Strike Pairings

I think the time has come to stop playing Scott McDonald and Georgios Samaras up front together. These two are just not on each other's wavelength and don't function well as a partnership. I've heard a rumour that the two of them don't like each other much off the park and when you watch them playing together you could certainly believe that to be possible. Samaras seems like a player who lacks a bit of confidence about himself and McDonald is well known for moaning at his team-mates when they don't give him the passes he wants. There just doesn't seem to be any onfield chemistry between these two and no instinctive understanding of where each other is and the runs they are going to make. Gordon Strachan tried them together quite a few times and it never really clicked and it's not clicking under Tony Mowbray either. I say we should just abandon the idea of them playing up front together now.

Until Fortune'e is fit to return I think if we are going to play 2 men up front then the strike pairing we should go with is Scott McDonald and Chris Killen. McDonald likes having a big man up front with him to hold the ball up and knock things down for him. Killen would do that for him as he is pretty good in the air.

I realise that as an individual player Killen is neither as good as Samaras OR McDonald but football is a team game, not a game played by 11 individuals. Sometimes it actually is better to pick a player who is not as talented if he works well with other players in the team and allows them to shine. If Killen can win a few headers and allow McDonald to start scoring a few goals from his knock downs then surely that is a better situation for us than what is happening at the moment?

Killen and Samaras could also be a potential partnership to try but I'd be inclined to give McDonald the edge as he's earned that right with what he has done in his time at Celtic imo.

Any of these strike pairings below could work I feel but definitely NOT Samaras and McDonald!!

Fortune'e - McDonald
McDonald - Killen
Samaras - Killen

I also don't think Fortune'e and Samaras as a pair would work either. They both spend way too much time out on the wings and we'd probably end up with no strikers in the box! Fortune'e and Killen wouldn't work either imo because neither of them are really regular goalscorers.

When Fortune'e comes back then I think it should be him and McDonald up front but in the meantime I'd be going with McDonald and Killen.

Please Tony....NO MORE McDONALD AND SAMARAS!

 

good post
samaras would do better if he just sat in the centre circle all day. never really thought about killen coming in untill now and it makes some sense, if he can win headers at corners and goal kicks and bully defenders then you dont need as much skill as messi, also i think he would know the value of starting for celtic unlike half of the players we have atm.

fortune for me is the key player up top. he tears up the opposition defence and is composed in front of goal, despite not being a goal machine. youve not got me thinking that killen and fortune up top may work? fortune to drag the defence out wide giving plenty of room for killen and the midfield to come in, also if fortune can drag a CB out of the box then our wide players could aim for killen with a cross and the big man will have one less defender in his way.

 

Mcdonald and Killen are the only two actual strikers we have in the squad as i would not count samaras or fortune as strikers why mowbray continues to play samaras before killen when he cant shoot, head a ball or even play a simple pass is beyond me we need a striker who capable of getting on the the end of crosses we put into the opposition box and thats not samaras imo.

 

I agree with this bit. It's almost a waste of time for us to put crosses into the box at the moment. McDonald's only wee so he's never going to win much in the air and Samaras is too weak to bustle defenders out the road and win headers. We need a bit of physical presence in the box and, although he may have his faults, Chris Killen would provide that.

We also need someone up front that can win some of Caldwell and McManus's punts up the park for us. At the moment we're pretty much giving possession back to the other team when they do that.

 

agains the huns last season, did sammi and skippy not start upfront and sammi got taken off for JVOH and you could see skippy telling Jan that " i cant play with him" about sammi

 

Skippy and Sammy do not work as a pair and Killen is way below the required standard. Sammy is an enigma and is not really a conventional striker at all. Its truly incredible that the only really conventional striker at Celtic is Skippy. That puts us in a very bad position, similar to last season when JVOH and Sammy were both injured for some time. So it really has to be Skippy and Fortune when they are fit. Anything other than that combination is a bit of a disaster. We BADLY need to sign a quality striker in January. Someone along the lines of JVOH when he first arrived would be good although preferably with a lot more pace. In today's crazy market we will need to shell out at least 4-5 million to get a player like that with experience and probably similar to cover the wages for 4 years. Its a big investment but we have tried a lot of cheap options and damaged goods over the last few years and its really not worth it. Ideally we would sign two new strikers because we are so weak in this department.

The decline in out signing ambitions became particularly bad in the last couple of WGS years. Its now hard to even imagine us getting a sniff of mid level international strikers like Magic and JVOH who were excellent before injury etc ruined things for them. The standard of player we were bringing in was actually better in the early WGS era than in the 2nd half of his time here when I think the clubs willingness to spend relative to the market became unrealistically low and condemed us to cheapo signings (Brown aside). We simply must splash out on the expensive CF and CB positions.

 

If memory serves me right it was Sammy who knocked the ball on with the head for Skippy to smash home when we beat the huns at Ibrox last December, so occassionally it does work. For me though big Sammy spends far too much time dropping out to the wings when as a forward he should be dare I say it a bit more Boyd-like and sniff about the pen box looking to poach a bit. Also having watched match of the day this season big JVOH is causing some problems for defenders down south and creating goals for others and I feel we miss the physical presence up-front now so maybe Killen could bring something to the team.

 

ZZ and McDonald.

 

Fortune is number one, I'd be tempted to play Skippy with him keeping Samaras for the bench.

 

I agree with this completely. Samaras and McDonald should not play together.

It should be one of them with Killen, or one of them with a man playing behind (Maloney, ZZ or Robson ideally).

They have proved time and time again it doesn't work.

 

I’ve always thought that a Sammy and Maloney partnership could work well and might be worth a shout! They played upfront together for a couple of games at the start of last season while McDonald was suspended and they done well! Sammy and Skippy just doesn’t work for me!<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>

 

Did someone not say on this the other day that Samaras is a confidence player, and that playing with someone who moans like McDonald isn't going to help him.

When Samaras scored all those goals at the start of last season, was he not playing as a lone striker with Maloney playing behind him?

 

Yup

 

Get Killen punted, all he does is give away fouls. I'd love to see how the partnership of McDonald and Fortune pans out if they both stay injury free.

 

I know Killen isn't the long term answer but we put a fair number of crosses into the box in the course of a match and there is just no * in the box that is winning them for us. Killen is good in the air and would make our crosses a lot more of a threat for opposing defences imo.

 

I Disagree

Do you not think that's Mowbray's tactic, having one striker drop deep and go wide to encourage the two wide men to come inside. It seems a good plan and was really effective against Aberdeen on the opening day, 1st half anyway!

Also, I'd like to see Samaras and Fortune together as I regard them as our best two strikers.

Sami proved early last year that with a run of games he'll get the goals and I believe that was mainly with McDonald as his partner.

 

Having one striker dropping off is fair enough but what happens when both of your strikers keep dropping off or drifting out to the corner flag? Can't see that two working together myself.

A fair number of Samaras' goals were scored with either Big Jan or Maloney as his partner up front.

 

True, It does only really work when one striker stays in the box and it shouldn't be McDonald who drops off as his best work is done in the box and his first touch is non-existent, hardly ideal for link up.

Don't get me wrong, I like McDonald but only when he's in the box and when he's scoring not moaning.

 

Killen is anything but the answer, its a step back

 

Samaras 1 goal every 225 minutes.
Skippy 1 goal every 326 minutes.



Once again, Samaras has a better goal ratio this season as in last season, but has played only 1127 minutes to Skippy's 1628 minutes.

Of course to the fanatical Skippy supporters, Skippy is a more consistent goal scorer/threat..?....

Why not give Samaras a few consecutive starts without skippy?