stein could not head the ball
He couldn't, but he was still one of our best import strikers imo :)
Well that's an interesting question, I thought.
Though I thought we only did not-a-strikers
I can't think of more than five genuine import No 9 or 10 strikers;
Krishna, Kalu, Greenacre, Dadi, and Stein
(did I miss anyone? see note on other players at end of post)
I'd put Kaluderovic (9 goals in 22 appearances) ahead of Stein (15 in 48)
(and think we'd have got much more out of Kalu, but for the coaching disaster).
I think possibly I'd also put both Dadi and Greenacre ahead of Stein, and definitely Krishna.
So I'd rate Stein more like 4th or 5th out of five.
Stein just struck me as a neat and tidy plodder.
Greenacre did more work, though had a lower scoring rate at 19 from 84,
Dadi scored five goals in 10 appearances including 5 as sub. And was a lot more entertaining (good and bad, who'd forget that bicycle kick and the penalty miss).
vs Stein's 15 in 48 on one foot and without a head
Just an opinion
And Smeltz (not an import) (28 in 60) in another league ahead of all of them except the later era of Krishna (33 from 98).
I think of Sarpong, Totori, Cunningham and Ifill as more wider players than genuine No 9 or 10 strikers, yes?
Agree pretty much with your assessment. Perhaps only one missing is Sheridan. Ricardo Clarke in the not-a-striker category?
It really does seem to be hard to attract a international strikers.
The average weekly salary per league is reportedly (I can't validate the googled source):
EPL £51000
Championship £11000
League One £2300
League Two £1100
Multiply by two and you get an understanding about one of the barriers to getting high quality imports. A good League 1 striker will earn somewhere north of NZ$230,000 per annum.
$230k salary isn't much of a barrier for us if they are good enough, at any time I'd expect we'd have players on more than that given the salary floor is currently 2.9 million.
The thing is though, if a striker is going great in League One, is reliable, a good age, not plagued with injuries etc, they have a fair chance of being able to push to play into the Championship or other high paying places that is even harder to compete with. Someone isn't usually going to come here if their career is going swell, unless they are at an age where they want to move on, like Ifill, Taylor.
Also, League One teams have recently been outbidding the likes of Rangers & Celtic to players, so there is some big money floating around in that league that even there we can't match.