Typically on a Saturday morning, I’m up early to catch the Premier League fixtures from the United States’ eastern seaboard. However, before I have to opportunity to park myself on the sofa and enjoy a late breakfast by relaxing to the sounds and songs of match day ringing through the television, I offer up my services to the local youth club by spending an hour instructing the program’s padawans, ages 5-8. The joyful smiles of such young players in the very genesis of their careers never fails to be contagious but even at such a tender age, it’s evident which tiny stars have that nose for goal, that instinctual extra sense to score. You could boil it down to the nature versus nurture debate and whether or not the art of goal scoring can be taught, but at the end of the day a true goal scorer has had it in their DNA all along. Throughout the course of football’s history so many come to mind that it’s best not to start a list I could never finish. Nonetheless, it’s pivotal for big clubs nowadays to unearth these players and inject them into squad lists. Yet, what happens when you’re privileged enough to claim more than one of your own? It’s a question that faces top managers all over the European continent and still they don’t all come up with the same solution. Who’s right - and can you be wrong? It’s worth looking into.

As I climbed into my car after the latest morning session this Saturday, I quickly dug deep into my jacket pocket to check the scores of the matches. I’d be home in 10 minutes to catch NBCSN’s broadcast of Liverpool v Crystal Palace and to my delight, I hadn’t missed anything in the opening minutes. However, as I shuffled through the front door moments later and flicked on the match, the score had been altered – 2-0 to the Reds. My mood dropped off considering I’d missed two goals and not many teams go two tallies sour at Anfield and live to tell the tale; for a neutral the damage had been done. Checking the score sheet again now, I read out the names of the usual suspects: Suárez 13’, Sturridge 17’. The two frontmen, one right footed, one left, are turning heads from all directions with the potential to be the most formidable striker pairing in all of Europe, but only as far as a couple weeks ago did Brendan Rodgers have questions to face.

They say for managers, a selection headache is the best kind of headache to have but it was quite a tricky one for the former Swansea boss. With last season’s second leading scorer in the Premier League, Luis Suárez, becoming available at last after serving a 10-match ban for biting Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanović in April, Rodgers had a choice to make. Liverpool Football Club was off to their best start to a league campaign since 2008, and with fans finally receiving the results they’d been craving from the help of red-hot sensation, Daniel Sturridge, how missed really was Suárez? There’s an old saying that goes ‘don’t fix it if it isn’t broken,’ but what Brendan Rodgers did next was brave – he improved it.

Two weeks ago at Sunderland’s Stadium of Light, Suárez made his return to action in the BPL, in that same eleven was Daniel Sturridge. With the Black Cats clawing at survival even as early as late September, the visitors rolled through as 3-1 winners. An opener from Sturridge and goals from Suárez on either side of halftime was enough to do the trick. As mentioned above, the pair each made their mark again against Palace this past weekend. Liverpool are sitting joint top of the Premier League table with Arsenal and for the first time in a couple seasons, Reds’ supporters are beginning to feel optimistic again. Rodgers called the understanding between the two hit men “telepathic.” They’re both agile and mobile, interchanging dynamically in the gaps, feeding off each other’s movements and successes. Dare I say the compatibility between the two strikers could earn Liverpool a spot on the most prestigious of all guest lists for next season – the Champions League? It’s not as farfetched as it seems with other heavy hitting clubs in England’s top flight dealing with issues of their own.

None so more than David Moyes at Manchester United. For me, the scrutiny he and the club have endured is a bit unfair. Sure, most United supporters can’t bear to look at the table right now but it’s the second week in October, mind you. Moyes is a tough manager. For all those years on Merseyside, he kept Everton afloat and doing relatively well with nearly no budget, taking scalps off of superior clubs that he had no business bothering. That being said, Moyes had time to work with at Everton. That’s not a luxury anyone enjoys at a club as daunting as Manchester United.

What Sir Alex did won’t be replicated. The man squeezed every last bit of potential out of players that many others would have overlooked. However, United is under new management and undergoing changes. If it was easy, we’d all be managers, am I right? Knit-pick all you’d like, but there’s a reason your phone wasn’t ringing during the selection process. But if there’s one thing Alex Ferguson left behind for Moyes apart from that massive pair of boots, it’s a host of striking talent. Think about the strike partnerships that can be formed there – RVP & Rooney, Chicharito & Welbeck, RVP & Chicharito, Welbeck & Rooney, Rooney & Chicharito… You get the picture.

