Number Nine. The main man. He who does what it says on the footballing tin.
How we love him.
Goalscorers. In a game of 11 vs 11 they are, all too often, the players that reflect the fans’ dreams and the ambitions of that player’s team-mates, manager and the club as a whole.
And it’s simple. He is there to score goals. And lots of them. If he is successful then his club wins far more matches than it loses. That means points, trophies and possible glory. And it sure as hell ensures your name on both the front and back pages of the newspapers.
And let’s be honest. Wayne Rooney featured on both when he was ‘caught’ visiting a lady who offered special services in return for a pre-determined fee. Yet if Michael Carrick had been caught doing the same thing…? Well, that’s the point. He would never have been caught because no-one is particularly interested in him and his hard-working midfield peers.
Rooney, on the other hand, well… it’s manna from heaven for all those “He Shoots, He Scores” headlines isn’t it?
If a football team made up a government, then the centre-forward would be prime minister. It might not be the most important or responsible role – that accolade goes to the chancellor aka ‘number ten’, the midfield maestro – but for all his glories nothing and no-one beats the adulation afforded to a goalscorer.
Was, is, and forever will be.
It’s been pretty much universally acknowledged at the time of writing that Norwich are a club in desperate need of this increasingly hard-to-find figure. Indeed, as we have recently seen with the case of Ross McCormack, if one becomes available then it’s not unlike the sort of scenes seen on a Norfolk marsh quite close to me if someone sees or hear a bittern.
This is a bird that is now so scarce in the wild that even the faintest hint of an appearance draws out the crowds, all desperate to see the poor thing, many of whom – and these are the most desperate of all – have no idea what it is they are looking for or quite why they are doing so in the first place.
But hey, it’s rare and everyone else wants a slice of it, so we’d better be there.
Ross McCormack has been that bittern this summer. He was a rarity in that he scored goals and he was available. So we ended up wanting him. A lot of people really weren’t quite sure why we wanted him in the first place as he is one of those strikers who, like the bittern, likes to hang out with a mate. But he was available so we thought we’d better have a look anyway.
If I’m brutally honest and, at the same time, ready to be labelled as a ‘happy clapper’ (oh woe, woe and thrice woe) then I’m not particularly bothered that he has ended up, as it seems likely, heading off to the Villa.
£12million plus. For a 30 year old.
Well now look, I know he is as likely to score goals for any club he plays for in this division but his hitting the back of any opposing teams net in a profligate manner is by no means ‘guaranteed’ (as some would have it) at all.
Consider this. In the 2009/10 season, he made 41 League and Cup appearances for Cardiff and scored just five goals.
Whereas Peter Whittingham and Michael Chopra scored 46 between them that same campaign.
Then, following his move to Leeds United, McCormack managed just eight goals from 39 appearances in the 2012/13 season. Leeds’ top scorer that season managed 19; maybe we should have offered them a small fortune for him – after all he was indeed a regular and almost guaranteed scorer of goals at the time.
Except that player was Luciano Becchio. And we all know what happened there.
But wait, there’s more.
Ross McCormack. 2014/15 season. Fulham FC: 51 appearances. 19 goals.
It’s good. But it’s not Cameron Jerome good. During the same season he made 45 appearances for us and scored 21 goals.
Now I’m no statistician but even I can work out he played in fewer games but scored more goals.
One every 2.14 games to be exact.
Even last season which is, it seems, the benchmark for McCormack being rated as a player worth £15million by Fulham – one that was easily the best of his career – he contributed 23 goals from 49 appearances.
Which is a goal every 2.13 games – 0.01 goals per game better than Jerome the season before.
And that makes him worth £12million? Look, I’ve been laughing at Fulham’s valuation of him almost as long and loud as Leeds United must have been laughing when Fulham paid them £11million for him.
McCormack’s overall record at Fulham is 100 appearances with 42 goals scored. An overall record of 2.38 games per goal. Now that’s not bad, not bad at all, but it does reflect these occasional purple patches he has had in his career, notably last season, 2013/14 (29 from 47) and 2008/09, (23 from 44). He’s had plenty more bang average ones.
He is, in effect, one of those strikers who blows hot and cold. Another, if I dare mention the name in comparison to him, Jamie Cureton.
