Quote Originally Posted by mickd1961 View Post
Here we go again, yet another sick note striker.

Think about this for a minute, consider previous striking legends at our club and how little game time they ever missed.

Bob Taylor, Andy Hunt, Lee Hughes, Lukaku, Odemwingie, an ageing Kevin Phillips.

Then look at the great strikers generally.

Kane, Son, Salah, Vardy until last season at 36, Drogba, Henry.

For me it comes down to two things,

1/ Poor recruitment, not looking at a player’s injury history and appearance record,

2/ The character and mentality of a player.

We seem to be a soft touch for players lacking natural athleticism and high fitness values and also lacking the grit to fight through some of these injuries and the character to look at themselves and change their lifestyle habits and training regimes.

Back in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s the games that players missed were minimal.

Most seasons Albion wouldn’t use more than 14 or 15 players in total and if you look at the appearance records most players played virtually every match.

Regular substitutes such as Summerfied, Monaghan, Wayne Hughes and the like were lucky to play 3-6 times per season.

Kane played 306 out of 342 league matches for Spurs in the past 9 years, that’s 34 out of 38 matches every season FFS.

Maintaining a stellar level of performance and fitting in 86 England games I think and all of the cup matches, he’s been hitting around 50 matches per season on average.

I’d bet my a r s e he wasn’t fit for a number of these matches but with players like him you need to chain them down to keep them off the pitch.

In his first stint with us Lee Hughes averaged 39 out of every 42 leaves matches, most of his gaps were due to suspensions.

Mentality, character and desire……the three most important characteristics other than talent and we are experts at finding the chancers who lack all three qualities.
I can’t disagree with much if anything within the above.

We may come from different generations but I fail to see why todays footballers lack the physical strength and mentality of those of years gone by. I wish I’d been around to have witnessed the game of a few decades ago. Better than watching what we have served up to is today.
That is according to my Dad, and I’d have no reason to doubt him or you neither.