It must come back round - I’m sure of it - and teams won’t know what’s hit them when suddenly a big target man does turn up in years to come. They are keeping it alive but what happens when those guys move on? Hopefully, somewhere, there is the next lot of them coming through on the quiet. There are still the more traditional players at the top of their game - Karim Benzema, Harry Kane, Robert Lewandowski - so it’s not dead yet. That pressing, the defensive side of it, is what the very best are doing. City play with five of them and they get more than 10 goals each per season. Take the numbers consistently posted by Salah and Mane for Liverpool. Tottenham's Harry Kane is one of the very few classic No 9's still around, we are not extinct! The frontman didn’t used to get involved in too much pressing, but at Liverpool when you see Roberto Firmino, Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane - plus Diogo Jota when he starts - the roles have altered hugely. Usually in that position now you have quick, potent wingers either side of you. There is so much more demand on the goalscorers in the modern game. It has died out, the two strikers up there feeding off each other.
I think back to those combinations of Niall Quinn and Kevin Phillips, Andy Cole and Peter Beardsley, the big man-little man partnership. The people I looked up to while growing up were obviously the old-fashioned, quintessential No 9s: Dion Dublin, Alan Shearer, Les Ferdinand, the Brazilian Ronaldo.
Things do change, new eras are quickly upon us, although there is definitely a part of me that is a little sad about it.
Standing up front just isn’t in vogue any more and this is an ongoing issue being debated around Manchester United this season after Cristiano Ronaldo’s arrival. Foden scored twice for Manchester City at Brighton whilst playing in a 'false nine role'
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