We all went mad for Jamie when he ended the 2006/07 season with 24 goals from 46 appearances for Colchester United. He became just what we were looking for, a prolific striker; one who would guarantee us goals and who was worth every penny of the £825,000 we didn’t have that brought him back to Carrow Road over a decade after he’d last played for us.
Except that Jamie swiftly went from being someone who was hot to someone who was particularly not hot. He struggled to make an impact with us second time around and, for all his reputation and a CV that showed he was given the right team and circumstances, a decent goalscorer, that time with us was a disappointment.
A 76 games and 18 goals disappointment.
That didn’t, and doesn’t, mean that Jamie Cureton isn’t a good player. He is and he has had, albeit in the lower leagues, a splendid career in the game. But the fact that he played all of his career in the lower leagues meant that, as far as being a striker was concerned, he was never going to be world or international class.
Decent, yes. But never prolific wherever he went. And never at the very highest level.
Much like, dare I say it, one Ross McCormack.
He may, of course, have the season to beat all seasons with Aston Villa this season. He may score 30 goals as they positively waltz their way to the Championship title and then go onto get 20 more in the Premier League in the 2017/18 campaign.
He really might – I’m not discounting that possibility at all – but neither am I discounting the possibility that, had he signed for us, he may well have done exactly the same here.
But on balance I’m going to hedge my bets and say that he probably won’t. Sure, he’ll get some goals; he might even get 10-15 for them. He may even get 20. But what if Villa have relatively good runs in the Cups next season, say, four games in the League Cup and three in the FA Cup.
This is all hypothetical of course. But that would be 20 goals from, if he stays fit, getting on for 45-50 games.
Good, yes. But £12million good? No. You’d want and expect more. And maybe he will do just that and I’ll end up with a very nice omelette on my face. And not for the first time.
The bulk of the talk surrounding McCormack in the whole saga of our bids to sign him was that we had to do so because he “guarantees goals”.
But he doesn’t. His career stats prove that. If we or any other team want a striker that pretty much guarantees goals then I reckon we’re looking at having to put in a bid for a Sergio Aguero, Luis Suarez or Gonzalo Higuain. All much better bets than Ross McCormack with the stats to prove it.
And, for that, worth whatever team might choose to pay for them.
If any goalscorer was ‘guaranteed’ to do just that and that his being a ‘guaranteed’ goalscorer merited paying an enormous sum of money for him, then the player in question would not have spent 13 years out of 13 playing at a level no higher than, at any stage, the English Championship.
He’s where he is right now for a reason. And for that reason I’m out. At that price anyway.
If the most overrated player in history in Redmond is worth £11m, Rossy Mac is worth £12m. Definitely. You can never guarantee goals, you don’t buy guarantees in football. You pay for what you’re likely to receive, and that is goals to fire us back to the premier league. That is worth £12m. This is 2016 after all, not the 1980s.
All very reasonable and I don’t necessarily disagree. But who is going to score the goals this season? Anyone want to suggest Jerome will 21 again this year?! We’ve suddenly found £8m for Pritchard (a good buy but we’re not especially short of midfielders) – let’s hope we’re willing to throw some cash at someone who has a track record in goals.
Agree that presuming Jerome will score 20 again this season is optimistic. His career average is about 1 goal every 4 games.
So far, this summer has resembled the last one. Midfielders appear easy to pick up but absolutely nothing yet achieved to address the mistake ridden defence or the forward line.
Hopefully the new Coach can sort out the defence and a couple of new strikers will sign (please not N’Doye).
Too old. Too short. Too expensive. Cheerio Ross. Norwich need a 9, not a 10.
I suppose we might see Lafferty up front? I know a lot of fans have wondered if he could play there effectively? Perhaps he’s been incredible in partnership with Naismith in training? I don’t know but I think Jerome will be our obvious first choice striker but i really do think another recognised forward really would help. I appreciate nothing is guaranteed but it really does give you a better chance.
OTBC
Yes, I largely agree. Good assessment. I am not disappointed we didn’t land McCormack but I will feel very let down if we suddenly turn to a loan for N’Doye. We simply cannot go into this vital season with a mostly misfiring CJ and no tangible back-up.
Meanwhile it seems MO is staying – not too much against his will, I hope – and if everyone stays injury free our defence should be good enough at this level.
Bittern, holy grail, elusive butterfly, call it what you will, but boy do we need one (if not two).
