Manuel Onwu or Diego Mauricio, who should be Odisha FC’s main striker?

The two forwards haven’t been able to gel together for their team.

Odisha FC have not started their Indian Super League 2020-21 season in the manner they might have wanted to. With five defeats in the first seven games, the team has clearly struggled to get on the front foot and now find themselves among the bottom-placed sides approaching halfway in the competition.     The outfit have also struggled to score goals, with only five strikes going in and have conceded 11 in the first seven games. The bigger chunk of responsibility of scoring goals for the Juggernauts falls on their attackers, mainly their forwards in Diego Mauricio and Manuel Onwu.

While Mauricio is a new recruit, Onwu has retained a spot in the squad due to his impeccable form in the latter part of last season, where he had nine goal contributions (seven goals and two assists) in merely four games. 

Stuart Baxter, the new head coach at the helm, has found it tough to make his players combine well in the final third. Due to lack of player availability and quality in the attacking phase, goals have dried up. Moreover, the tactician has not been able to find his first-choice XI as of yet.

The question that emerges for Odisha FC is whether to stick by Diego Mauricio or Manuel Onwu? One of the main challenges for Baxter is to somehow utilize both of his forwards and get them to synergise well. In the first game of the season against Hyderabad, the tactician did field both strikers together. Onwu started the game on the left wing, but the plot clearly did not work.

In the following match against Jamshedpur FC, it was Onwu who led the line as the solitary striker. However, after not being able to make a difference, he was substituted for Mauricio and it was the Brazilian who made an impact by scoring two quickfire goals to get his team a draw.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clX70x3Q3Jc

Since then, the Englishman has kept his faith in the 29-year-old and had him in both of the starting lineups against ATK Mohun Bagan and Mumbai City FC. In both these fixtures, Onwu played a cameo role after coming off the bench, but did not have enough time or opportunities to make a difference.

Both Diego Mauricio and Manuel Onwu are different types of strikers who bring different qualities on the table. While the Brazilian is a workhorse who loves to run in behind defenders and press intensely, the Spaniard holds the ball up and comes deep to get involved in the build-up.

Therefore, in order to decide which striker to stick with, as it has been proved that both cannot play together, Baxter needs to make a decision according to the type of gameplay he wants to employ. Is it better to have Mauricio lead the line or use his energy as an impact-sub? Is it better to have Onwu as the target man and use his hold up play to get more numbers forward? In contrast, a third and more radical choice could be to play Onwu as a No.10, with Marcelinho and Mauricio leading the line.

In the last three fixtures against FC Goa, Bengaluru FC and NorthEast United respectively, it has been observed that Baxter has resorted to playing both Onwu and Mauricio together in a 4-3-3 setup. The Brazilian starts on the left wing and the Spaniard plays as a target man through the middle. This system has worked slightly better for the Juggernauts and could be used as a blueprint for the remaining matches. 

Stuart Baxter is already under a lot of pressure to get a win. The uncertainty about the starting lineup also plays in the mind of the players and Baxter needs to quickly have a settled choice of players starting on a regular basis.