adminLONDON. — What is a centre-forward — it is a question that is far harder to answer now than it used to be. The suggestion that Pep Guardiola may not be entirely happy with Sergio Agüero seemed at first bizarre.How, realistically, could a player of his ability, his goalscoring capacity — 109 league goals in five seasons at City, despite injuries — be doubted?
For a modern striker, though, goals are only part of it.
“It is not about how many goals he scores because we’re happy with the scoring,” Guardiola said this week.
He wanted more all-round contribution.
Guardiola may be a unique manager but this is not a unique quirk.
Jürgen Klopp has made it fairly clear that goals (not that there have been huge numbers of them recently) are not enough to keep Daniel Sturridge in his Liverpool team. Antonio Conte insists Diego Costa should start the process of winning the ball back.
This is the nature of the modern vogue for pressing: scoring goals is no longer enough.
This demand for forwards to chase and harry is not new.
Almost since football began there have been different visions of how a centre-forward should play.
Even Austria in the 1920s – blessed with the deft intelligence of Matthias Sindelar, the Paper Man, one of the earliest incarnations of what would become known as the false nine (although given no one had thought to put numbers on shirts at that point, there weren’t even nines to be false versions of) — went through a long phase of preferring the big tough. — The Guardian.
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