Our Best Strikers?

It's not even close in my opinion. Cook outscored even Wells and is our first 30 goal a season striker for many, many years. I think that's a feat that was vastly underrated because he was let down by a poor manager and an average team.

 

Hanson is an enigma, wrapped in a riddle. In the 12/13 team he was first name on the team list because of his partnership with Wells. Not a chance in hell he replaces Cook

 

Disagree. Cook wouldn't replace Hanson because of the understanding he had with Wells and Wells wouldn't score 20 plus goals alongside Cook. Halliday is more versatile, but Darby was a better defensive fullback and suits a PP 442 perfectly because he was never asked to get into the opponents half. Smallwood can't hold a candle to what Doyle brought to that team with his aggression. Walker couldn't hold the wing like Thompson could and the closest to Reid would be Wright, who has a long way to go to reach his quality.

 

Yeah, why on earth would we want to squeeze a 30 goal striker into the team when it'll apparently stop a 20 goal striker scoring so many.

Seems legit.

 

Cook has 61 goal involvements in 87 league games over the last 2 seasons, he gets in that team over Hanson or Wells.

That's my point about the comparisons, they are totally different. There aren't many roles that are comparable in either side.

 

Not a chance. He could score 60 from 80 himself but Cook & Hanson just wouldn't work & Cook with Wells would make Wells look poor. And he canr defend like Hanson. Sorry its not even up for debate.

Wells & Hanson is the best partnership since Mills & Blake.

 

That's a fair old fishing rod but this lake is dry!

 

Again, it's not really comparable because they played different styles in City teams. So in this combined 11, we have to play 442 hoof because that's what Hanson and Wells had to played? Cook posted those numbers largely playing as a lone striker. Cook managed to post those numbers playing in a mixture of tactical approaches too. Passing style under Hughes, long ball approach under Alexander, and still put up numbers playing either way. Hanson could only play in a hoof tactic.

Looking at the numbers, Hanson and Wells were on the pitch together 100 times. Whilst on the pitch together they scored 77. They set each other up 13 times in 100 games. Awesome partnership, but for the sake of this fun experiment of a combined 11, I'd have Cook in there.

Goals per minute in L2 for City, Hanson averaged one every 322, Wells every 154, Cook every 188 mins. So yes, in my L2 combined City 11, it would be Wells and Cook.

 

Fine, but we are looking at who in our current team would improve a 442 Parky team, and I think Cook would struggle. Possibly why he struggled at Mansfield.

taken as a whole, I just can't see Cook & Wells working at all. Cook would never bring wells into a game the way Hanson did, and wouldn't create the space for him like Hanson could.

all about the partnership rather than the individual parts. Take 442 'hoofball' out of the 2013 team and the whole team is less effective, in the same way Cook isn't effective in a football team.

Putting cook in that team isn't very far removed from expecting Eoin Doyle to be a target man. It blunted him and it would blunt Cook.

 

in regards to the cook v Hanson & Wells debate
if Cook is the main man, he will get you goals. Perhaps Cook would compliment well with Hanson, but I get the feeling we wouldn't get the best out of wells if partnered with Cook

As for who I'd rather have. It's Hanson an Wells any day of the week. They were both good at opposite sides of being a striker. Hanson was solid in the air, Wells was rapid an could create chances out of nothing

 

If you want to go down that road then it's a new season now so technically Cook hasn't scored all season.

I don't care though, I was asked my opinion and I'm having Cook in my team every single time because like I said, for me it's not even close.

 

Jon Stead was a former PL player and you could see why, the bloke clearly had huge ability.

That said, he was on his way down and despite being effective in some really big games, over a full campaign I'd still pick Cook to outperform him.

 

Jon Stead certainly wasn’t as good a finisher as Cook if he had been he would have gone farther than he did in what was already a very good career.
He had bags of ability and a great football brain holding the ball up laying it off great movement drawing defenders out to create space. He must have been a dream to play alongside

 

Probably? But they are totally different roles as Stead was never the man to go out and bag goals. He was the workhorse striker in the days when everyone played 2 up top. Did Stead ever manage 15+ in a season? Whereas if Cook had a 15 season, people would say it's a drop off for him.

And we are comparing against a one off game. Stead was unplayable against Chelsea, and had a cracker against Sunderland. But he played another 40-odd games for us and I couldn't really pick out many other top performances off the top of my head. MK in the league was another on sky? Stead seemed to perform when a camera was there thinking back

If we were picking a City team of the last 15 years and we had to start 2 strikers, I'm going Cook and Wells every day of the week. Having two guys that could get 20/25+ a season is far more entertaining and appealing to me.