Harry Kane is off form. Yes he's still contributing and yes he's still getting in scoring positions, but he isn't putting them away and that is what strikers thrive off. I said at the end of the window that i feared this would happen. He's a kid in what basically amounts to his 2nd season and he's being asked to carry the vast majority of the goal threat for a team aiming to finish high(ish) in the league and compete in Europe at the same time. I also feel he may not have been 100% fit this season. I feel this is where the manager would normally take him aside and say "don't worry about it, let someone else take the burden for a while". Maybe use him off the bench or even send him off on holiday (a-la Sterling). Alas, our manager wasn't even afforded that option by our stupid transfer window policy/competence. It seems Harry is gonna have to continue to play a large number of minutes, i can only hope this doesn't do too much to ruin his confidence. What other options do we have? I'm happy to play Clinton up top in the EL, i'd rather waste that comp than ruin Harry (either physically or mentally) if that is the option. This should never have been an issue. Ridiculous. HE'S ONE OF OUR OWWWWWWN, HARRY KANE HE'S ONE OF OUR OWN
I agree. Although we have been unlucky with Son's injury. If he were fit, I don't think we'd have as much of a problem. Especially in last night's match.
Little point making excuses for the manager as this is the squad he's happy with, this is his team and the players signed fit into his plan. If you asked Pochettino would he rather Son or Austin, he would have said Son. But lets not forget, we tried to sign Berahino, whether we would have still signed Son is up for debate, but Pochettino wants a certain type of player, while some fans just want any striker, such as Austin, a player the manager would never want to sign. Anyway, last season we/Pochettino got lucky with the unexpected form of Harry Kane. This year we/Pochettino have been unlucky with the form of Harry Kane, we just have to hope Kane is simply lacking in confidence, which is temporary. Kane would probably be more suited to the days when teams played 4-4-2, that way he would be great in a strike partnership, with a partner that was a regular goal scorer. Kane would be the unselfish partner that assisted, worked hard and would also chip in with goals. Kane won't be the first striker to struggle with the pressure of being the man main up top, and it may be a case that last season was a complete one off and his ability/goal return will be somewhere in-between last season and this season.
Would Berahino have been a massive help? He's a good player, but he offers something similar to N'Jie, in my opinion. He's more direct and probably a bigger threat, but if Kane's not available then we don't have a striker that can hold up the ball and bring others in. He'd have been a useful option, but we really needed direct backup and competition for Kane, as well.
Pochettino is in quite a strong position to ask for certain players. The club gave him a long contract, they shifted out players to make way for his signings, while bringing in Mitchell from Southampton and moving on Baldini. If Pochettino wanted a striker to hold the ball up, bring in others and be in the mould of Lambert (like he had at saints) then he could have targeted such a player. So while I can see the benefit in having such a player in the squad, Pochettino clearly doesn't want that type of striker, so we can't always blame the clubs transfer policy or Levy.
It seems unlikely that he'd block a move for a player that plays in the same style as one of his starters, though. I'm not sure who would've been suitable, barring maybe Mitrovic, who we were linked with prior to his Newcastle move. He'd need to do quite a lot more running in a Pochettino side, so that might've been an issue.
According to the AGM last month, the club's policy when it comes to signing attacking players is to sign players who can play in more than one position. From that standpoint, Son and N'Jie fit in with this, as would the various other strikers we bid for and/or were linked with (i.e. Martial, Berahino, Ings, Konoplyanka, Yarmolenko, Carrasco, Pato, Werner, Embolo, Sane) - but Austin would not.
Part of the the clubs transfer policy is based around the managers plans, with the changes made reflecting the direction we want to move to and while Pochettino was hired to fit the policy of bringing through youth, Pochettino has a part to play in the transfer strategy. I never believed anyone at the club was interested in Austin, it was more a call from fans but Pochettino is involved in the recruitment and he isn't interested in signing the type of striker some fans hope for. Whether Pochettino will be proved right, is obviously going to depend on our success, as if both Kane and Son are fully fit and in form, there is no concerns over the striker situation. But I don't pay that much attention to these players we are linked with, as most are to fill empty pages or keep gossip sites active.
