How should we define and rate the “all round” striker?
- Goals - the obvious criteria
- Assists - creating goals for teammates
- Movement - stretching defences, intelligent use of space
- Pace - ability to break the defensive line with a sprint
- Trickery - skills
- Physicality - bullying defenders, letting them know they’ve been in a game
On goals alone there is only one winner, Ally McCoist, but he was also proficient in his movement (always in the right place to score) and physicality (he was under rated in this respect, but always knew when to leave one on a defender) in particular. Pace and trickery not so much.
As a balance across all of these criteria, I don’t disagree with those suggesting Mark Hateley overall. He scored goals, created countless chances for both McCoist and Johnston, movement was excellent, he was quick and as for physicality he wins that contest hands down.
Other candidates I’ve seen in my time - Rod Wallace was underrated but good across all of these criteria. Jelavic was a top, if fleeting talent. Michael Mols trickery was great to watch until his sad injury. Also, let’s not forget the contribution Kenny Miller made over his spells at Rangers.
I‘d also add that based on the criteria, Alfredo comes pretty high on the list. Goals, assists, movement, physicality are all top class. He lacks a bit of pace and trickery is not his thing, he’s more brute force, but his all round talent as a striker in terms of bullying and stretching defences is probably the closest we‘ve had since Hateley, other than heading ability.