Forward Thinking

Weighing up some options in United's ongoing search for a striker

Groundhog Day is a fantasy romantic comedy film starring Bill Murray. It tells the story of a weatherman who becomes trapped in a time loop, forcing him to repeatedly relive the 2nd of February. It could, however, just as easily be based on Cambridge United’s recent summer transfer windows, telling the story of a group of fans who become trapped in a time loop as they are forced to repeatedly relive the events of a recruitment team trying to sign a striker.

It is impossible to escape the fact that it feels like we’ve been here before. Last summer, it was Loft and Lavery, and we waited all summer for that elusive number 9. The one to make things click. On the pod, we spent all of August waiting, praying, and we were rewarded with… Dan Nlundulu. The summer before, it was Ahadme and Fejiri. It took until January for Harris himself to rectify that, with Bonne and Lyle Taylor. The less said about them the better.

To be writing a piece five days out from the beginning of the season looking at options for our leading number 9 on the transfer market is more than anything a reflection on the understandable frustrations of the fanbase. Not because we think it’s easy. Goals are football’s currency, and good strikers come at a premium. The market for a striker is incredibly competitive, it’s very easy to understand how hard it must be to sign people who are ‘guaranteed goalscorers’. But after the overhaul of the football department going back to the end of last season, and especially with a new Director of Football in place surely trying not to make the same mistakes as the last one, it’s disappointing to be in this situation again. It’s hard not to feel we haven’t learnt from our lessons.

But no panic please. Even if the deadline Harris self-imposed on having a striker in by the end of this week is ticking, there is still plenty of time in the window left. While we all wait patiently for the name of the incoming forward to be revealed, we’ve decided to add to the discourse by taking a look at the numbers behind a few of the strikers whose names have been rumoured, and suggesting a couple of extra names ourselves – a few curveballs to see who we might fit the bill, helped mainly by Ben’s outstanding data models.

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Who have the U’s been rumoured with before?

The rumour mill is, more often than not, not to be trusted. When the equation for arriving at a potential new signing’s name is as basic as a) do they play in a position we need, and b) have they played for either United or Harris before (often both), then it probably isn’t the most reliable. While there is obvious benefit to players who Harris knows and likes, it doesn’t mean the recruitment team are limiting themselves to it.

They will surely want to look at specific attributes and underlying data, asking themselves what it is about these players that will make a Harris team better and why they’re going to light up the scoring charts (or something like that). So let’s weigh up a handful of the names that have been flying around all summer to see if a Harris connection isn’t the only reason they might work.