Rocky road ahead?

With Leon O’Best and Peter Lovenkrands now departed, and our pursuit of Luuk de Jong scuppered by his move to Borussia Monchengladbach, it’s hardly surprising that we’re in the market for another striker.

However, the news that we’ve made an approach to bring Rocky back to the club is something of a shock. While I think he’s been unfortunate at Liverpool, one of the reasons that Rocky looks to have struggled is that the team isn’t set up to play to his strengths, but instead favours playing the ball through for Luis Suarez to run onto, rather than fire in crosses for Rocky to try and get a header on target.

Equally, in the 18 months since his departure, and particularly in the last 12 months, we’ve started to pass the ball more and play through the likes of Dreamboat and HBA, and as such Rocky’s strengths don’t appear to be particularly well suited to our more recent footballing methodology.

With that in mind, the approach for Rocky is indeed a surprising one. Still, having been rebuffed once it remains to be seen if we go back in with an improved offer, or leave it to the likes of West Ham and Fulham to battle it out for our one-time number 9’s services.