[Archived] Top Strikers For Rovers - Last 20 Yrs

[Steve Kean's Hypnotoad]

Gally was good enough to play Premier League football at one point in his career. Thus far Rhodes hasn't proved good enough to tempt Premier League clubs to gamble on him - there clearly has to be a reason, the same reason why he can't make a Scotland squad.

6 goals in 61 PL games (mostly off the bench) over 6 seasons would indicate Gally was never good enough to play PL football.

The main reason Rhodes hasn't made it to the PL yet is the type of contracts he signed at Rovers. He signed on initially on a 5 year deal with no release clause, and then 2 years later did exactly the same again. His own contract dealings (for which we rewarded him handsomely in wages) drove his asking price through the roof because we were never under pressure to sell him, he never had less than 3 years left on his contract whilst here. Contrast that to Gestede who signed a 3.5 year deal and so was able to engineer a cheaper move with only 2 years on his deal, but I've no doubt was on a fair bit less than Rhodes here.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

I think that it is impossible to know how Rhodes would cope with Premier League football until he plays in the Premier League. Like Tommy Briggs and Simon Garner he has been prolific in the Second Division but for me that doesn't mean he stands any comparison with the likes of Shearer, Sutton, Gallacher, Newell, Cole, Yorke, McCarthy, Santa Cruz, Bellamy and the rest. They were operating, and succeeding, at a totally different level to Rhodes. I prefer to compare Rhodes with guys who operated at a similar level to him - Briggs, Garner, Quinn, Thompson etc. When you do that he might well make the top 20 of strikers for Rovers who have operated in the Second Division - although in the fifties we had the likes of Dobing, Vernon, Johnston etc who were all far superior to Jordan.

You're wasting your time Parson. " There's none so blind as those who will not see ". Let's see how he goes on when his outstanding ability takes him to a higher level. I just hope I live that long.

[joey_big_nose]

Bellamy was the most talented player after Shearer. Truly superb. Should have made more of his career.

After those two we have half a dozen who were excellent but hard to pick which ones were better - Jansen, Sutton, McCarthy, Cruz, Yakubu, Cole

What I do know for all their qualities Gestede and Rhodes are nowhere near that second group.

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

Shearer,Bellamy,Cole,Sutton,McCarthy,Jansen......makes me want to weep at our situation.

[LewisF]

What's the Yak up to nowadays? Must be about 50 by now?

[Tom]

What's the Yak up to nowadays? Must be about 50 by now?

Still 23

I miss the Yak, the best finisher we've seen in donkeys years.

[T J Hooker]

Little shout out for Hakan Sukur, he only played a handful of games for us but he was still the biz,

also there was Yordi, again he only played a handful of games for us, but definitely contributed well during his short time here.

[Mike E]

South out to Dickov and Kuqi too! Neither were awesome but both made very solid contributions to Hughes' earlier years.

[DE.]

I remember being enraged when we signed Kuqi (because I knew how utterly limited he was), but he contributed more than I expected. Dickov was like a less talented Bellamy, always snapping at defenders and working his socks off for the cause.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Little shout out for Hakan Sukur, he only played a handful of games for us but he was still the biz,

also there was Yordi, again he only played a handful of games for us, but definitely contributed well during his short time here.

Yeah, Hakan Sukur. He had it all. What a player. It's a shame we saw so little of him.

[T J Hooker]

Shame Nunu gomez signed for us during such a shambolic time, in a settled squad with a good manager I think we could have got at least one excellent season out of him before he hung his boots up.

Dickov was great for us, exactly the type of player we needed at the time(and could do with now) to be honest though i never rated Kuqi at all, i just thought he had a high work rate but ran around like a headless chicken and had almost no real footballing ability(especially at prem level anyway!) where as Dickov had a good amount of ability to go along with his work rate

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Shame Nunu gomez signed for us during such a shambolic time, in a settled squad with a good manager I think we could have got at least one excellent season out of him before he hung his boots up.

Dickov was great for us, exactly the type of player we needed at the time(and could do with now) to be honest though i never rated Kuqi at all, i just thought he had a high work rate but ran around like a headless chicken and had almost no real footballing ability(especially at prem level anyway!) where as Dickov had a good amount of ability to go along with his work rate

Kuqi put in a tremendous cross for one of MGP's net busting volleys I recall. I also remember Bellamy blasting him when he couldn't complete a simple wall pass. Bellamy sent him a short ball the had " Give the ball back to me into the space I'm running in to " written on it. Kuqi didn't read the message and made a complete hash of it. I thought Bellers was going to burst !