Being a forward, specifically a striker, is probably the most envious position to play. Goals are the currency of football, goalscorers are more well-known than say a technical midfielder to the layman. A striker can have a poor game, but as long as they find the back of the net once it doesn’t really matter. So what about the breed of forward whose play style encompasses more than scoring?
The idea of having a striker who is there for more than just scoring, or even isn’t supposed to be scoring at all in theory, is not a new idea. The idea of the False Nine, a striker who drops deep and acts like an attacking midfielder, was around in the pre-war era. The great but sadly unheralded Jimmy Hogan had a direct influence on the Austrian Wunderteam of the 1930s and the Hungarian Mighty Magyars of the 1950s.
On the opposite end of the scale, you have the Target Man, a big physical forward whose job is to bring others, often a smaller and faster striker partner into the game. It probably isn’t a surprise that British football is the spiritual home of the Target Man. In the early 1910’s Blackburn Rovers’ manager Robert Middleton decided to take Center Back George Chapman and put him up top. It was a functional idea, but one which remained popular in Britain for the rest of the 20th century. Although now a bit of a joke in certain footballing circles who see the implementation of a “big man” as the wrong way to play football, the Target Man has great value for teams who need to play direct or when sides need a backup plan.
There is also the Pressing Forward, who could also be described as a defender’s worst nightmare. Hogan may have laid the groundwork for “Total Football” but it was Rinus Michaels who gets the most credit, not unfairly. His Dutch team at the 1974 World Cup was among other things, a relentless pressing machine. Everyone, including forwards, were expected to harass opponents off the ball to create chances. This pressing style is currently in vogue today, seeing to the natural rise of the Pressing Forward. Their job is to run hard, win the ball back, and fashion chances out.
Why have a player up top who isn’t a great goalscorer?
The easiest way to explain it is because football is nuanced. Let’s take the 4-4-2 formation as an example, a former staple of British football, especially in the 1970s. Liverpool in this decade were one of the best teams around, with a strike partnership of Kevin Keegan and John Toshack.
Keegan is one of the greatest players ever, let alone in Britain. A great player and athlete during a time when most footballers wouldn’t have considered themselves as one, Keegan won the Ballon d’Or twice (back when it meant something) and thus was an incredible asset to Liverpool. Still, even he couldn’t do it all himself.
Partnering him was John Toshack, a towering Welshman whose ability in the air was second to none. Ballon d’Or winner he was not, but he was just as valuable as Keegan. Without Toshack, Keegan would not have been as prolific as he was. Being able to nod the ball down and basically give someone else the chance to score and get the glory sounds easy, but it is a certain type of person to know their role and do it well.
There were more prolific and exciting forwards than Toshack Liverpool could have featured, but that would have meant a change in system and probably hindering Keegan. Toshack and Keegan are one of the best examples of a “little and large” partnership, Keegan was the poster-boy but Toshack was the glue keeping it on the wall.
False Nine, why not just have a 10?
Well, you get the playmaking qualities of a 10 whilst dragging defenses out of line. The reason the False Nine was so revolutionary when it first surfaced was due to the lack of knowledge on how to combat it. Hungary’s 6-3 victory against England at Wembley in 1953, also known as “The Match of the Century”, was as brilliant as it was shocking. In reality, Hungary should have been predicted to flatten England.
The English FA, in a typical showing of arrogance and archaic thinking, persisted with the WM formation despite Hungary being a known as a team who could easily exploit the weaknesses of such a lineup. This was a worrying sign but things would only get worse in the game. Hungary were exceptionally well drilled and knew their game plan to the letter, the most important part of it being Nándor Hidegkuti dropping deep.
Poor Harry Johnson was the defender tasked with marking Hidegkuti. Johnson was a good defender, he was the Football Writers Association player of the year in 1951, but this would be where it all fell apart. All his career Johnson would have been used to marking the man wearing number nine, but that was exactly what Hungary and Hidekguti wanted him to do.
Johnson was pulled out of position and humiliated all game, none of it his fault really. England had prepared badly and hadn’t considered that Hungary being near unstoppable might be because they were doing something radically different. Hidekguti dropping deep and dictating play opened up space for others to exploit, Ferenc Puskás also joined in with dropping deep just to make the situation for England even more unpleasant.
Johnson never played for England again, but the False Nine would be vindicated and proven to be the future to even the most belligerent people involved in football, the English.
Doing everything but scoring, the dogged graft of the Pressing Forward
Unlike the other two entries, I can’t seem to find any historical examples of the pressing forward, outside of the odd system which facilitated the striker or strikers had to defend from the front. The role appears to have come about as a natural effect of pressing becoming a more important part of the modern game.
So, what makes a good Pressing Forward? The obvious attributes are stamina and work rate, but they also need to have good tackling ability and excellent anticipation. Pressing well involves a good footballing IQ, as it is a fine line between pressing efficiently and running around for the sake of it.
Look at Jordan Ayew’s stats on the surface and you wonder why Crystal Palace keep giving him minutes. The 31-year-old Ghanaian international hasn’t hit double figures in a league season since 2015 and has only one goal in 28 Premier League apprentices. By every traditional metric for valuing a forward’s value, Ayew is worth as much as a packet of Quavers.
So why don’t Palace bin Ayew off and pick themselves up some cheesy crisps instead? The answer lies in his defensive statistics, simply put, he works extremely hard off the ball. According to FBRef, Ayew ranks in the top 98th percentile for tackles, top 77th for interceptions, 84th for blocks and 96th for clearances compared to fellow attackers.
Ayew is not the most high-profile Pressing Forward, or the most talented, but he is someone who benefits massively from the role’s increase in popularity. A hard worker who facilitates the greatness of others, Ayew would have been drummed out of the league in previous decades. But due to his multiple other great qualities, he is able to make up for the fact he isn’t a good goalscorer.
In Conclusion
Nobody grows up wanting to be a striker who doesn’t score 20 goals a season at a minimum. Sky commissioned Wayne Rooney’s Street Striker in the late 2000s, not Emile Heskey’s Assisting Tony Cotee on a Street. You’re hard workers and even the deeper lying forwards are never going to get the same praise as their more selfish compatriots, but they are just as valuable in the right system.