Surely Moyes has to play two at a time. A system with one starting forward and three heavy paychecks sat next him on the touchline is unfit, but which two in which games remains the problem. You don’t want any of them to go stale and at the same time you don’t want any of them to leave. It’s as much managing personalities as it is football. At the moment, Rooney and Van Persie are the preferred duo, but when the goals aren’t coming as thick as United supports would like, who do you think the finger will be pointed at? Clearly they have the experience above the other two, but when will the patience run too thin? Certainly there’s a waiting line of clubs queued up if any of the Manchester United forwards decide they’ve had enough. All of a sudden the selection headache we spoke so highly of doesn’t look as fun as it once did. Ultimately, the decision will have to come down to form - not only in matches but also in training. We don’t see what David Moyes does.

Speaking of striker form, Chelsea will wish they had any at all. Well they do actually; it’s just that he’s on loan at Everton in the form of Romelu Lukaku. Mourinho will seldom admit he’s made a mistake and the Portuguese denied that loaning the Belgian was the wrong move but Torres, Ba, and Eto’o haven’t seen the goal in so long, they’re beginning to forget what shape it is. Like Sturridge, who has caught fire on the redder half of Merseyside, Lukaku has never been given his chance to be the striker at Chelsea, seeing as recent managers have been playing with one up the middle. Partnerless one could say. Lukaku would have been the fourth striker in a system that only really requires one. So the question is, was he the one to bump out? It goes without saying though that wide players and midfielders have supplied the majority of the Blue’s goal count thus far.

Real Madrid are currently undergoing a similar dilemma. Benzema’s form has abandoned him this season but his competition for a place isn’t as trialing as it was when Higuaín was in the squad. He’s being pushed along mainly by young Álvaro Morata, who scored this past weekend in his substitute appearance to help Los Blancos fight back to a thrilling finish away to Levante. Trust for Benzema and company? Or will Ancelotti dip into the transfer window?

Wide speculation surrounded Liverpool and Luis Suárez’s future this summer, and a possible destination was Real Madrid. The Spanish giants never came for the Uruguayan, but his compatriot Edinson Cavani, Ibrahimovic’s new strike partner at PSG, has recently speculated that Real Madrid is Luis’s dream club and that a potential move to Arsenal was never in the cards. Instead, Liverpool’s number seven would rather wait for the Madrid offer. Whether this true or not, it would foolish to throw away the progress of the Liverpool project come January. Perhaps Madrid will start finding the net a bit more if Gareth Bale ever regains full fitness.

If there is one reliable striker in Madrid, he doesn’t ply his trade at the Bernabéu but a bit further south at Atlético de Madrid’s Vicente Calderón. There were more than a few question marks hovering around where Atleti would find goals this season with Falcao lured to Monaco by mega millions, but fans seemed appeased with the signing of Barcelona’s David Villa. Nonetheless, it’s been someone else that is really shaking the Earth in La Liga. His name is Diego Costa. In fact, he’s La Liga’s current leading scorer with 10 goals, two more than Messi and three more than Cristiano Ronaldo for the lot of you that needs the present comparison. Though he may be a bit rough around the edges, the monster has been integral in Atlético’s textbook 4-4-2. Simple as it may seem, Diego Simeone’s team have made it work, and work well at that! A recent 1-0 win at the Bernabéu against Real Madrid marked the Colchoneros’ first league win over their city rivals since the 1999-2000 season. At the moment, Atleti remain perfect in La Liga, keeping pace with Barcelona.

For the sake of argument, we’ll leave Barcelona alone, though. David Villa was the only real out and out striker in their squad before his exodus. Would you call Neymar a straightforward striker? Not really. Yes, Messi scores an unearthly amount of goals but creates them all the same and with the complex interchangeability of tiki-taka’s hypnotizing aura, it’s difficult to identify their striking role. The Spanish national team manager has commonly adopted a similar approach, which has become known as the “false nine.” Even with strikers such as Torres, Villa, Soldado, and Negredo available, the World Cup and European Championship-winning gaffer often elects against identifying a set striker. That being said, he’s called Swansea’s Michu into the national fold for the impending international break for the first time. Nevertheless, according to the former Oviedo and Rayo Vallecano man, even he likes to play in behind the most advanced player. This season he’s been bouncing ideas off of Wilfried Bony, the latest goal scoring phenom from the Dutch Eredivisie to try his luck in England, or Wales rather. They’re a stocky pair but I think given the time to work things out they could be potentially lethal. Michael Laudrup will be hoping so. Circling back, whether Spain decide to make full use out of Michu or not is entirely up to them. No one is in a commanding position to tell them how it should be done. They must be doing something right.

The verdict is still out on which teams are making the right decisions. After all, it’s only October. It’s an interesting start to a long season, though. A lot of what you see now directly correlates to how the strikers have been performing in their respective clubs. To toss one more saying in your direction “Offense sells tickets. Defense wins championships.” Not entirely true if all you can do is draw 0-0.