Abu Dhabi: In his 1970s pomp with Liverpool, Kevin Keegan flourished alongside an archetypal centre-forward, John Toshack, the pair plundering a combined 196 goals in six bountiful years together.

Given such a prosperous partnership, therefore, Keegan is disappointed that old-fashioned targetmen of Toshack’s ilk appear to be a dying breed.

That certainly seems to be the case in the ongoing European Championship in France, where totemic strikers such as Poland’s Robert Lewandowski and Zlatan Ibrahimovic of Sweden have failed to shine and score.

The in-vogue 4-3-3 formation, as employed by the Spanish La Liga champions Barcelona, has also arguably contributed to the demise of the traditional No. 9. Indeed, the Catalan giants were perhaps the first club to give rise to the ‘false nine’ position, with their prolific talisman Lionel Messi given licence to roam beyond the penalty box.

“The game’s changing,” Keegan, a former England manager and now a television pundit with beIN SPORTS in Qatar, told Gulf News in a telephone interview.

“The old number nines are virtually like dinosaurs now and are a thing of the past. Firstly, there are not many of them and secondly, you’ve had 24 teams come to the tournament and look at the teams that have gone through [to the knockout phase]. They’ve got through by defending sometimes.

“Slovakia against England [in the final Group B game] didn’t play a centre-forward and there have been two or three teams playing like that. People think it’s easy because you have 70 per cent of possession, but it’s easier when a team comes at you a bit and leaves some space behind to attack.”

Of his dismay about central strikers becoming increasingly redundant, Keegan added: “Yes, it is [a disappointment], but teams have been successful playing without them. The Spanish national side have not really had one in recent years and you can’t name three good centre-forwards from the 24 teams in Euro 2016.

“If you’re an international manager, you can’t go and buy a centre-forward like you can at club level. But even at club level in the English Premier League, how many teams are struggling to find a top, top-class centre-forward? There are plenty of near-misses, such as [Romelu] Lukaku and [Diego] Costa, but real No. 9s like in the old days that held down their position and you’d say, ‘yeah, they’re the best’? There are very few of them.

“Teams aren’t playing that way anymore. Barcelona would be a prime example. When did you last see a number nine at Barcelona?”