Originally Posted by
IBK
As I said on the other thread I think our issue is mental. Its not principally our talent pool. Why have our existing forwards fallen off when they were scoring for fun last season? It can't be that everyone is off form at the same time. Let's face it we have had form for years with bucking under pressure. We saw it at the back end of last season, and the season before; and now we are seeing it again. I don't think its technical inability. It's inability to deliver under pressure. We might get a mentality monster who is immune from this. But I do wonder whether a Solanki or even a Watkins - and positively doubt that a Vlahovic - would perform like they have been doing in our team. I think it is more likely that either they will start well, but sink to the team's level aftter a while - or be unable to reproduce their form for us full stop. We feel pressure, and while he has many strengths, I think our manager's intensity increases rather than diminishes this. This approach is OK at Citeh - who have better and more experienced players; or Liverpool who have a more seasoned spine - but our relatively young team has won nothing big and is hamstrung by it.
My concern is seeing a striker as a panacea is that it is almost certain that we will not have any idea whether a new player can rise to the pressure (given that we are unlikely to be buying anyone who has done the business at the very top). The odds say that they won't (which is why in my pipe dreams we buy noone in Jan and sign Mbappe in the Summer).
(And just for you) FWIW - I think we are seeing the effect of Xhaka's replacement by Havertz in this regard. I think Xhaka was more important as a leader in the dressing room whose skin is tough enough to deal with pressure/adversity than we appreciate.