Harry Haaland: The 6 foot 6 answer to Leicester City’s striker problem
Jamie Vardy, Kelechi Iheanacho, Patson Daka or Tom Cannon? Well, Ric Flair has an alternative suggestion to fill the lone frontman role for Leicester City. He’s a giant and he plays for Australia…
In a week that's seen Everton deducted 10 points for breaking FFP rules and effectively cheating, England serve up one of the most turgid football displays seen since the last international break and Enzo Maresca doubling down on his message to anyone who questions his blueprint, can any of us confidently say that present-day football is an art form?
Something else happened this week: Harry Souttar scored for his country yet again.
Stick it in the mixer!
Don't say it, please don't say it, oh no, no, no, no....... why don't Leicester reinvent the big man as a striker and stick it in the mixer.
F*ck it, I said it anyway and I'm being serious. For those of you gasping in horror at me taking liberties with the beautiful game, Souttar's busy scoring goals every time he steps out onto the pitch against powerhouses such as Bangladesh and the Solomon Islands. You can only beat what's in front of you and he's flattening anything that stands in his way.
What even is this football purity anyway? Why do multiple passes and dinks and slaloms get the old chopper tingling but a 6ft 6 bastard stalking the opposition box like a vulture and a pack of ham is vilified as archaic football, and there's no longer a place for it in the game?
Well, there is a place for it and as we haven't got any tall and aggressive strikers, let's rebadge and rewire big Harry.
Of Walshes and Warhursts
The tall and powerful striker is actually enjoying a renaissance and slowly becoming the most sought-after attribute. But the snobbery about how such player looks and reads on a scouting profile from lads with bum fluff renders many suitable and able candidates as obsolete.
There's something so perfectly mythical about defenders turned strikers too. We were gifted a plethora of them in the 1990s and it was paradise. Paul Warhurst paved the way as a real life player who can play in any position and still be the bollocks, Chris Sutton was another notable defender-cum-striker and then there was our very own Steve Walsh.
Walsh was unplayable in 1992/93 up front with Julian Joachim. He got the best part of 20 goals and opposition strikers will have been relieved they got a year off for getting clouted by him as they'd suffered in the years prior and not long after.
We had others too, the likes of Matt Elliott on occasion and two others that started as defenders but made their name as pure bagsmen in Ian Marshall and Dion Dublin.
We were the pioneers of the game and they didn't f*ckin’ like it.
Plan A 2.0
I know it's futile to suggest or demand Maresca has a regular Plan B to turn to, but Souttar playing as our centre-forward can be a modified Plan A and Enzo would still save face.
You'd not catch a painter witness his new masterpiece get splattered in shit and keep on delicately brushstroking - he'd be in a frenzy to save it by any means possible.
Get Souttar up top and pepper him, we've become too predictable this last month and I'm telling you now, when Daniel Farke tunes in to Quest on Saturday night to watch the highlights and he sees what the Scottish Skippy has done to Watford he'll lose it.
We'll break him, he'll have Ampadu in the hole within a week and it'll derail their momentum.
Job done.
Bellissimo.
12 Days of Christmas at The Bridge
For the past 10 years, The Bridge Homelessness to Hope has served a 3-course Christmas Dinner with all the trimmings to hundreds of people in Leicester who are experiencing homelessness.
This year, they want to go one better and offer their guests (service users) not just one day of celebrations but 12 days of festive events over the month of December.
If you’re enjoying The Fosse Way, please consider donating to The Bridge’s Christmas appeal:
