Tottenham should have signed Gonzalo Higuain last summer when he “may have taken less wages” to join them, according to Dean Saunders.
The pundit and former striker claimed on talkSPORT today that the AC Milan striker, who is set to join Chelsea on loan until the end of the season” is a brilliant capture for the Premier League club.
Saunders claimed Spurs should be lamenting their wasted opportunity to land Higuain when he left Juventus last summer.
“What a signing that is for Chelsea, exactly what they need,” Saunders told the Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast on talkSPORT on Thursday (8.30am). “He’s a class act, great finisher, gets goals everywhere, what a great signing.
“What are Spurs going to do? They had an advantage over Chelsea at the start of the season because they they were in the Champions League and Chelsea weren’t.
“If Higuain had an option in the summer, he may have taken less wages and gone to Spurs because they were in the Champions League. They never capitalised on the chance they had.”
"What a signing that is for Chelsea… but Spurs should have bought him."
Dean Saunders says Higuain is exactly what #CFC need and explains why #THFC will rue not buying him.
Do you think Higuain will be a success in the Premier League? ? pic.twitter.com/HL9PVqx1P3
— talkSPORT (@talkSPORT) January 17, 2019
OPINION
Would Higuain have been willing to join Spurs on loan from parent club Juventus last summer? Even if the cash-conscious Londoners were able to agree to pay the striker’s wage – which is very unlikely – Higuain would surely have baulked at playing second fiddle to Harry Kane. The forward is, indeed, a class act. As Saunders points out, he is a supreme goal-getter and the kind of fox-in-the-box who will be an immediate upgrade at Stamford Bridge on Alvaro Morata and Olivier Giroud. The problem with persuading strikers to join Spurs, as Pochettino has pointed out in the past, is they must accept that Kane is the undisputed first choice. That is a role the real elite are unwilling to accept. Higuain, understandably, only wants to be at a side where he is the main man and has a more than decent chance of starting nearly every match. Higuain is a fine player but Saunders is way off on this one. He doesn’t fit the profile of the sort of young, talented, mobile attackers that Spurs are in the market for.