There is one thing that can escalate a player with limited ability to a level that they would normally not be capable of reaching.
Pace.
Be it as a defender or a striker, speed can make a huge difference in either being able to recover from mistakes or gain that yard of space needed to get a shot away.
In the Scottish Premiership there is a reason why most defenders are here and not playing down south, yes, they might be physical, but, they lack the pace needed to step up a level – how often have we seen our own defence, who rarely look slow domestically, step up a level and get caught out.
And this is why we need to start playing Fashion Sakala in the league.
A frustrating injury means that we have only seen flashes of the Zambian international, however, he has the pace that none of our other strikers possess, we have tried playing Kemar Roofe and Alfredo Morelos together as our best goalscorer but it has failed to work on more occasions than it has – they take up too many similar positions – although it did pay off against Brondby.
What Sakala also offers is that he is a hard worker, we have seen with Ryan Kent in the past how many chances he creates for himself or others by closing defenders down who don’t realise how little time they have with him in the vicinity, we would also have two options over the top whenever defenders are brave enough to leave their 18-yard box, the save he drew from Thomas Mikkelsen on Thursday was purely down to his ability to get away from the defence.
Pace causes panic which causes chaos, if a defence is allowed to be settled and well structured it is harder to create chances, we signed Sakala for a reason, it’s time to give him his shot.