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    Three up front

    Being an eagle-eyed football aficionado, it has come to my notice that Spanish club FC Barcelona have prospered this season using a formation that involves the deployment of three ‘out-and-out’ strikers.

    Yeah. Nothing gets past me.

    Consequently, I was wondering which other clubs have enjoyed success playing a trio of recognised hitmen? Please note I mean playing actual strikers, regularly, as part of a consistent strategy, rather than utilising advanced midfielders or sticking on extra forwards in moments of desperation.

    One that springs to mind is Newcastle United circa 1996, when Les Ferdinand, David Ginola and Faustino Asprilla habitually terrorised opposition defences. Though the definition of ‘enjoyed success’ is admittedly generous in this instance.

    #2
    Three up front

    Gre-No-Li

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      #3
      Three up front

      mumpo, newcastle played 4-4-2, with ginola and gillespie on the wings, with beardsley/asprilla behind ferdinand.

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        #4
        Three up front

        The Awesome Berbaslug!!! wrote: mumpo, newcastle played 4-4-2, with ginola and gillespie on the wings, with beardsley/asprilla behind ferdinand
        Ah. The media always seemed to lump them together as a strikeforce. All part of the plan to emphasise Kevin Keegan's cavalier credentials, I suppose.

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          #5
          Three up front

          well they didn't do a whole heap of defending, that's for sure.

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            #6
            Three up front

            Definition of a forward player has changed a lot in recent years, hasn't it? "Striker" used to be a thing, and a striker was basically either a target man or a nippy poacher.

            And then there were the number 10 'in the hole' types who floated around behind one or two strikers.

            But now you often see front threes, don't you, where one or two of them are what you might have called wingers/wide midfielders before, in that they are faster dribblier types? And you don't get too may of the poacher sorts - the central forward usually needs to do a hell of a lot of work linking up play.

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              #7
              Three up front

              Norway used three strikers at Euro 2000 -- Solskjaer, Iversen and Flo. For the deciding game against Slovenia, this was bumped up to four, with Carew coming in as well.

              They scored one goal in three matches.

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                #8
                Three up front

                Sunderland used three strikers to survive.

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                  #9
                  Three up front

                  Leicester have been playing with three up for the last couple of months. That appears to have worked.

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                    #10
                    Three up front

                    Well Liverpool, of course, tried it last season, with one of the same lads Barca have used this year. We scored 101 goals, but conceded 50. How has Barca's defence held up this year?

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                      #11
                      Three up front

                      As someone on the Liverpool Echo website was pointing out, conceding 52 goals in a league season is not an outlier for a Brendan Rogders team. That number stays quite stable and seemingly independent of the number of goals scored.

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                        #12
                        Three up front

                        What a difference a year makes - the forward line in the Sunday Stoke Shambles?

                        Lallana and Coutinho. Both of whom to be fair have scored more goals this season than any of the four recognised forwards on the books.

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                          #13
                          Three up front

                          The Awesome Berbaslug!!! wrote: well they didn't do a whole heap of defending, that's for sure.
                          Who needs defending? 95-96 we conceded a whopping two goals more than eventual champions Manchester United. I can only presume it was the dour influence of Dalglish that caused us to finish 96-97 having conceded four fewer.

                          94-95 was the only season of Keegan's tenure that was relatively poor in terms of goals conceded.

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                            #14
                            Three up front

                            Norway used three strikers at Euro 2000 -- Solskjaer, Iversen and Flo. For the deciding game against Slovenia, this was bumped up to four, with Carew coming in as well.

                            They scored one goal in three matches.


                            Given that Norway's strikers usually lined up about four yards in front of Thomas Myhre in those days, the fact that they managed a goal at all is the thing that's worthy of comment there.

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                              #15
                              Three up front

                              And here is that very goal, which was scored in time-honoured extremely basic style:

                              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVA5M366Jhs

                              Olsen was gone by then though. Nils Johan Semb managed them that year. Christ, they were such a blight on the tournament.

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                                #16
                                Three up front

                                And to be fair, if Yugoslavia hadn't let in two goals in injury time against Spain (possibly to avoid France in the QFs, safe in the knowledge they'd already gone through), it would have worked, too.

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                                  #17
                                  Three up front

                                  Why else do you think Alfonso is otf's favourite player of all time?

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