How many pre-seasons have we faced thinking we need a 20-goal striker?
In fact, the era of the 20-goal striker is coming to an end. In the entire EFL last season, only two players hit 20 goals in the league — Charlie Kelman and Michael Cheek.
In modern times, the secret to success doesn’t lie in having one player scoring all the goals. It is found in spreading the eggs across a number of baskets, and if you need proof, then I have a little for you.
I think you do need strikers to score goals. That sounds mad, as it’s so obvious, but sometimes people will say it doesn’t matter where the goals come from. It doesn’t, but I think you score more if your strikers are involved. They’re the ones in the middle for crosses. If your centre-back nods in a corner, or a midfielder bags from 25 yards, great — but strikers gobble up loose balls.
Strikers do have to score goals, and this season we have seen more goals from our strikers than from any other position on the field. That is partly the secret to our success (as well as squad depth, great organisation, tactical know-how and solid, committed defending. More secrets than Victoria…).
This isn’t a hard and fast analysis, because to be fair to some of the squads, I think I’ve counted players who were not always out-and-out strikers. Let’s be honest, for a few seasons, we didn’t have a lot of strikers.
However, up to October 21st, this season has seen more goals from players we’d class as strikers than any since the COVID restart.
This season we’ve seen 17 goals from strikers: James Collins with five, Ben House with four, Freddie Draper and Rob Street on three and Justin Obikwu on two. That’s more than at any stage of the previous campaigns. Now, I appreciate that in some instances those players have been playing wider, but they’re all identified as strikers.
Here is how 17 compares to previous seasons.
2020/21 – 8 goals
In our play-off campaign, strikers had scored eight goals up to a similar stage. As that campaign kicked off later, I have gone to November 24th, by which point Tom Hopper had four, Brennan Johnson two, while Jamie Soule and Callum Morton had one each.
A majority of our goals came from Jorge Grant, Anthony Scully and Lewis Montsma. Scully, as well as Anderson, were really wide players, while Johnson played as a ten.
As a team, we’d scored 15 goals in our 12 outings — three fewer than this season.
2021/22 – 2 goals
I have not included Scully in this, as he played wide, but if I had, we would have got to 13. If we’re talking just strikers, we had two — both from Tom Hopper. We didn’t have a glut of strikers in the squad: Maguire played as a ten but hadn’t scored, while Dan Nlundulu was yet to notch one of his (checks notes)… sorry, his only goal of his Imps career.
Across our first 12 league matches, we’d hit 16 goals. That did include the 5–1 victory at Cambridge United, which boosted the numbers.
2022/23 – 9 goals
Goals were shared around the squad here, but in terms of strikers, we were not prolific in Mark Kennedy’s full season in charge. Remember, this is up to and including October 20th that season.
We saw goals for Freddie Draper and Jovon Makama in the EFL Trophy, one each. Ben House led the way with four, Tom Hopper had two, while Charley Kendall also chipped in with one.
After 12 matches, we’d hit 15 goals. It’s important to note that, like the season before, one result skewed those numbers — our 6–3 win at Bristol Rovers.
2023/24 – 1 goal
Ben House, Tyler Walker and Jack Vale were all injured for much of the first half of the season, leaving Jovon Makama as the only striker fit and firing. Sure, Danny Mandroiu chipped in with goals, as did Ted Bishop, but we looked lacklustre up to Kennedy’s dismissal, which happened two years ago last week.
Only Jovon had scored, and that came in the last minute against Wolves U21s in the EFL Trophy.
In 2023/24, we had 15 goals from 12 matches. It’s important to note that after 11 matches we were only on 14, but after Kennedy was dismissed, we won two on the trot, scoring four goals. The phrase “the shackles were off” was bandied about, and as we rattled three past Michael Appleton’s Charlton, it did feel that way.
2024/25 – 10 goals
Enter Michael Skubala, enter strikers scoring. Okay, it’s not huge numbers, but at this stage last season we had four centre-forwards sharing ten goals.
Jovon, Ben House and Freddie Draper had all bagged two each, while Bailey Cadamarteri had hit three, including one on October 19th against Birmingham City to bump the number up above 2022/23 levels.
Last season, as with this season, we had bagged 18 goals after 12 games. Michael Skubala’s approach last season wasn’t all that different to now. Yes, we played 3–5–2, but we still created chances, the strikers were chipping in more, and eight in the first three matches certainly helped.