Roy Hodgson was spoilt for choice. He had too many strikers. He had so many to select that he named a Euro 2016 squad containing a solitary holding midfielder, Eric Dier, who also had to double up as the fourth centre-back, so the manager could accommodate them all. “I think that’s a good problem to have, shoehorning in attacking players,” he said in June. “For long periods of time, I don’t know that I’ve had that situation.”
Perhaps competition for places was not as beneficial as he imagined. All five of Wayne Rooney, Harry Kane, Daniel Sturridge, Jamie Vardy and Marcus Rashford took the field at some point of the last-16 tie against Iceland. England were a confused mess and lost 2-1.
With it ended Hodgson’s ultimately underwhelming reign and, perhaps, the modern-day notion that this was a new golden age for English strikers. Rewind to the 1990s and, while the Premier League’s foreign invasion was beginning, the scoring charts were dominated by locals, by Alan Shearer and Andy Cole and Robbie Fowler and Teddy Sheringham and Les Ferdinand and Ian Wright and Chris Sutton and Matt Le Tissier and finally Michael Owen and Kevin Phillips. And then the run came to an abrupt end: Phillips won the Golden Boot in 2000. No Englishman did so again, until Kane last season. Then his closest competition came from another local, in Vardy. It came in the season when Rooney broke Sir Bobby Charlton’s national goalscoring record, when Sturridge mustered a brilliant goal in a European final and when Rashford emerged as England’s most exciting teenage striker since Rooney himself.
Italy, Germany and Portugal seemed to head to France short of strikers. England had too many of them. They still have the same quintet, all named in Gareth Southgate’s squad to face Scotland and Spain. The difference is now the idea that they seemed a glorious group looks an illusion. Between them, they have lost their form, fitness, their place in the team or their status as a striker. They have been sidelined, substitutes, wingers and makeshift midfielders.
Only Kane looks an automatic choice in attack for his club. He seems likely to be Southgate’s preferred attacker when the immediate case rests on 76 minutes of football and one penalty in seven weeks. Vardy has gone 13 games without scoring for Leicester and England, Rashford nine — almost all on the flanks — without finding the net for Manchester United and his country. Sturridge’s Premier League drought dates back to April. Rooney has been dropped by both Jose Mourinho and Southgate. Their combined tally stands at 10 goals in 54 games of league and European football this season.
Now selection looks less of a competition and more of a process of elimination. Vardy’s remarkable rise never offered the promise of permanence, just as Leicester seemed the most wondrous of one-season wonders. Rooney, despite a more influential display at Swansea on Sunday, looks in terminal decline, lacking the physical edge to lead the line or a league goal against anyone other than Bournemouth since the second day of February. Sturridge has been benched by Jurgen Klopp’s preference for another type of striker, the all-action gegenpressing Roberto Firmino. Rashford is discovering that even prodigies can find their seemingly unstoppable momentum checked at times. Which leaves Kane as probably the most reliable of the group at the moment.
But it underlines that England are dependent on a small group and more reliant on individual fortunes than they were in the past. There is a conspicuous lack of the striking depth they boasted two decades ago. Individuals’ injuries, whether the cruciate ligament problems suffered by Danny Welbeck and Danny Ings or Andy Carroll’s latest knee setback, assume a greater importance when there are fewer alternatives.
The bare facts are that the six biggest clubs have only signed three English strikers since January 2011: Sturridge, when bought by Liverpool in 2013, Welbeck, when he swapped United for Arsenal in 2014, and Ings, who arrived at Anfield in 2015. Only two English strikers have scored more than three goals this season in the Premier League and neither of them are in Southgate’s squad: the 34-year-old Jermain Defoe and the uncapped graduate of non-league football, Charlie Austin. In fact, only four more English players of any position rank in the top 24 in the Premier League in scoring: Theo Walcott, who has finally decided he is a winger, Michail Antonio, who has played everywhere from full-back to centre-forward, Raheem Sterling, rendered more prolific by Pep Guardiola, and James Milner, Liverpool’s penalty-taking makeshift left-back.
It points in part to the idea that centre-forwards seem an endangered species, given the focus on attacking midfielders and the way teams are built these days. Yet, while a fit Kane will surely climb the standings, it is telling that Southgate’s five strikers have all been outscored by such unlikely figures as James McArthur, Joe Allen and Etienne Capoue.
The Tottenham talisman had tired by the time Euro 2016 started, just as Rooney was trying to rebrand himself as a midfielder, but the tournament still represented a missed opportunity. Vardy, Sturridge and Rashford entered it with confidence, sharpness and impetus. Now, once again, England’s strikers have too little of those qualities. The choice Southgate has is not so much finding the best option, but the least bad one..
Support InfoStride News' Credible Journalism: Only credible journalism can guarantee a fair, accountable and transparent society, including democracy and government. It involves a lot of efforts and money. We need your support. Click here to Donate