Presently, we have two strikers.

One, Beto, is a rough diamond. Like Jermaine Beckford, he has some natural skill and athleticism but you can see he missed out on proper coaching at an early age. In his mid-20s, he lacks basic abilities a decent academy would have drilled into him.

Then we have Barry. A weirdly English style CF who got his schooling in France, where the focus is generally more on the kind of exquisite talents he lacks. He may evolve into a Duncan Ferguson type, but as of now, his rawness is at the level of a Niasse.

But, while neither is match-ready if we want to do more than battle relegation, what are the other options? As a kid, everyone wanted to be a striker. We admired the likes of Lineker and Gray while looking enviously at other talents we never signed, like Bergkamp, Henry, and Aguero, among others. But what happened to the strikers? 

In this market, we see Mbuemo on the back of one decent season going for 60 million. Gyokeres with a Maupay-like season in the EFL and time in a subpar Portuguese league going for 75 million. Sesko, a less proven Timo Warner going for the same. Wissa and Strand Larsen, limping past the 10-goal mark, are valued at 50 plus million.

Honestly, I’d rather take a reincarnated 28-year-old Paul Rideout over any of these, even if the cost was the same. Yet we got him for 500k, a third of what we paid for Newcastle LB Neil McDonald years earlier.

Rideout also played in the era before it was acceptable to dive if a player breathed near you. A time when yobs like Julian Dicks, Vinnie Jones, Mark Dennis and the RS Dean Saunders could end your career and not even get carded. Back when offside laws favored defenders.

So, how is it now, with all the advantages of offside changes, diving acceptance, no back passes etc, that this generation can’t seem to produce a goalscorer better than Rideout? It’s a sad state of affairs, but if a poor man’s Rideout costs 75 million, we need to suck it up and hope our midfielders score a hell of a lot of goals. 

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