Strikers firing far too many blanks

Mar 4 2008 by Luke Edwards, The Journal

Newcastle United and Sunderland are fighting with each other in a bid to avoid relegation and it will be the form of their strikers which will go a long way to determining their success. Luke Edwards reports.

SCORING a goal is the most simplistic thing in football to talk about, but it also happens to be the hardest thing to do in any game.

It would be too easy to say goals just change games – they change fortunes, moods and destinies. Goals do not just save points – they save jobs and, at times like these, vast amounts of money.

For Newcastle and Sunderland, goals have become a rare commodity this season and, as a result, both clubs hang perilously above the dreaded drop zone.

If either Newcastle or Sunderland fail to stay in the Premier League this season, the impact on their finances will be every bit as severe as it is on the pride of the players, manager and supporters of the relegated team.

Yet for all the millions invested by the Black Cats and the Magpies to construct a strike force to compete in the top flight, both have fired far too many blanks this season.

“It’s all about scoring goals at this level,” said Sunderland’s manager Roy Keane after their disappointing goal-less draw against Derby County last weekend. “That’s why all the top players are usually forwards.

“They are the big transfer fees, they get the big money and they get the big headlines. It’s the hardest part of football putting the ball in the back of the net and we’ve not been able to do that often enough, as our record this season suggests.”

Newcastle’s story is similar. They have only scored three goals since Kevin Keegan returned as manager seven games ago. It is a record which fully explains their inability to win any of those seven games.

Newcastle’s offensive options cost £33m to acquire, including a club record £17m investment in England international Michael Owen and another £10m for a player who could only make the substitutes’ bench in the 1-0 defeat to Blackburn Rovers last weekend, Obafemi Martins. As for Sunderland, manager Roy Keane has spent £13m over the course of the present campaign to try to find the firepower needed.

Amazingly, neither side can boast a striker who has reached double figures this season and their profligacy in front of goal last weekend has pushed both a worrying step closer to the bottom three.

At Newcastle, Martins has managed seven goals in all competitions, missing most of January because of his involvement in the African Cup of Nations with Nigeria. Owen has only five, a number shared by the injury-prone Mark Viduka.

Shockingly, however, Alan Smith, a £6m recruit from Manchester United last summer has failed to score in 29 appearances for the club despite playing the majority of them as a striker.

At Sunderland, the picture is even bleaker with the club’s top goal scorer Kenwyne Jones leading the way with five, although he has not scored in his last eight appearances for the club and has scored just once in 16 games. Behind him comes Daryl Murphy and Michael Chopra with three each, although the latter has not scored from open play since September and has spent much of the season playing on the right of midfield. The £2m Rade Prica has hardly figured.

At St James’s Park on Saturday, Newcastle created more than enough chances to win the game but failed to take any of them with Owen, the club captain, surprisingly the worst culprit. Having had to feed off the most meagre of rations in terms of service for much of the season, it is typical of United’s disastrous campaign that, when the service finally improved against Blackburn, one of the most reliable finishers in European football wasted it.

The 28-year-old at least had the bravery to admit as much after the game, but having struggled to justify his price tag because of injuries during his last two seasons on Tyneside, United supporters will want actions rather than words between now and judgement day in May.

It was a similar story for Sunderland at Derby where the Black Cats also failed to make their chances count, although only an incorrect offside flag ruled out Chopra’s first-half strike. “What we lacked on Saturday was a bit of quality in the attacking third,” said Keane, sentiments he has uttered under various guises several times in the last few months, particularly away from home. “Obviously goals change matches and we weren’t able to get them. We ended up huffing and puffing with Derby because we didn’t take our chances.

“If you don’t take your chances you’ve only got yourself to blame. We should have scored a goal and I’m not going to go down the road of luck in why we missed them. We’ve not had enough quality in that area, but we did at least create chances.”

Unfortunately for Keegan and Keane, their teams creating chances will only be half the battle. It is how many times their misfiring strikers manage to put the ball in the back of the net which will count.

It is time for some people to start justifying their expensive price tags and their big reputations.