He's a striker and not a 'space creator'.. he's played as a striker and should be judged on what a striker does -> score goals.. anything else should be a bonus and not to be used as an excuse when he's missing sitters.
I don't have anything against Firmino, I think he is decent in that role giving the fact that he is an attacking midfielder playing there and I definitely don't have have an agenda bigging up Sturridge.. I actually think he should have been sold in the summer with another striker being bought.
One thing is obvious and that is both of them aren't good enough for a title challenge.. saw a stat that we scored 6 times from 126 chances or something like that.. let's put Aubameyang/Lewandowski/Torres/Suarez in Firmino's place.. surely the stat is not the same now
Well considering I said we should go for Aubameyang in the summer I guess we agree in some ways. Suarez is clearly out of reach, but he would have been ideal, Torres is way past it and Lewandowski again is out of reach.
See I disagree when it comes to Firmino, I think he's a creator more than a goal scorer, hence why he plays the false 9 role, hence why he does indeed create so many chances (doesn't get nearly the credit he deserves on this one). I've no problem with putting a pure number 9 in there either but if people think we get the same amount of goals/chances created for Mane/Salah then they're quite simply wrong and are pushing an agenda. Strikers are naturally selfish, they don't create nearly the same chances as they need providing for them and usually only create chances for themselves. This is where I see the likes of Sanchez/Suarez/Firmino in a different league to others because they do create as much or more than they score.
Now I've no problem with people saying that Bobby isn't clinical enough, because that is clearly the case but when they start pretending that Sturridge can do all the things Firmino can do plus also score more I draw the line because at that point they're quite simply talking complete and utter bollocks.
Firmino on form is one of the best players in the entire league but he has had a dip recently and his last two performances have been poor, but using that as a narrative to pretend Sturridge would be this great all around player, again, it's boring and nothing more than silliness. The player who could come in and actually do a job is probably Solanke and if we were to drop Bobby for a rest then I'd like to see him start. The basis behind this is that Sturridge has had a couple of starts recently and has looked underwhelming, from the start of a game his lack of pace and stamina are both much more clear as he plays against players full of energy. When he comes on later in the game these deficiencies which are now clear in his game are more easily hidden and he is a potent threat, as we have seen in recent times. While Sturridge's fans cling onto the hope he can return to being the player he was with Suarez (1 season out of how many?!?), the truth is that was lightning in a bottle that year and injuries have robbed him of pace, confidence in himself and he is what he is.
We either accept that and move on to use him as best we can or we keep pushing this boring and predictable, circular, agenda.
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