Not to go all Football Clichés, which you must never do, but are there any current players who can play both centre back and up front?

Going to suggest some explanations for this:

1) players are now coached to within an inch of their life for a specific position from an early age, so they've faced a general deskilling but are now better at playing specific positions. Implication of this would be that eg Dion Dublin would now be a better striker & worse CB.

2) a general increase in fitness etc means that players are better in any role they could play but now have a greater comparative advantage for particular positions. Dion Dublin would be both a better striker and centreback but would now only ever play up front.

3) Martin O'Neill no longer works as a football manager.

4) greater tactical regimentation & Taylorisation means that players irrespective of talent are generally and particularly deskilled over time. Dion Dublin would now be worse at both centreback and up front in 1999 but would now operate more effectively in the role of striker.

5) the lower intensity of the housing crisis means that players with the ability to play both up front and CB in 1999 weren't instead enlisted to present Homes Under the Hammer 20 years ago. Dion Dublin would never have played football. https://twitter.com/TreborRhurbarb/status/1232776462853398545

Quite persuaded by this tbh https://twitter.com/oidptg/status/1232782899650465801

A 25 year old Dion Dublin would now be...

(Fav for 'presenting Homes Under the Hammer')

Reckon this is a valid political compass tbh

Trying to work out what the equivalent options would be for Rene Higuita https://twitter.com/SundayShoutsFC/status/1250673025164275712

Pretty unfathomable from a 2020 eye view that not only did a goalkeeper who used to do this have a professional career but he got 68 caps & pulled the same stunts at a World Cup, where he got dispossessed and conceded a goal. I'm not even sure it was much more fathomable then.

completely forgot about Josh Magennis, who played as a goalkeeper for Northern Ireland U17s and was named as sub keeper for a League Cup game in 2007, and was playing full international football as a striker within 3 years https://twitter.com/francisqcoyle/status/1250698751745851392