I find it strange people consider Benteke a 'massive gamble' but would be happy with Soldado. Benteke has proven himself in an awful team in England having to make all of his own chances and drag his team through games. He's only 22 (we have time to develop him of he struggles or sell him on) strong, fast, good with both feet & good in the air. Soldado is 29 (if he struggles we won't have time to help him develop or recover) he's neve played in England and he has a very good creative midfield making his chances & would have no sell on value. Damiao? Seems like a dick an is unproven. Who else are you wanting? Benteke would be a great signing.
Not really, it's potentially overpaying but if you can afford it, it's not much of a gamble. We need a striker that can get us plenty of goals and I can't see any argument that he wouldn't do just that for us. A gamble, for me, would be signing someone from a foreign league to do the same, or relying on Ade to return to his free scoring form of the first season.
The highlighted part could have been badly applied to Papiss Cisse after his first games for Toon, when everyone wanted to sign him. I'm sure there's a few that thought he was the next best thing. You'd be disappointed to have wasted 25m on him had we bought on that premise.
And yet the reason Cisse struggled is because of the departure of his strike partner, being played out of position and the injury to Cabaye. With the service of Demebele, Bale, Paulinho, Lennon, Holtby, Sigurdson and eing plate through the middle - Cisse would have scored a bucket load of goals last year. It was just Newcastle's shocking midfield creativity & being played left wing that ****ed Cisse over last year! I'd be happy if we signed either him or Benteke this year. I also think we should enquire about Dzeko and see what Moyes is planning to do with Hernandez as Rooney, Welbeck and RvP were preferred to him last year.
If Spurs sign Benteke and a left back they will be a force to be reckoned with next season, providing you keep Bale.
I posted a link a while back where his agent said we'd made an offer but was waiting for Porto to make one (what's that, tapping-up in reverse?) and, more recently, there's this: http://www.goal.com/en/news/11/tran...ttenham-priced-out-of-bernard-deal-says-agent Pretty clear he's trying to line his pockets by saying we and Dortmund can't afford him (even though Dortmund have the Mario Gotze money burning a hole in their pocket along with their CL final paycheque), but it's that part about Porto, Mineiro and Bank Mendes Gans that's almost glossed over that sticks out - because it sounds like a third-party ownership rearing its ugly head again.
why do people keep saying,if we keep Bale,don't they keep up with the new's?they just as bad on the mouser's board,wishing Real or someone would buy him,to give their team a better chance next season
Both Soldado and Benteke would be more than welcome. Both would be a gamble for the price though, regardless of their age or EPL experience. Being young doesn't always necessarily mean a player will turn out a superstar if he struggles initially and EPL experience doesn't guarantee an easy fit, as we've seen far too much in recent seasons (Pienaar, Bentley, Ade 2nd season... Plus non-spurs ones like Torres, Carroll etc).
In a way i agree, there is 1 season wonder syndrome, but i don't think its because the players are known quantities. Benteke was still scoring goals at the end of the season, after every man and his dog had had MONTHS to look at tapes of him and cater for him accordingly. I think the more probably cause of 1 season wonder is the players head, this would be what worried me about Benteke. However, having said that, show me someone better we have a legitimate shot at?
You're right, but when reports claim Madrid will drop interest for a year and Bale himself has supposedly said to Sky that he wants to do well with US this season, it gets a little boring hearing "providing you keep Bale" from most non-Spurs fan posters.
I'd still take Cisse at the club. His progress was partly stunted by being moved out of position for Ba in the first half of last season and playing for a team in chaos. The money doesn't really matter that much when you're talking about what's a gamble. To repeat the example of Ade that I used, he's free as we already have him, yet if we kept him as our main striker for next season it would represent a big gamble. If we can afford him then for me Benteke's the ideal choice of any striker that we could realistically sign. I'm not saying that he's worth £25mill or that we should spend that much on him but I wouldn't see signing him as a big risk, he's got pretty much everything you could want for a striker in the PL. If Villa look like they're digging their heels in and asking for a price we can't really afford or think is ridiculous then fair enough, we won't get him. Maybe even Chelsea might come in and blow us out of the water. But I still think he's the striker best suited to us that we've been linked to.
So why didn't Adebayor score a bucket load of goals last year? He scored a bucket load the year before, and apparently can't blame the service he had. I don't understand this insistence that because a player has a good season, they are guaranteed to reproduce it year after year.
I think the answer is that very top strikers do produce it year after year - RVP, for instance. Whether Benteke belongs in the top drawer of strikers remains to be seen.
There are variables. How well the team plays, how often the striker plays, what position he is played in and whether any injuries are being carried. If those are all the same, then a decent striker should make a similar return year in, year out.
