoring prowess but once again, it’s the other elements of his game that have seen him preferred to Giroud, specifically his pace, tenacity and link-up play with those around him, notching up seven assists already this term.
Meanwhile, Jermain Defoe is the fourth-top scorer in the Premier League but seemingly compelled to ply his trade with third-bottom Sunderland. Of course, Defoe is a particularly extreme case - he’s 34 years of age and has been marginalised for most of his career for an apparent lack of all-round contribution.
Nonetheless, the point still stands; out-and-out goalscorers are becoming decisively old-fashioned. It’s rather telling that just eleven of the Premier League’s top 20 scorers this season are actual strikers. The rest occupy the attacking midfield berth just behind them.
There are exceptions, most notably Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Diego Costa of Manchester United and Chelsea respectively. But once again, it’s rather telling that Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte are both considered as tactically traditional in terms of defence coming first and creating largely functional sides.
Their counterparts Guardiola and Klopp, on the other hand, are seen as more progressive and favour less obvious traits in their front-men, namely energy to press off the ball, the flexibility to move around the forward line and the ability to bring the midfield into the game. Actually finding the net regularly appears to come a distant second.
Yet, this isn’t a case of revolution; it’s been coming for some time. Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi ushered in the era of free-scoring wingers, the 4-3-3 system that arrived in the Premier League with Mourinho in 2004 asked for almost superhuman contribution from the lone front-man and as a rule of thumb, strikers' roles have become increasingly industrious throughout the Premier League era.
You can’t imagine the aforementioned Van Nistelrooy, or for that matter even the likes of Andy Cole or Alan Shearer, working tirelessly to pin back a defence in their own third. At the same time, Premier League managers have gone from deploying two up front to, on many occasions, none over the course of the last 15 years.
Indeed, times are changing and it seems the out-and-out goalscorers are being left behind - or at the very least, losing the unparalleled importance they once had, reduced to making contributions from the bench when all other hope of finding the net is seemingly lost. Once the first names on the team-sheet, traditional strikers are becoming a last-minute roll of the dice.
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