Originally Posted by
the other bob wilson
In his latter days with Man City he became a victim of false number nine syndrome. Granted, towards the end of his time at Man City, Aguero wasn't quite the player he was, but was his decline so great that it merited the false number nine approach adopted by Man City for most of the season? I'd say that, given that we're talking about the Premier League Champions and Champions League runners up, maybe it did, but going back about fifteen years, Craig Levein, rightly, got terrible stick when he picked a Scotland side without a striker and yet within about four years, Spain were winning major tournaments with their false number nine system - of course, having Xavi and Iniesta in your midfield as well as other players athletic and intelligent enough to make up for the lack of a traditional striker helped and that's the point really, it seems to me that the lower down the football pyramid you go, the less likely it is that a false number approach will work.
Although at their best, Wales have the sort of players that might make a false number nine work pretty well (see Wilson's goal in Belgium and some of our play against a Finland team reduced to ten men), we're still talking about potential at international level when it comes to the likes of Brooks, Wilson and James, while Ramsey showed few signs of making a success in the first half on Saturday and only started showing what he is capable of when we brought Moore on.
I think the OP was right to call Aguero one of a disappearing kind and can only think that the old "fox in the box" type striker in particular is now almost extinct because it was thought that they did not contribute enough in other areas of the pitch, but if and when a great one like a Greaves or Aguero comes along in the future, as I'm sure they will, I can see them having an absolute field day against defenders who have grown used to coping without them.