How strike partnerships were phased out of the modern game

Andy Cole was gathering dust at Manchester United. Long buried under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Teddy Sheringham in Alex Ferguson's thoughts, Cole was eventually afforded a rare opportunity in a rather innocuous October trip to Southampton. What followed was a romance fit for Mills and Boon novels, and it wasn't short on heavy petting.

"When we started playing together, it was like meeting a special woman and falling in love. Everything felt right," Cole, presumably blushing, recalled.

For the rest of that 1998-99 season, a beaming Dwight Yorke and Cole in each other's arms was a common sight as the two combined for 53 goals in an unprecedented treble-winning campaign. They exchanged passes in front of stranded goalkeepers in the way lovers revoltingly insist the other hangs up the telephone. A striking duo wasn't new - Francis Lee and Mike Summerbee tormented defences for the blue half of Manchester in the '60s and '70s, while Ian Rush and Kenny Dalglish's union helped Liverpool dominate the '80s - but Yorke and Cole's bond was arguably the amorous apex of two-man frontlines.

Nowadays, rising divorce rates aren't restricted to marriages as those doe-eyed days are shunted into the history books. Alexandre Lacazette, Arsenal's record signing seven months ago, was sacrificed for the club's latest priciest purchase, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, in Saturday's 5-1 dismantling of Everton. Michy Batshuayi, Fernando Llorente, and Olivier Giroud were all on speed-dating clubs in the final hours of the January transfer window, cast off by their managers because of their aversion to deploying two up front. The days of strike partnerships are long over, and we're now entering an era where an out-and-out striker on the bench represents a sorrier existence than that of a substitute goalkeeper.

The striker dropped from the duo is the victim of changes in formation trends, and a growing reliance on pace and versatility.

The change of the offside rule in 2005 effectively expanded the playing area, reducing the effect of the offside trap and allowing smaller, technically gifted midfielders like Andres Iniesta and Luka Modric to thrive. Strikers finding themselves "isolated" following the tweak is such a common occurrence that mentioning it has become cliched. In modern systems - like 4-2-3-1s and the 3-4-2-1 popularised by Chelsea last season - only one player is forfeited up front and potentially starved of touches while his team is defending or locked in a midfield battle.

The burgeoning athleticism in the game also meant teams fielding two strikers threatened to get overrun in the vast midfield area. The understanding of Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton guided Blackburn Rovers to the title in 1995, but they lacked the attributes to forge a two-pronged high press in today's game, and neither would be able to drift into an inside-forward role, thereby helping their team exploit space between the lines and defend from the front. The famous SAS would separate in today's tumultuous climate.

The result is a solitary, immovable artilleryman - Lukaku, Harry Kane, Robert Lewandowski, Ciro Immobile - with his deputy warming the bench. For Lukaku and Kane, the automatic replacements wouldn't necessarily be the like-for-like backup (Ibrahimovic and Llorente), with the multifaceted pair of Alexis Sanchez and Heung-Min Son adept at stepping in and already match fit from minutes in a different position in the lineup.

England's January transfer window exposed the new attitude toward second-choice strikers. Aubameyang's arrival at Arsenal confused many - how can the Gunners set a record fee twice in under seven months for two players operating in the same position? The notion of Aubameyang lining up alongside Lacazette bewilders, particularly as it would necessitate a shift to a 4-4-2 formation. That schematic is increasingly regarded as a relic by England's leading clubs.

For Lacazette and the backups fit but left behind in January's flurry of business, a wasted send-off to the season beckons. Any (extremely optimistic) hopes of breaking back into the Spain squad for the 2018 World Cup are emphatically over for Spurs reserve Llorente. Lacazette will probably be named in the French squad, but he will be lucky to get more than a throwaway group game under his belt.

Yorke and Cole happily shared the limelight in their spell razing defences in the top flight. Now one of those attackers is positionally withdrawn and expected to contribute to more aspects of play, rather than operate as one of two genuine strikers. With inside-forwards, wingers, and some midfielders increasingly comfortable with filling in up top, being a striker has become a niche.