At present, there aren’t many issues that divide Spurs fans as much as Pochettino’s choice of striker. A lack of goals, the hangover from last season’s problems and the angst over AVB and Sherwood have all contributed.
Soldado made his first league start of the season last weekend, reopening the debate.
With Pochettino favouring a 4-2-3-1 there is only room for one regular starter in the league but who should it be?
(See below for Poll and results)
- Adebayor
Adebayor was easily the most effective striker last year once he was brought back into the team, scoring 11 times in the Premier League. He is big and strong, providing a useful aerial target. He holds the ball up well and is relatively quick.
On the negative side, sometimes his touch is not the best and he isn’t that quick at releasing the ball, vital for counter attacking football. He also tends to drift left and doesn’t get in the box enough, although this can lead to some useful work in the channels.
1 goal in 7 this term is not a great return.
- Soldado
It’s fair to say Soldado has had a torrid time so far at Tottenham. Of all our Bale funded recruits, the former Valencia man was supposed to be the finished article, ready to start immediately. 6 goals in 31 league games – most of them penalties – tells it’s own story.
Low on confidence, he has struggled to adapt to the Premier League. Nobody would deny he has had his problems at White Hart Lane but the question is can he come good or is he just not suited to the English game?
Soldado may have missed the vital penalty at the Etihad, but otherwise he had a pretty good game. He linked up well with Eriksen, Mason and Chadli. He played a part in the nice one touch passing moves that sliced City open and gave us hope. He set up the goal and played the pass of the match, putting Mason through.
The problem is he doesn’t provide enough of a goal threat, which was, after all, what we bought him for.
- Harry Kane
Harry Kane came up through Tottenham’s youth ranks and is still very raw at the age of just 21. He is tall and can provide an aerial target but has the skills to play as a number 10 – just the combination Pochettino had in Rickie Lambert at Southampton.
He can certainly pass the ball – see his nice assist for Dier in the first game of the season. He also isn’t afraid to shoot, as demonstrated by his fine solo goal against Besiktas.
He sounds perfect!
His issue is his inexperience. Soldado and Adebayor have both proved they can play at the top of the game (at Valencia Soldado was unstoppable). Kane is still so young and doubts remain if he can really handle football at the highest level.
Conclusion
In January a striker must be top of Daniel Levy’s list but who should Pochettino go with until then?
This is a tough choice and I can see strong arguments for and against all three.
Personally I would try out Soldado again this weekend against Newcastle. Going forward we looked sharp at City – defending was our problem – and the Spanish striker was at least a part of that. Kane isn’t ready yet and Adebayor doesn’t fit the system as well.
Poll
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What do you think? Should we buy a striker in the transfer window? Who would you go for? Let me know in the comments below.
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Anything But Penalties 
If Kane’s only drawback is experience, then maybe playing him a bit more often is the answer. Perhaps the manager does not realise this.
The problem is that there is so much riding on games and the manager is always a bad run away from the sack so giving a young player time is a risk. It’s a big shame.
Then there’s always the chance he might not turn into the player we hope.
I don’t think any of the 3 are good enough to start: we need a striker that can dribble past defenders to score goals & be ready to receive chance to score! Keep Kane as back Up!
SELL:Soldado / Ade / Pauhino / Lemela / Chirches / Noughton / Lennon / Townsend / Rose!
BUY: L-R Back ./ Morgan / Jay / Center Forward? / Winger? Javier on loan? Mateo?
Then we can challenge for Title next season;with currant team lucky Top 10 finish!
Idiots.Lamela has a future.Now as far as strikers are concernd soldado should lead the line.We are very fluid when he plays.Kane should be back up because he is english.Just like mason,apparently nobody saw mason flaffing as many chances as soldado.Spurs fans should get behind the team.Telling people,at your local pub.That soldado is pants is stupidity of the highest level.
Our mistake so far is not to have bought a really good striker and we are paying for it in the sense that we are scoring very few goals.. We must get a really good striker in January. Adebayor, Kane and Soldado are not up to my expectations. For the time being, we should alternate between Soldado and Kane although I would tend to make greater use of the latter who has more aerial skills and is more used to Premier League football than Soldado.
I think you’re right but the question is who would you buy?
We could have done better with that colossal amount of money we obtained when selling Gareth Bale.
It is hard to say who we should buy as striker. This is best left to Levy and Pochettino but what I can say is that we do not have to look far beyond Premier League players already experienced in Premier League football. We could have had a go at players like Lukaku, Benteke, Ricky Lambert, Adam Llalana, Rodriguez, Remy, Boney, Hernandez, Ssesignon and Fletcher amongst others. They are not the top best but in my opinion, affordable and better than the strikers we have at the moment.
Soldado for me, on the basis of an excellent performance last match. Two shots on target, one assist, he won a penalty and his support play was excellent. He came up against Joe Hart in exceptional form.
Agreed, he deserves to keep his place. Newcastle should be a totally different challenge.
Based on Saturday’s performance, i would vouch for Soldado. But i think it all depends on who Poch picks for Thursday’s game.
On a different note, though it is clear that our strikeforce is not impressive enough, it is not as if there are tons of proven strikers out there willing to come to Spurs. I think that’s one thing people need to take into perspective. We have been linked with Berahino and Huntelaar but i doubt we’ll be able to attract them.
You have a point, not always easy to get them, unfortunately. Someone like Huntelaar could make a difference to our strikeforce. A pity we missed out on Wellbeck snatched from us at the last minute by Arsenal. As for Soldado, he certainly has great football talent but the problem with him and like Adebayor, he is not consistent. Quite often, he is but a flash in the pan. Kane, on the other hand, in spite of his inexperience, is ‘a rising star’, improving all the time and so needs the chance to play more often.
There aren’t many proven strikers and, as we saw with Soldado, just because they score goals in one environment isn’t a guarantee they will in another.
We probably will find it tough to attract those two and yet they are a 31 year old and a young prospect, not players at their peak.
Play soldado for the rest of the season.As for replacements berahino looks decent.huntellar is class but old.Its not a question of replacing.We need to play to our strengths and do it with prudence.Chadli can play as a striker too.
Soldado all the way. Give him 10 league starts in a row, tell him he’s the first choice striker, give him some better service (picking players that can stretch defences by providing width would be a start – hurry back Kyle Walker) and I bet you he starts banging them in.
Or until we are able to select full-backs that can contribute offensively, how about a switch to 442:
Lloris
Dier Kaboul Vertonghen Davies
Lennon Capoue Eriksen/Mason Townsend
Soldado Kane
Eriksen has great crossing and shooting ability from the right, give Townsend a mandate to hug the touchline, get in behind and give crosses and cut backs to the forwards, both of whom have intelligent movement.
Davies?.erhm.Let him capture his form at europa.Where the hell is chadli and lamela?.
Well the whole point of my post was that to get the best out of soldado we need more width stretching defences and creating chances for him to finish.
For the 4231 to work at it’s best you need attacking fullbacks giving width; as we don’t have these at the moment (walker injured and rose pants) the width needs to come from somewhere and unfortunately neither Lamela or chadli are wingers, even though it’s difficult to leave them out as they are clearly our best players so yeah, difficult one. 442 tonight should be interesting.
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