Such is the volume and righteous fury around the concept of strikers across the Saints fandom this past week, you’d be forgiven for thinking there were bins not being collected or pits being closed within a PA postcode.
Angry fans – covering both the “Mika Mandron is no Doug Somner” and the “I signed Shankland on Fitba Manager and he only wanted two grand a week” ends of the age spectrum – constantly bemoan the absence of a true ’20-goal-a-season striker’ in Paisley.
The rational line sits somewhere far from that angle. Do strikers outside the big two/three in Scotland sometimes score 20 or more? Aye. Sometimes.
Is there a fool-proof method of predicting that’ll be the case when you sign that striker on a free from the third tier in England? Naw.
Which brings us to deadline day at the Smisa Stadium and the ultra-last minute addition of Kevin van Veen on loan from Groningen. Van Veen embodies that discussion almost too perfectly.
After six seasons in English football to only modest acclaim and prolificacy, Motherwell fans hit the jackpot in 2022-2023, watching the Dutch powerhouse smash in 25 league goals across a single campaign.
Such excellence earned the hitman a return to his native Netherlands with Groningen, though that is where the purple patch seems to have halted for now.
A miserly loan spell with high-flying Kilmarnock last season bore no fruit, and his parent club were content to farm him out again this term.
For every 22-23 Van Veen masterclass, there are six, seven or eight other seasons of contrary evidence to work through.
Every striker ever signed in Scotland, with a couple of eight-goal seasons under their belt at Northampton or Crawley, has been recruited with the intention of unearthing a 25-goal diamond from the rough. The reality is very few ever do.
Stephen Robinson and Martin Foyle have banked two years worth of goodwill from their transfer dealings in Paisley, and even the most pessimistic of Buddies will back their judgement in recapturing that lightning in a bottle from the nomadic Van Veen.
If nothing else, the impending arrival of added competition seemed to drive Mandron and Toyosi Olusanya into netting a couple of exceptional striker’s goals at Dens Park last weekend.
Should Van Veen’s impact be in increasing the aggregate as opposed to breaking his own records, the sensible majority will be more than happy.
Mark Jardine can be found at Misery Hunters
