A lack of goals or a team having a bad season can sometimes be lazily blamed on the lack of a prolific striker in the squad.

'They just need a 20-goal-per-season striker to solve their problems', often the problems lie a lot deeper than that to begin with.

A striker cannot reach high goal tallies in a team that does not create a lot of chances, and though their finishing may be less wasteful, relying too much on certain individuals for goals is unhealthy.

A healthy squad will share the goals around, protecting themselves incase key personnel are ruled out through injury, to ensure a level of consistency can be established in the side's attacking threat.

Aleksandar Mitrovic's groundbreaking 43-goal tally in the second tier for Fulham last season played a key role in the Cottagers winning the league title, of course it did, but Burnley are, as many teams have before them, demonstrating that you do not need a prolific number nine to achieve success.

With the way football is going, more and more teams valuing possession and taking more patient approaches to creating chances, the attacking output of wide forwards is far greater than what used to be posted by more traditional wingers or wide midfielders.

That is evident in looking at Burnley's main goalscorers this season.

In the league, Jay Rodriguez is the Clarets' joint-top scorer, granted, but with just nine goals from 25 appearances, hardly prolific.

Then come the wide forwards, Nathan Tella shares top spot with nine as well, Manuel Benson has eight and Anass Zaroury is third with six.

Tella, Benson and Zaroury have contributed 23 goals between them, over double the 11 that Rodriguez and Ashley Barnes have come up with.

That is no slight on Rodriguez and Barnes' output, they have been hugely valuable members of the side, but demonstrates how wide players are more important in Kompany's style of play, and that sharing the goals out can be just as effective as, sometimes more than, a red-hot number nine.

Johann Gudmundsson has also chipped in with a couple of goals, while full backs Connor Roberts, Vitinho and Ian Maatsen have produced a whopping nine goals already.

This is an extreme example, considering just how good Burnley are, and if a striker is missing big chances week in week out there is a good chance that an upgrade in the position will result in an upturn, but nowhere near as regularly as is often believed.

 

 

More often than not, investing in the club's creative contingent to produce a higher amount and higher quality goalscoring opportunities will produce greater results in the final third, rather than desperately trying to land a new number nine in the hope it will make a side a more potent attacking threat.