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You cannot stand on one leg. That is why Anderlecht replaced Lukas Nmecha this summer with no fewer than three A-strikers. Vincent Kompany from the trio Zirkzee, Raman, Kouamé has not yet distilled a permanent duo. “And I hope we can continue to discuss it for a whole year,” said the Purple & White coach.
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Yanko Beeckman
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What would it be like with the shoulders of Lukas Nmecha (22)? The pressure that the English German had to bear last year was very heavy. When Anderlecht had to score, it looked in the direction of Nmecha, who with 21 goals easily crowned himself the top scorer of the Purple & White. The rest were not even in the picture – number two Yari Verschaeren scored six times.
Then the world will look completely different today. Vincent Kompany saw Nmecha move to Wolfsburg via Manchester City, but he was replaced by three A-strikers with Benito Raman (26), Christian Kouamé (23) and Joshua Zirkzee (20). The goal burden will be evenly distributed this season. The forty hits that the Purple & White already managed to achieve this season were made by no fewer than twelve different players. Refaelov (7), Raman (7), Zirkzee (6) and Verschaeren (4) accounted for the majority.
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At the start of the season, Kompany often hammered at the lack of automatisms in his newly composed squad. But where he has found his permanent combinations in the center back (Hoedt-Harwood-Bellis) and in the center of midfield (Cullen-Olsson) today, Anderlecht have never started more than three consecutive matches with the same striker duo. Wouldn’t the Purple & White do a better job of a permanent tandem that finds each other blindly like Tomasz Radzinski and Jan Koller in the not so distant past?
keep pushing
“Automatisms mainly cost time,” says Kompany. “Certainly in the offensive compartment. You can train on it and work on it in competitions. But if you have a duo that plays great together for sixty minutes and you have to switch one of the two and the substitute has no automatisms, then you don’t have anything with it. What I’m saying: the automatisms have to be right across the entire attacking compartment. I hope we can keep discussing for a whole season about which strikers should play, that they stay together challengen, stay push. I believe in healthy competition. Actually, this situation should be normal for Anderlecht. By the way, having multiple options is only good, because then you can line up the guys who are in shape. That is especially important for young players.”
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