Has a clause in his contract that he can leave for free if Sunderland get relegated.

Are you sure it said "if"?

So you are saying that all target men have to be a fast, high pressing forward! Unbelievable.
Defoe just walks on the field most of the time! Jeez haven't seen him much have you.
With respect to my football knowledge, I do not profess to be an expert but I have watched professional football for over 50 years and played at a reasonable amateur level, so I think I do know what I am talking about.

NO, that's not what I'm saying. I don't know how you're reading, but that's not even remotely what I said.
I said Benteke cannot be a high-pressing, fast striker because of his physical inabilities. That doesn't mean there shouldn't be "Benteke type" players.
Of course that in recent years, players who are "only" target-men have been largely neglected because football has become a sport in which running and closing spaces is much more important than it was 30 years ago. Therefore, all players are asked to run, participate and help recover (even target-men such as Ibrahimovic, Higuain or Fernando Torres).
It is true that an increasing number of teams have started using only fast strikers and have given up on the less speedy target-man (especially Spanish and Italian teams where the average height is less, some German ones, AS Monaco who is fielding Mnappe and Falcao, Liverpool and Arsenal are example of this in England most of the times, even Leicester, Newcastle will come first in the Championship with our well-known Dwight Gayle etc)

But I didn't say a tall, powerful striker is not needed. Some have still proven that they're needed: Diego Costa, Dzeko, Ibrahimovic, Lukaku and even Dzyuba who had done great in the Champions League for Zenit. They're not an extinct species

Edited by mattteo (14 Apr 2017 11.45am)

Here we go again. *sigh* Instead of spending all your time on stat websites or football manager, why don't you actually watch players and give your own opinion. Some of the stuff you have said in this thread is just crazy- Cabaye is a second striker similar to Okazaki, Defoe just walks around the pitch. WHAT!

If you watch Defoe you can see that he has decent movement and the ability to score goals, yes he is not the quickest anymore but that doesn't mean he is not good enough. I don't see what your obsession with pace is, there are some top quality players who don't have a massive amount of pace- look at Harry Kane, Ibrahimovic, diego Costa they can all score goals and have done well this season dispite not having blistering pace.

Who cares if he doesn't have the greatest goals per minute record. He plays for sunderland and does not get great service, this contributes to him not scoring every game but he still scores many despite this , if you watched him play instead of looking at his stats all the time, you would see that he is a capable premier league goal scorer

Edited by Shifty97 (14 Apr 2017 2.30pm)

Edited by Shifty97 (14 Apr 2017 2.33pm)

1. Cabaye is the first player of Palace who comes behind Benteke in order to finish. Palace plays 4-3-3 and Leicester plays 4-4-2, that's why there's a difference between Cabaye and Okazaki. But they both pretty much operate behind the striker, even though Okazaki is a forward and Cabaye is a midfielder (though he has played behind the striker before, in his good days at Newcastle).
I didn't say they are the same type, but they're the first who appear behind the main striker (Vardy, Benteke) for their respective teams.

2. Statistically looking at football is not bad. You notice a pattern. You can see where it all will go. You should try arranging your thoughts a little bit looking at player statistics. You'll see how everything suddenly makes sense. But you have to know which stats are worthy. If one tells me 2 teams have met 50 times before the EPL was formed and one of the has always won, that is a bollocks statistic cause it means nothing for the present.

3. Let's try naming the players WITH pace who have success and the players WITHOUT pace. You've given me 2 names: Diego Costa and Ibrahimovic. I agree they aren't the most pacey footballers. I can't agree about Kane cause age alone makes him pretty darn fast.

You won't get past the 10 mark.
On the other hand, I'll name you: Vardy, Josh King, Antonio, Andre Gray, Zaha, Townsend, Chadli, Benik Afobe, Abel Hernandez, Stanislas, Ryan Fraser, Ward-Prowse,Niasse, Shane Long, Enner Valencia, Jonathan Walters, Joe Allen and Lanzini, Shaqiri all in the Premier League alone.

And in other countries: Aubameyang, Dembele, Schurrle, Robben, Ribery, Kimmich, Thomas Muller, Werner (new wonderkid of Germany), Forsberg, Demirbay, Carrasco, Pablo Sarabia, Ben Yedder, Gameiro, Gaitan, Bakambu, Cavani, Lacazette, Matuidi, Verratti, Dybala, Mertens, Callejon, Icardi, Belotti, Ciro Immobile, Bertrand Traore and Hakim Ziyech (saw him last night for Ajax and God, he was amazing! Soooo much running)