If there’s one thing that England lacked over recent years- opitimised by their performance in the 1-1 in Montenegro- its a consistent, out and out goal scoring striker. Many have been tried and tested, the likes of Darren Bent, Andy Carroll, and more recently Danny Welbeck and Daniel Sturridge, however England have been unable to find a truly potent goalscorer capable of linking up with talisman Wayne Rooney.
There is one player who fits the bill, however and his name is Gary Hooper. A youth player at Spurs, he moved to Grays Athletic in 2003 and began his senior career at the then Isthmian League club. Hooper was released by the Havering side in 2006 after a semi-successful spell at the club and joined Southend at the age of 20, after a series of trials.
His time at Roots Hall was uninspiring, scoring two goals in 44 appearances, however he did have two successful loan spells whilst at the club. His second loan spell, a season long loan at Hereford, was extremely fruitful. The striker netted 11 goals in 19 games for the League Two outfit, to help them reach third place and secure promotion.
The following season, Southend manager Steve Tilson transfer listed the striker, in a move to freshen up his strike force. Hereford were amongst the interested parties, however they did not have the finances to compete with fellow suitors Scunthorpe, who signed Hooper on the 14th July 2008 for a fee of £125,000. During his time at Glanford park, Hooper showed he was striker who could create an opportunity out of nothing.
His sublime goal scoring record at the Lincolnshire side, 43 goals in 80 appearances, led to SPL giants Celtic tabling launching a £2.4 million bid for the goal scoring machine. The 22 year old made it clear that he wished to be allowed to speak to Celtic, and the Irons were keen to receive the large transfer fee. On the 26th of July 2010 Hooper completed his move to Celtic, scoring a goal on his debut against Braga in the Champions League Qualifying third round.
Since joining Celtic, the striker has proved to be a masterful signing, scoring 79 goals in 132 appearances for the club. With England’s desire for a consistent goalscorer, and the uncapped Englishman scoring goals for fun at Celtic, it begs the question – why doesn’t Hodgson call up Hooper? Some will say that the reason is that the SPL is far inferior to the Premier League, in both status and quality. For me, there’s a more obvious argument to why the England senior team have not yet called on the prolific striker and that is snobbery.
Good article, Gary Hooper certainly deserves a chance. He can score at one of the highest levels of football, the champions league.
This is a good article, however I don’t feel a new striker really is that necessary. There is potential in the likes of Sturridge, Welbeck, perhaps even part-time Centre Forward Theo Walcott to break the mould and fill this role, and combined with Defoe, Carroll, Crouch and as you say Ricky Lambert i feel there is no lack of players capable of scoring goals. At England now, it is more about actually starting to put together a coherent, consistent set of 11-16 players who when fit can be basically assured of a starting place; for me this includes the likes of Phil Jones, Chris Smalling, Oxlade Chamberlain, Jack Wilshere, Tom Cleverley (sorry for only mentioning players from two clubs but these are the only ones in this ‘youngish’ category of player I feel have the potential to gain the guaranteed places i speak of. Hooper may deserve a chance, but he’ll need to prove himself fast as I don’t think adding another striker to the list of about 7 who seem to rotate on a game-to-game basis is what England needs at all. I reiterate, quite the opposite is needed and I think a consistent group of young players need to play together regularly in order to really help mould the next generation of English football.