No Ed you are not a “happy clapper” – not my favourite phrase but I can see why it was coined – there is a strong thread of realism in what you say and fair play to you.
However some of the natives are becoming restless. We need a striker or two, everyone knows it and still there’s no-one on board while the Chairman puts on his red shoes to dance the blues. Hardly something to warm the cockles of a supporter who wants the best for the Club.
As each and every one of us does in our own way – if we all thought the same there would be no forums and life would become very dull:-)
Jerome cv in championship is far better than mc Cormack, City would be better putting the Murphy brother’s a go up front with their pace and ball control they would cause problems for the opposition defenders, and would score a lot of goals.
A very well written piece, but I get the feeling we’re convincing ourselves that we’re lucky nit to have signed him. If £12m is the value attributed to a Championship striker who has scored well for struggling teams for the last few years, and teams are willing to pay it, then that’s what he is worth. As the value of being n the Premier League soars, so will the price of players who can get teams there. Especially those who can bag 20 goals while playing for a team that was in danger of slipping into League One. I think the point here is that we need a player in the mould of Grant Holt than Michael Owen. Stats, if we’re going to bandy them around, showed that last season in the Premier League Norwich were in the top six for playing long passes. Maybe nit in the Big Sam way, but in a get it to the front man, make it stick, and get the more creative players into the game in the final third rather inside our own half. If we repeat the trick in the Championship this time around, then CJ and possibly N’Doye will be helping Hoolahan, Naismith and Pritchard to 10-15 goals apiece.
Now we will never know – NCFC in negotiations for weeks and fail to get this one done. Villa in for hours and it’s a done deal. Anyone else thinks the board have not learned the lessons of the last 2 years!
Let’s hope we get a striker or two before the end of August
8 – you’re right, we’re all convincing ourselves RM wouldn’t have been the right player for us but Alex Neil clearly thought he would be.
We shouldn’t see this as a failure by the board, though – turns out RM wanted astronomical wages which we couldn’t afford. And if he’d really wanted to come here he would have.
Also let’s not forget two major factors: Villa can turn a match day profit at their stadium, which we can’t. They also have years and years of PL money in the bank. Which we don’t. Both of those make a huge difference in being able to give a player another £2m or £3m a year.
Saying all that it’s still pretty rubbish. On the plus side, let’s not forget Villa still have a pretty appalling squad and even three Ross McCormacks wouldn’t score more goals than they’ll concede!
Given our status as a ‘yo-yo’ club (although four out of the last five (well, six) seasons giving us PL football sounds a bit better than that), we’re in a transfer market that’s within the PL’s sphere of influence. As such, £12m isn’t that big an amount to spend on a goal scorer. As an earlier comment said, it’s 2016, and it’s not even the 2000s anymore. Football has its own inflation and when the top 20 clubs get a 70% increase in TV income overnight it changes the whole market.
I, for one, am very disappointed that we didn’t land him. But, regardless of how it might look, the time spent negotiating with Fulham was down to the fact that we don’t allow clubs to name their price, as it seems Villa have done. If you find it frustrating that a club with a lot more available cash gets a player we want, look away now, for the foreseeable future. That has always happened and it always will.
Admittedly, it’s all the more galling when it’s Villa. Even when they’re the worst outfit the PL has seen in recent memory, they still manage to drag us down with them, land themselves a super-rich owner, then steal our main transfer target from under our noses. It hurts, and I get that, but it doesn’t mean the club is a shambles or unambitious or naïve. It’s just a reflection of that financial muscle that we don’t have. We can, however, push the likes of Brighton and Brentford around and swoop for players they have their eyes on, as we have done.
this article is Damage control article…you are entitled to your opinion…
Marco, (12), thankyou.
The disappointment for me isn’t that we didn’t get McCormack, but that we don’t seem to have even tried to get Conor Washington from Peterborough in January. QPR have a very good manager and have weeded out some dead wood – I think we will be hearing more of them, and Washington in particular, in the next 9 months.
I certainly take your point about RM, but for me this goes deeper than just him. I’ve been someone who has always defended the board/management, but it’s difficult now. It’s a common belief that we were lacking a goalscorer last year & we needed to address that. Alex Neil identified RM as the person to do it. But we didn’t get him & all this just a couple of days before the season. It should all have been sorted well before now.