Why a fair few goals from this man is vital to our campaign

Liverpool’s Joe Cole made it clear during the summer that his decision to join a new club would be based purely on football reasons and that he was looking to play in a more central role from now on. In terms of our team the only central role suitable for Cole is in the hole behind the main striker.

If you had told me a year ago that we would have had Fernando Torres and Joe Cole playing together up top with Steven Gerrard behind them I would have laughed it off in disbelief. Those three playing up front is a hell of an attacking force.

As Joe Cole already knows though, playing in the hole brings certain responsibilities. He’ll be the man closest to Torres on the pitch during games and he’ll also be expected to be the main man linking the midfield with the attackers. Another responsibility he’ll now have to carry is that of being a decent goalscorer. By asking to be played in the hole Joe Cole has accepted the responsibility of having to be one of our main goalscoring threats and there is a bit more pressure on him now to be one of our more regular scorers this season. In recent years we’ve had players like Steven Gerrard and Robbie Keane play in the role behind the front man and they were both expected to score 15+ goals in a season. I’m not saying I expect Joe Cole to score over 15 goals but he should now be expected to chip in with a fair few.

Another reason why there’s more pressure now on Cole to score goals is the fact that yet again we weren’t able to bring in another striker to help share the goalscoring burden currently resting on Fernando Torres. If we had for example signed a decent international striker I would have expected Cole to eventually be pushed out wide to accommodate the new man in some games where we would be expected to score a hatful.

With no new striker to help in our attacking department however, it puts a bit more pressure on Cole to be a man we can rely on to hit the back of the net fairly regularly. Playing in the hole also means that Joe Cole will find himself in goalscoring opportunities quite often, so it is vital that he has his shooting boots on this season. So far his finishing has looked rusty to say the least but it’s still early days and his goal in Jamie Carragher’s testimonial was hopefully an indication of what we can expect from Joe Cole this year.

The final reason why Joe Cole needs to show how effective he can be playing in the hole is because of the man he has replaced; Yossi Benayoun. The Israel captain wasn’t the most consistent player around but he sure knew how to hit the back of the net and on many important occasions too. With Yossi managing to contribute around 10 goals a season during his time here and with Cole being seen as a superior player, it means that the England man should at least target a similar goals tally for this campaign.

I personally believe Joe Cole will go on to have great season for us and I fully expect him to be one of our top scorers. Cole asked to be played in a more central role and now he has to prove that he deserves to be there. Along with assisting goals he will now be expected to score more regularly and it is important that he takes his chances when they come to him; otherwise he could find himself back out wide doing the dreaded ‘graveyard shift’.

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