The Ireland squad has been announced and once more the talk has turned to who will lead the line for the Martin O'Neill's side.
With Ireland having failed to replace Robbie Keane since his retirement(or even since he became a substitute for the side), the search for a new no.9 having left the side with Sean Maguire as the best option. While there are high hopes for the man who left Cork to join Preston in the Championship at the beginning of this season, he's inexperienced at this level and the only serious contender to him is the non-goalscoring Shane Long.
However, Kenny Cunningham joined OTB AM this morning, and the former Irish captain said that there's too much thought and worrying going into who's playing up front, as he believes the goals should be shared around the pitch as is the way for many modern sides.
"It's been a little to negative for me. Yeah, everyone is looking for that natural goalscorer, that fox in the box that's going to guarantee you a certain amount of goals, but goals can come from any area of the pitch".
"The modern game is about goals being shared around the pitch, it's all about that front three. The argument was always was your no.9 hitting 30 goals, or are your two strikers hitting 40, your winger will chip in with a couple, and maybe a goalscoring central midfielder.
"That's by and by now, you're looking at goals across that front three now, they have to contribute. The top teams, their two wide players off the left and right are contributing 15-20 goals".
Cunningham doubled down on the need for others to contribute, and said that it would have to happen as the country has never really had as frequent a goalscorer as Keane before the ex-Tottenham star came onto the scene, and probably won't ever again.
"Central midfield players, particularly those advanced two no.8s who have a licence to get forward, and I think we have some of those in the likes of Jeff Hendrick and Conor Hourihane who's scored a lot of goals for Aston Villa this season."
"When I think about where our goals are going to come from I'm not looking at the no.9 thinking, 'do we have enough goals in this team?'. James McClean playing off the left wing was out top goalscorer in the last qualifying campaign".
"So for me it's not about 'oh, we've no Robbie Keane'. No, we don't have a Robbie Keane, and we didn't before he came, and we'll never have one again. Does that mean we're not capable of qualifying for major championships? No, if we keep enough clean sheets we'll qualify".
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