Tactical eras in football are often defined by the type of striker that thrives.
Over the past five years or so it’s been all about the false nine. Lionel Messi, Roberto Firmino, Karim Benzema (to an extent) and anyone who has played that role for Manchester City have been the definitive attackers of this generation.
Previous generations have been defined by target men and poachers depending on which era you’re looking at, and it looks as though the next generation will be defined by so-called ‘ultimate forwards’.
Indeed, it seems as though football is becoming ever more geared towards teams being led by a striker who can do it all.
Erling Haaland is your prototype player in the role we can only describe as the ‘ultimate forward’, a 6ft 5 speedster with a rocket of a shot who can also create effectively, and there are more and more strikers of this ilk popping up.
Darwin Nunez is one such example, as are Benjamin Sesko and Gianluca Scamacca. It’s clear that the new generation of striker is a mix between a speedster, a target man and a poacher all rolled into one.
That’s why the latest transfer rumour surrounding Newcastle United is so interesting.
Indeed, according to Italian outlet, CMW, the Magpies are interested in Juventus’ Dusan Vlahovic – a player who is very much cut from the same cloth as the Haaland, Nunez, Sesko, Scamacca class of ‘ultimate forwards’.
Interestingly, Newcastle currently have another player in that mould in the shape of Alexander Isak, and the Magpies could be the first club to unite a strike force made up of two of these physically, tactically and technically dominant strikers.
If Vlahovic and Isak play together, Newcastle could create a new mould of what a strike partnership should, and can, be, after years of this tactic being shunned by the wider footballing world.
Isak and Vlahovic are both in this ‘ultimate forward’ mould, and their potential partnership could well define the next generation of strikers as Newcastle could potentially use these two unique weapons to bring the idea of a front two back into fashion.
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