Liam is a striker but absolutely
not what I'd call a complete striker. He's not tall enough to be good in the air; he's not a strong, physical player who can bully CBs; he doesn't possess the skill and trickery to beat defenders and neither does he have the pace to get away from them. Sounds like he doesn't have much going for him after reading that lot. But what he does have is INSTINCT. Particularly of where to be for tap-ins etc.
Thinking back, he's the type of player that got sneered at in the school play-yard because he was rarely involved in the build-up play. This kind of player was regarded with something approaching contempt by the other lads and dubbed a 'goal-hanger'. Whilst others were chasing the ball, tackling and getting involved, the goal-hanger bided his time and when the ball broke to him BANG, it's a goal. And, often, far from being congratulated, he was treated almost with derision, with attitudes of
we've done all the work and
you get the glory of scoring!
But what these ignoramuses conveniently forgot is that the whole, the ENTIRE object of football is to score goals and to score more than the other lot to win the game. You've probably guessed that I'm harking back to my own school days and I even had the odd sports-master who had the same viewpoint; the ones who always wanted me to get more involved with the game. Why? I used to ask. We won didn't we? And it was often my goals that won it for us.
I even experienced that neanderthal attitude
after my playing days. I used to play in Swansea League friendly and practise matches just to keep some degree of fitness. In one particular game (I scored one with a diving header from ex Swan Mickey Conway's cross and ended up having a brain scan at Singleton hospital the following day after colliding with the keeper's studs - Gunner Jack also played and saw it) on the other side there was this guy, Paul, a decent footballer, but he used to follow the play and the ball like a guided missile, getting involved as much and as often as he could. At the end of the game, he came up to me red-faced, wheezing, sweating cobs and said to me in a loud accusing tone that I'd only touched the ball about 6 times and scored 5. He was totally pissed off about it!!
So all this is to explain why I have empathy with Liam. When I used to be asked if I could play football my inevitable reply was, no I couldn't, I just score goals. And for me this sums up Liam. Imo, he's not really a striker as such, he's a FINISHER and
that's how he should be used.
but I could see Darling working as a #9. He needs to play anywhere but central defence really.