The problem we had in the summer was we were looking for a backup striker, which can be quite the hassle for most clubs - or to put it another way, Chelsea or City can offer financial incentives for Remy etc to sit on the bench for 80% of the season which we cannot. If we were after a first-choice striker it would be relatively easy: meet the valuation, negotiate terms, and hope we don't get gazumped by a club that uses their wealth to tempt players away from signing for potential threats to their position. In terms of transfers, that's simple. Signing somebody to come off the bench is a tougher prospect, partly because players will obviously be expecting to have a reasonable amount of playing time, but also because the player could be hopelessly unsuitable (i.e. Andy Booth or Grzegorz Rasiak) Based on the players we were linked to in the summer, the best option probably would've been Ings or, at a push, taking a gamble on Pato (although what appears to have killed that deal was having to pay off his loan to Sao Paulo which would've doubled the fee, and given his injury history that no doubt would've given those in charge pause) Similar can be said for some of the striker's we're being linked to at the moment: Laurent Depoitre of Genk has written all over him which would put him at a similar level to Ings or Austin, Leroy Sane is raw so could go either way, and if we were looking at Pato in the summer his loan with Sao Paulo ends in December so he could be back on the table.
I'm unsure how successful clubs are at signing players specifically to play a role off the bench, more that players find themselves being that player, and if we made any attempt to sign a player to come off the bench, I would say there is a greater chance of them being hopelessly unsuitable as you mention. Looking back to when we had Defoe/Keane/Berba, a time when we had variety and options up front, all three signed to be first team starters with both Keane/Defoe at various times finding themselves coming off the bench, more so in the case of Defoe, but then we played a system with 2 up top. Much of these issues are with the restrictions of playing 1 striker! a 4-1-3-2 would be a system that could open up more options, but we appear to be one of these clubs trapped in the 1 striker system.
The one-striker system certainly benefits clubs who can offer financial incentives to sit on the bench, for example Lambert was on £40k a week to sit on the Anfield bench while Remy's getting £80k a week to sit in the front row of The Jose Moronho Histrionics Show. As we can't offer that, we need to offer players playing time, and the best way to do that is to be able to say to players that they'll be on the wing for games where Kane starts and play up top for games where Kane is rested. The best thing about the Keane/Berbatov/Defoe era is we could rotate in Defoe for Keane, but also we had Mido in reserve as well - before Comolli went and ****ed that one up by replacing Mido with Barren Dent, so we suddenly had a lot more appeasing to do than we had before. Twelve months later we found ourselves contemplating how two strikers who should've been the options from the bench, namely Pav and Fraizer Campbell, being first-choice. Nice one, Damien!
I still cannot fathom how some, including apparently Pochettino, see No One as a better option than someone like Charles Austin.
One thing I've seen mentions is that a lot of the chances that Kane misses are low shots into the corner that last season went in, but this season the keeper's foot blocks it on the line time after time. Hopefully this is being addressed on the training pitch.
Pre season the warning for us and Kane. was opposition defenders would figure Kane out. As it turns out. the goalkeeper union where holding meetings and analysing Kane.
A lot of it is just bad luck, but if he added a little dink to the ball it would clear the keeper's foot and be in the back of the net.
We where trying to sign a player on our terms, which was never going to happen, while the Son deal took place when it was clear Berahino wasn't going to sign. I doubt the club had both players as targets initially, more a case of circumstances meaning we had to look for an alternative. If we had managed to sign Berahino, I doubt the Son deal would have took place, but it may turn out that Son is the superior player overall, and his work rate suits the Pochettino system.
I've seen various reports suggest that both Son and Berahino were targets we've had all window. Had we signed Martial I'm sure that would've affected things but they were very much in our thinking. If I was to speculate, I'd guess that Berahino was the one we wanted done first and Son was the one we were prepared to haggle until deadline day for but had to meet Leverkusen's demands once Peace started kicking up a fuss.
