Completely agree with the last sentence, that's where my head is at. Great work so far but needs that striker to make it a truly successful/ solid window. As I've said many times too, I'm really not that fussed who we bring in. We just need that option to ensure Kane isn't ran into the ground. Once the striker's in we can secure the Bale loan from Madrid
We've signed 4 mate. Alfie Devine...300k from wigan Joe Hart ... free Hojbjerg... £15m Doherty... £13.8m plus add ons For what it's worth I think that at least 2 more will be signed. Am really hoping one will be a striker!!!!
Really impressive. Benrahma and Henry both being linked with big moves too. Tarkowski isn’t on that list either.
Ally Gold actually reported there were no add ins in the Doherty deal. Makes it even more of a steal... providing he ain’t **** I think the same though, two more to come in, striker being one.
I scouted this lad in the season before last. He was on QPR’s books at the time and out on loan at Fleet Town. Fleet were struggling at the time and at home to Yate who eventually got promoted. Fleet won 2-1 and White had an outstanding game. Spurs told me to watch him again and he looked very nervy next time with erratic handling and distribution. We dropped our interest after that and Watford snapped him up.
Looks like they sent him out to Stratford and Hendon on loan and neither worked out for him. Can't be easy moving around all the time and only getting the odd game here and there. Hard to see him starting for Woking either, to be honest. Their keeper missed two games last season and they conceded 10 goals. I can see why they feel the need to bring in some better backup, though!
Not signing Wilson wasn't a surprise for me, for the simple reason that he'd expect to be starting every game especially as he's on the fringes of the England team so needs regular games, which he wouldn't be for us unless we could offer him enough wages to make him not care about missing out on an England place Watkins is more annoying, or at least is until you see the price: when he was first linked a few weeks ago the fee being quoted was £15-18m (and I have to say, since I'm on the subject, when we were first linked with Wilson the quoted fee was £10m, not the £20m he moved for) and not £28m + £5m in add-ons, and that's the difference: £15m for a backup striker seems like a good price, but £28m is what we should be paying for a starting option because, as I keep having to remind people (and why the **** do I have to keep reminding people of this?) we're not in a position to chuck £28m at someone to come off the bench for the last fifteen minutes This is the problem we keep running into time and again when signing someone to understudy Kane: we can't pick up somebody in their prime as they have two alternative choices available to them, namely getting paid less but being guaranteed to play every game or being paid more to play every third or fourth game - while we're smack bang in the middle of that, as they'd play as much as they would at Chelsea or Man Utd but get paid less that they'd make there The problem this leaves us with is we either end up with someone in the twilight of their career content to not play every week like Llorente, or we're having to take a punt on a Janssen and hope things work out okay - which is where we currently are with Habib Diallo, and were with Sehrou Guirassy until this happened... ...which is more than a little annoying because Guirassy honestly looks a better option to have than Diallo, but once again Rennes offer him the chance to be the main man which could possibly lead to a bigger move a year or two down the line than he would if he was or backup striker
We should be looking for another striker to rival Kane, to play alongside Kane or instead of Kane, not an understudy capable only of the odd 15 minute bench appearance. We have a lot of games, players need rotating to keep them fresh, we may have injuries, fatigue or loss of form, there will be plenty of opportunity for a new striker to start games, as well as from the bench. Any player needs competition for his place, somebody else chomping at the bit to take their place away and to keep them on their toes, and that includes Kane.
I always think this when i see your fellow supporters saying "it's hard to get a back up striker to Harry". Many teams have more than one striker (Fergie used to have 4), it gives competition and another way of playing. If you team/manager can only play to suit one particular striker then something is wrong.
How many teams have two legitimate top quality strikers in their XI though? Near enough every team in the league and Europe that has an elite level striker, doesn’t have another striker on that wavelength. The other striker is often classed as a backup. Back in Fergie’s day you boys were dominating England and at times Europe, plus in large spells you played 442, that formation is a rarity these days so top players wanted to join and play for the club. Nowadays your other striker is Ighalo who’s happy chilling on the bench most weeks.
When you say our other striker is that in addition to Martial, Greenwood and Rashford? Yes i know they don't all play as strikers but they are all capable of it, Ighalo is something different off the bench which is what you need to back up Kane. Many of your supporters think it's so hard to get another striker because nobody is as good as Kane in the way you play, that is not what you should be looking for. You need someone who is good at the way they play as an alternative and a system/team that is fluid enough to accommodate the change when needed. Jose will sort this
So for your Martial, Rashford, and Greenwood - we will put up Kane, Son and Lucas they can all play up front but 2 of them prefer to play wide.
Just pointing out that we (and as you say Spurs) already have more than one striker. Why do you think it's so difficult to get a back-up for Kane?
I think you’ve sort of said it yourself though, D - “they don’t all play as strikers but they’re capable of it” - that’s like us using Son and Lucas as examples then. Worth pointing out two of yours came from your academy as well so it’s not as if Utd went through the difficulty of trying to sign them, props to Utd for utilising them but as you know with us, if the talent’s there we’ll also play them, right now we don’t have an academy player ready to jump into the first team which is why we just loaned out Parrott with the hope he can do that for the following season. Ighalo is essentially your backup striker, he’s a natural central figure that plays second fiddle to Martial. In most of your matches you’ll (as in Ole) will pick Martial over Ighalo. We basically need our version of an Ighalo. Or looking at the rest of the league, we need an Origi or a Jesus or a Giroud and so on. In an ideal world, sure, it’d be unreal to sign someone who can play alongside Kane but the market for that level of quality is very slim. So the reality facing us is that we have to try and find a player who for most weeks will start from the bench. Llorente was perfect for that, I and quite a few others were gutted we let him go and never replaced him. We need that option again.
I sometimes come over wrong in the written word. i never meant you needed someone to play alongside or like Kane, what i meant was you need someone who is good at what they do, it's then up to the team to service him hence the ability to change system/style when needed.
I definitely agree with that and that’s what I want. We need that extra option. It was suicide of the club to go into the season with just Kane last year and it’ll be even worse if we do the same this time around. I do think we’ll sign someone but I think fans have got to manage the expectation as to who that should be. If some of our fans are expecting a £40m+ striker they’ll be disappointed.
I think DH is right In Llorente we had the best 2nd option striker that we have had since Harry came to prominence, and we should have tried harder to keep him though the likelihood is that even if he stayed for last year we would still require a replacement now. We all know that we need somebody and in ideal world 2 on the basis that we have a lot of matches and Harry is injury prone, the 2nd one would be probably be a youngster, but we need a premier league experienced player - I see rumours that Batshuayi is headed back to Palace maybe we could hi-jack that deal though Chelsea doing us a favour is unlikely, but if he is going to Palace I would not be totally against a move for Benteke, I know that he has been short of goals for a while, but there is a player in there and one Jose maybe able to get the best out of, and would be quite cheap!
