England Faces Striker Shortage Amidst Decline in Traditional Number Nines

And one remains. Thomas Tuchel's latest squad announcement has highlighted the current drought of English centre-forwards. Of the 25-man squad, Harry Kane is the only pure striker. This is partly due to injuries. According to Tuchel, Ollie Watkins was rested to manage ongoing physical issues. Dominic Solanke has been sidelined since August, while Liam Delap has only recently returned for Chelsea after a two-month break. We must not forget that other versatile forwards have also been selected. Marcus Rashford, Jarrod Bowen, Phil Foden, and Anthony Gordon may not be traditional 'number nines', but they could be asked to play centrally in this week's games against Serbia and Albania. Still, seeing Kane as the only genuine striker makes it clear how much England relies on the 32-year-old for the focal point of their attack. The lack of other options to lead the line is a serious concern for the upcoming World Cup and, especially, for the period after that. Kane is performing excellently for Bayern Munich this season in the Bundesliga, but only eight English strikers have featured in the Premier League this season, and only Delap, 22, is under 26. There doesn't seem to be a new generation waiting in the wings behind Delap. England's Under-21 team went to the European Championship last summer without a recognised striker. In their latest squad, Manchester City's 21-year-old Divin Mubama is the only striker. He is yet to open his Premier League account and is currently on loan at Championship club Stoke City. So, where have all the English 'number nines' gone, and why is the country no longer producing traditional strikers? Less Playtime and Different Systems Some English strikers are on the field, but their statistics are not very encouraging. Danny Welbeck, who will turn 35 at the end of this month, and Callum Wilson, 33, are the only strikers to have scored more than one goal in the Premier League this season. Among the players who have caught Tuchel's eye and are playing abroad, Ivan Toney is the most successful this season. He has scored 11 goals in 15 games for Saudi Pro League club Al-Ahli, joining in 2024. Tuchel included the 29-year-old Toney in the squad for the games against Andorra and Senegal last June. However, he only got a chance to play in the 88th minute against Senegal in a friendly match and has not been selected for the squad since. This lack of 'number nines' is not a sudden decline. Rather, it is a long-standing trend. Last season, only three English strikers – Watkins (16), Delap (12), and Welbeck (10) – scored 10 or more goals in the Premier League, the lowest number to date. This is a stark contrast to the first season of the Premier League in 1992-93, when 20 English strikers surpassed the 10-goal mark. However, in recent years, this already sharp decline has reached a more fragile state. Last season, English strikers scored a total of 67 goals, less than half of what they scored in 2020-21. While Kane's move to Germany from Tottenham certainly played a role, he moved to Bayern in 2023, and in the 2023-24 season, English strikers scored 96 goals. This season looks set to be even worse. So far, English strikers have only scored 11 goals. If this pace continues, they will only score a total of 38 goals. This number is only four more than the individual goals scored by Andy Cole and Alan Shearer when they were the Premier League's top scorers 30 years ago. Cole scored 34 goals for Newcastle in 1993-94, while Shearer scored the same number for Blackburn the following season. Even with a 42-game season, this is still a record number for English strikers in the Premier League era. According to BBC analyst Chris Sutton, there are many reasons behind the decline of English strikers. Sutton himself surpassed the 10-goal mark in four different Premier League seasons, including the season he shared the Golden Boot with 25 goals for Norwich in 1993-94 and 18 goals for Blackburn in 1997-98. One of the main reasons is the lack of playing opportunities. Only Welbeck, Watkins, and Calvert-Lewin have had more than three starts in league games this season, while Nketiah, Solanke, and Barnes have not started a single game. 'Looking back to the 1990s, players like Jürgen Klinsmann and Dennis Bergkamp started coming from abroad, but the overall number of foreign strikers was much lower,' Sutton explained. 'The number one striker in my time was Shearer, but if you looked at the squads, there were many excellent English centre-forwards like Ian Wright, Les Ferdinand, Andy Cole, Teddy Sheringham, Robbie Fowler, and David Hirst. You can add Stan Collymore and Dean Dowie to that. 'Their numbers were unimaginable even before Michael Owen's emergence before the 1998 World Cup, and they were all different types of strikers. 'A big difference is that they were all playing every week. How many English centre-forwards get a starting chance for their club in the Premier League now? This means the impact of top-level players that clubs can bring in from elsewhere. 'Another change we've seen is in the tactical setup of teams. I'm not saying everyone played the old 4-4-2 style in my time, that's nonsense, but now there are very few teams playing with two strikers. 'Looking from other perspectives, the situation seems to be returning to its old rhythm. If you look at teams like Manchester City, Arsenal, and Manchester United, the strong 'number nine' has returned. There are enough strikers in the Premier League, it's just that not many of them are English. Have People Stopped Wanting to Be Strikers? Shearer, who formed a dangerous 'SAS' partnership with Sutton to win the Premier League title with Blackburn in 1995, believes that the tactical changes seen in the last 10 to 15 years are the biggest reason for the current shortage of strikers. 'Because of the way children are trained and coached, nobody wants to play as a centre-forward anymore because there are very few chances to touch the ball,' the former England captain said on 'The Rest Is Football' podcast. 'Instead, coaches want passes from the keeper, then passes out wide, then passes in midfield... and then passes back again. As a centre-forward, you feel like you're not involved in the game. I'm absolutely convinced this is why there's a shortage of 'number nines', especially in our country.' Sutton agrees with his former strike partner. Although modern wide forwards like Rashford and Bukayo Saka are scoring more goals than old wingers, he considers the current situation 'a big problem'. 'Alan raised a very good point about everyone wanting to enjoy playing with the ball,' Sutton said. 'Everyone wants to be a creative player playing from the wings, or a left-footed player cutting in from the right wing. Those players can also score goals, but there's a big difference between having someone who can lead the line.' Owen, who shared the Premier League Golden Boot with Sutton at the age of 18 in 1997-98 and won the award outright the following year, believes that if he had emerged now, he would not be seen as a striker. 'In today's game, I would probably be one of the players playing in wide areas,' he said on the 'Rio Ferdinand Presents' podcast. 'I don't think I had the physical build to keep two defenders busy, so I would probably have played from the left wing. 'My concern for strikers is that I spent my life learning my game by coordinating with other players. Now, how will we recreate those partnerships? I'm constantly waiting for the day when teams will play with two strikers again, but will that day ever come?' 'We Have Kane, But Who After That?' Although not in the sense Owen meant, Tuchel doesn't have the option of playing two strikers this week. 'Just looking at the numbers, this situation cannot be compared to the 1990s,' Sutton added. 'But when we mention the players from that era, there was exceptional quality, and many of them didn't even get much of a chance to play for England.' 'Ferdinand only won 17 caps but he was excellent. Fowler, who won slightly more caps, was perhaps the most natural finisher you could see. But they were both behind Shearer because Shearer was like a machine when it came to scoring goals.' Sutton made his only full cap as a substitute against Cameroon in November 1997. He had a dispute with then-England manager Glenn Hoddle after refusing an invitation to the England 'B' team in February 1998. 'I can joke now about how I ruined my relationship with Hoddle, but in today's world, if you are even a little bit of a good striker and the World Cup is coming, you would be overjoyed,' he added. 'We have Kane, but who after that?' 'If you are an English centre-forward now and can hit a straight ball, you have a good chance of going to the World Cup. I'm starting to feel like I should dust off my old boots and get back on the field.' BBC