If you’re going to be a successful football club, you need to have at least one striker that can score you 20 or more goals a season. And most managers would like to have two, or even three, strikers that can get at least 10 goals over the course of 38 games.
Having a midfielder as your top scorer isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and last season Rafael Van Der Vaart was indeed Tottenham’s top scorer with 13 goals. The problem for Spurs however, was that only one other player, the erratic Roman Pavlyuchenko, reached double figures for Spurs in the league, with just 10 goals.
Spurs started the season with four strikers in their 25 man squad. Pavlyuchenko, Peter Crouch, Jermaine Defoe and Robbie Keane. Between them they managed just 18 league goals. Crouch and Defoe scored 4 apiece, while Keane didn’t score at all in a limited number of appearances, before joining West Ham on loan in January (he managed just two goals as the Hammers were relegated).
In total, Spurs scored just 55 goals in the Premier League, the lowest total of any of the top 6 clubs. Clearly the problem lies with the quality of those four strikers. Harry Redknapp loves his sides to play attacking football, and in Van Der Vaart, Gareth Bale and Luka Modric, he has players who can split defences and put quality crosses into the box with ease.
At the end of the January transfer window, Spurs were linked with last minute moves for several of La Liga’s best strikers. Giuseppe Rossi, Fernando Llorente and Alvaro Negredo were amongst the names mentioned, but nothing came of it. Clearly Redknapp knows where his team’s biggest weaknesses are.
But this summer, Spurs have been very quiet on the transfer front. Just after the end of the season, stories appeared in newspapers suggesting a clearout was needed at Spurs, and also that Redknapp might be required to sell before he could buy. So far only Jamie O’Hara (£3.5million to Wolves) and Jonathan Woodgate (free to Stoke) have left the club, with Brad Friedel (on a free) the only player of note to arrive.
Two seasons ago, Spurs took advantage of Liverpool’s horrendous season to beat Manchester City to 4th place in the Premier League, leading to their first Champions League campaign. They enjoyed themselves and reached the quarter-finals before losing to Real Madrid. A lack of goals last season resulted in 14 draws, and although they finished 5th in the league, the season was something of a disappointment.
That 9 of those draws came at home highlights their problems even more. Their goal difference at home was just +11, with only 30 goals scored by the team at White Hart Lane. Spurs lost just one game at home all season (a shock defeat to Wigan), with only Man Utd bettering that after going the whole season unbeaten at Old Trafford. Scoring one more goal in just three of those 9 games would have given Spurs 6 more points, which would have left them level on points with Arsenal, who finished 4th.
But Harry Redknapp finds himself with just a couple of weeks until the start of the 2011/12 season, and he’s yet to find that one striker that will convert the chances Spurs’ talented midfield creates for him. With Liverpool revamping their squad, Redknapp’s team could find it difficult to finish 5th or better this season without splashing the cash on a new centre forward. He has been linked with a move for Emmanuel Adebayor, but it remains to be seen how Spurs fans would react to the signing of a former Arsenal player, especially one who so enjoyed scoring against Spurs. Other strikers are available, but they won’t be cheap, and it is unclear if Daniel Levy would sanction the purchase of a player for say, £15million or more without more players leaving Tottenham first.
One thing is for sure, if Spurs want to continue the success they’ve had under Harry Redknapp, they need to find that 20 goal a season man somewhere.
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I the defence entirely agree. We need at least one top striker even if we can’t sell anyone at present. It is vital. We must also strengthen the defence. We don’t need another winger. If we are to get back into the champions league we must be bold.
I reckon Levy doesnt trust Harry cos he’ll be of soon.I dont trust him either.
They are the rules governing football that force Spurs to buy some players able to score regularly.
You get three points only if you win a game.
In order to win a game you need to score more goals than the rival team.
Last season Spurs failed to reach a place in top four because the team couldn’t win in 22 out of 38 PL games.
Given that currently only VDV can score a number of goals during a season, it means that Spurs have to replace all their current (so called) strikers who don’t score on a regular basis but still they are getting paid for that and occupy a place in the team.
Given also that the team has in its squad a number of DM, the club has to replace Modric by a more creative and able to score more goals than him attacking midfielder.
No shit Sherlock! State the bleedin obvious or what. I won’t bother reading the article.
That you’re so outraged by just the headline of the article is more satisfying to me than any positive comment. Thanks!