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Tottenham Hotspur have been linked with a transfer bid for a striker who could get them the goals they need - but the deal could become more complicated.
Tottenham Hotspur need a striker – more than two months after the disappointing end of the 2023/24 season, that remains as true as ever, and 15 goals in five pre-season friendlies hasn’t changed the fact that Ange Postecoglou wants to live in a world where Son Heung-Min is a left winger and Spurs have someone worthy of taking on the number nine shirt. Spurs have a lot going for them right now, but they simply need to score more goals. That could be where Dominic Solanke comes in.
Last season, Spurs scored the fewest of any of the teams that finished in the top seven, and only two of their players made it into double figures in the league – the aforementioned Son, of course, who did a fine job as a makeshift striker but only generated another vacancy elsewhere, and Richarlison, whose inconsistency seems to have worn Postecoglou’s patience down. Solanke, meanwhile, cracked in 19 goals despite playing for a team that had far less creative muscle in their squad.
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Several media outlets, including the Metro, have reported that Spurs have approached Bournemouth about signing the former Chelsea and Liverpool striker in the hopes of agreeing a deal that would come in a little way under his conditional £65m release clause. TeamTalk, meanwhile, have even suggested that Spurs will try to drive the price down even further by including one of their extraneous squad members.
Whatever the eventual financial specifics look like, Spurs are the first and thus far only team to have made a move for Solanke despite reports linking him with other teams. Perhaps those sides are put off by the substantial price tag or by the fact that he only has one strong Premier League season in his locker, or even by his relatively limited (or focussed, if you prefer) skill set. But that skill set could well be just what Spurs need.
They don’t lack for creativity, innovation, technique and pace in midfielder, after all. Between Son, James Maddison, Brennan Johnson, Timo Werner, Dejan Kulusevski and company you can put together a supporting cast which has elegance guile or raw pace or anything else in between, but they need someone who knows how to put the pieces of the puzzle together – a forward with the knack of finding and exploiting half-yards of space and sticking the ball in the back of the net.
Solanke has the guile to find those little pockets of space and the physicality to get the better of defenders. He isn’t a great technician and his first touch can be imperfect, and he isn’t necessarily a first-rate finisher (he actually slightly undershot his xG last season) but he now has the nous to get himself into scoring positions time and again, and that begets goals. It’s hard to imagine that he wouldn’t keep scoring at any team which could keep the supply coming – and Spurs should be able to do that. Finishing touch is one of the few big things they lacked last season, and it cost them a place in the top four.
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So on almost every level, a bid for Solanke makes quite a lot of sense. One could argue in favour of other options and one could question the cost, but perhaps that could, as has been suggested, be eased by sending one of the Spurs’ many unwanted back-ups down to Dorset in part-exchange.
The TeamTalk article cites un-named sources in naming a list of potential makeweights – Sergio Reguilón and Djed Spence, full-backs who have spent the last year farmed out on loan; Oliver Skipp and Giovani Lo Celso, midfielders who are firmly behind others in the pecking order; and Alejo Véliz, the young Argentine striker who struggled to make a strong first impression after signing last summer. Bournemouth, it is implied, could pretty much take their pick.
The Cherries don’t desperately need a full-back given the performances of Milos Kerkez and Adam Smith last season, but the latter is 33 now and Max Aarons hasn’t had the impact that was hoped for. Spence is a decade younger and while he may have lost his way a little through an injury-riddled period of his career, he did decently well at Genoa over the second half of last season and has apparently impressed Postecoglou in pre-season.
Véliz would be a replacement of sorts for Solanke but endured a frustrating year after signing for £13m from Rosario Central a year ago, managing just one goal between eight games at Tottenham and a loan spell at Sevilla. His best years are, no doubt, ahead of him, but there is scant evidence that he has the chops to fill a Solanke-shaped hole on the south coast just yet.
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Which leaves the midfielders – Skipp is a fine passer with excellent range who can time a tackle, but between Lewis Cook, Philip Billing and Alex Scott, there is a possibility that central midfield isn’t seen as a major priority right now, although manager Andoni Iraola has been experimenting with a 4-2-3-1 formation in pre-season which would put more emphasis on a combative midfield pairing in which Skipp could well flourish.
That same system could easily create space for Lo Celso, whose raw statistics as a creative number ten or left winger are very impressive but who has nevertheless been restricted to intermittent starts at the occasional late cameos. Postecoglou simply doesn’t rate him as highly as other players at his disposal, but he is still a deft little player with an eye for goal and a good first touch. If Bournemouth need a number ten – and they probably will if the tweaked system sticks – then Lo Celso could be a very enticing and economical option.
Of course, there’s always the other option, which is to take the cash and make their own signings rather than picking through Tottenham’s leavings. But Spurs may well have more spare players than space in the profit and sustainability ledger, and Bournemouth could easily upgrade their squad from the squad men that Postecoglou is happy to cut adrift. In the age of amortised purchases and instant cash on the balance sheet after a sale, it’s highly unlikely that the two clubs would agree an ‘actual’ part-exchange, preferring separate transactions instead, but don’t be entirely surprised if Solanke moving to Spurs sees someone moving the other way, as well.