Striker Search

Last updated : 06 October 2005 By Keith Allman

Stand by for one of the most obvious statements about football ever made and one that the majority of football fans could easily say;

"If we had a natural poacher up front, we'd be doing really well."

I know what you're thinking. Not the greatest of insight. In fact, pretty obvious. So much so that you may be doubting the decency of this site these days and being a step away from logging on somewhere else for your football fix. But I'm going somewhere with this so stick with me and what's more this column could actually feature a rare case of "Fratton Faithful questioning the wisdom of Milan Mandaric" - not something that happens very often.

But the bottom line is that I know it, you know it, Alain knows it and has mentioned it, and Milan added his thoughts a couple of days ago - we really need a goalscorer. We've already lost important points from games we should've won this season and if we keep on this sort of way then we could be in all sorts of trouble, and no-one wants that. David Healy has been mentioned and the usual suspects usually get dragged up. By and large the suggestions are usually fairly terrible - I mean, why are some people so keen to pay £6.5m for Dean Ashton who has scored all of seven goals in the Premier League and could very easily be the next Jon Stead? Or how about Nugent who has done ok for Preston but is hardly "proven" and on his biggest day so far, the play-off final, didn't feel like playing much?

Proven goalscorers cost money (yet more startling words into the world of professional football) - just look at Yakubu for proof. Lazy but sticks it away, so that's £7m. A lot of money in anyone's terms but considering we had £5m or so from him, along with around £4m for Faye and Quashie, should we have spent more wisely? Have we risked £25/30m on relegation by taking the "cheap option" - Under £1m for Mbesuma, Silva on a "free" and Karadas on loan? Have Alain's hands been tied or did he just have too much confidence in the likes of Toddy, Pericard and Collins who have yet to produce? And surely he would've expected an experienced and decent player like Silva to bag a couple by now - or was it just a case of taking what he was allowed?

Personally I think it's a bit of both. Of course we're working on a budget and we'd be stupid not to, and I'm not naive enough to think that just because we got £10m or so on sales that automatically goes straight back in the transfer pot. What's more Alain probably would've known what he was getting into before he joined - I'm sure he'd love £5m to spend on the right player and knows it's unlikely to happen and has to cope accordingly. (And of course there's the old mention of "the right player" - as I said earlier, it's not always easy to think of a proven goalscorer who'd come here for that sort of money and adjust right away).

So has Milan learnt his lesson and is now willing to splash out big bucks in January? Will the current crop start bashing them in and save him the trouble? Was relying on recovering and unproven players a bad idea, and the fact it's seemingly "quantity" up front rather than "quality"? (I realise this column is more questions than answers). Either way our hands are now tied but at least we're still creating chances - but it's going to be an interesting build up to see what happens in the transfer window.

There you go. It's October and this is the first rumours about the transfer window already.