Tottenham Hotspur’s entire season hinges on the outcome of their Europa League quarter-final second leg against Eintracht Frankfurt.
The tie is delicately balanced following last week’s 1-1 draw. They need to win in Germany today (Thursday) to keep their hopes of silverware alive and for head coach Ange Postecoglou to cling onto his job.
Now would be the perfect time for Dominic Solanke to demonstrate why Spurs broke their transfer record last summer to sign him from Bournemouth in a £65million ($86m at the current exchange rate) deal.
In theory, Solanke was the overdue replacement for the club’s record goalscorer Harry Kane, who joined Bayern Munich in August 2023 for €100m (£86m, $114m). Spurs had considered signing Ivan Toney from Brentford, who instead moved to Al Ahli in Saudi Arabia, but Solanke was Postecoglou’s first choice.
The only problem is that their marquee striker has now not scored in his last 11 games — a run which stretches back to the beginning of January.
The pressure is on Solanke even more after Postecoglou revealed on Wednesday that captain Son Heung-min would be unavailable to play against Frankfurt tonight because of a foot injury.
You might be surprised to learn that Spurs’ top scorer in the Premier League this season is Brennan Johnson with 11. James Maddison (nine) is close behind. Solanke is joint third on seven, alongside Son and Dejan Kulusevski.
It is a slightly underwhelming return from the 27-year-old, who has registered a total of 2,033 minutes across 23 appearances.
Fellow striker Richarlison, who has struggled with hamstring and calf injuries for the majority of the campaign, has somehow scored three times in 293 minutes. The Brazilian’s latest effort came in Sunday’s defeat to Wolverhampton Wanderers, when Mathys Tel scored too. Tel has scored in back-to-back games but the 19-year-old Frenchman is still adjusting to the physicality of English football and a new environment after joining from Bayern in a February loan deal that includes an option to buy.
Spurs have three centre-forwards who are either struggling for form or fitness heading into their biggest game of the season.
Solanke has played over 150 top-flight matches in his career but the only season where he was truly prolific was the previous one, under Andoni Iraola at Bournemouth. Only Erling Haaland (27), Cole Palmer (22) and Alexander Isak (21) scored more than him last season.
Taking a look at the England international’s shot map, you can see he thrived on attacking crosses into the box from Bournemouth’s wingers. He converted a few low-quality chances, including two headers from awkward angles in his hat-trick during a 3-2 win against Nottingham Forest and a looping effort from outside the box in a 3-1 defeat against Brighton.
The first thing that jumps out from his shot map for this season is that he is underperforming his xG (expected goals).
According to the data, Solanke should have scored three more times based on the quality of his chances. He is shooting from further out (11.7 yards) but the xG per shot has marginally increased, which suggests a higher average quality of opportunity falling his way.
The biggest difference appears to be that Bournemouth created chances for Solanke in the six-yard box far more often than Spurs are managing to. A lot of the time, he is being presented with the ball around the penalty spot, where defenders will have a better chance of blocking the shot and goalkeepers have an extra fraction of a second to react if the ball gets past their colleagues.
Solanke experienced similar difficulties at Bournemouth, not scoring until his 39th appearance for them. Junior Stanislas, a team-mate on the south coast, told The Athletic last year: “His hold-up play, skills and willingness to run in behind — he was someone you always wanted on your team. He brought so much more than goals.”
As Stanislas’ comments suggest, Solanke’s underperformance in front of goal and Tottenham’s struggles to consistently find him in good positions do not mean he is playing badly. Johnson has been directly involved in 20 goals in all competitions this season. Before the 1-1 draw with Frankfurt last week, the 23-year-old winger explained why Postecoglou’s style of play suits him.
“We have a lot of fast players, so when the ball gets crossed, there tends to be a lot of space for the ball to go all the way across the pitch and it’s just about me gambling on what position to be in,” Johnson said in the pre-match press conference. “More times than not this season, I’ve been in the right position.
“Work does go on on the training ground, there’s a lot of coaches who do a lot of work with me, which I’m really appreciative of. One would be, for example, the first goal (in the recent 3-1 win against Southampton): noticing that Dom (Solanke) made the run to the front post, and being in position when the ball gets cut back on my left foot.”
It is encouraging to hear about the Wales international’s development but his comments touch on Solanke’s selflessness, which is a rare trait among strikers.
Solanke opens up space for others to exploit with his relentless running. He darts into different areas of the pitch, which gives centre-backs a dilemma about whether to track him or not. During his time in Chelsea’s academy, Solanke was praised for his ability to play as a No 9 or a No 10 between the lines. He can drop deep to link up play or stretch defences with his speed.
Pedro Porro’s equaliser against Frankfurt is a prime example of this.
Nobody would have blamed Solanke for allowing Son’s curved pass to bounce out of play but he doggedly chased after it. Maddison was credited with the assist but the move can be traced back to his striker’s intelligent movement. Even when he does not score, Solanke still finds a way to impact the game.
Something similar happened in January’s 1-0 victory over Liverpool in the Carabao Cup semi-final first leg: Porro played a long ball over the top for Solanke and he outmuscled Ibrahima Konate to reach it first and then set up Lucas Bergvall for the winner.
After only a couple of months of playing together, Spurs centre-back Micky van de Ven described Solanke as “unbelievable.”
“Even as a striker, you see offensive, defensive — he keeps running the whole game and I am watching him and thinking, ‘Phwoar, how are you even doing this, keeping sprinting over and over again’,” Van de Ven said before a 1-0 Europa League home win against AZ in October.
Richarlison’s fitness issues meant Solanke started and completed 90 minutes in the majority of Tottenham’s games before he suffered a knee injury in training in January that ruled him out for nearly two months. Just before that happened, Postecoglou said he had “exceeded” his expectations and admitted his striker needed “help”.
“Dom has just been outstanding in the way he’s carried the front line for us during this period,” Postecoglou said before a 2-1 loss to Arsenal. “With the way we play, we put a lot of demands on that position. It’s not just him standing up there scoring goals, it’s working hard for the team.
“I really think if Richy was available, I think (Dom) would have been able to contribute even greater for us in terms of his output in goals. I really love what he brings to us as a team from a football perspective, from a cultural perspective.
“The only growth we’ve seen in recent times is him and (Kulusevski) becoming on-field leaders in the team. With Dom being a new player, it probably would have been easier for him to slip in and do his job but he’s taken on the responsibility of helping the whole team. He’s been great for us. I really feel there is more to him and his game.”
Solanke’s work rate in and out of possession is undeniably world-class, with data from Footovision suggesting no centre-forward in the Premier League puts in so much effort without the ball. The bar chart below shows the players with the most pressures in a high block, defined by Footovision as a pressing phase where the centroid of the team is in the opposition half for at least four seconds. He is clear at the top.
Solanke also completes more pressures on the opposition goalkeeper than any other player (8.4 per game; Evanilson of Bournemouth is second with 6.3), suggesting that he has the physical capabilities to lead the line and apply pressure in an aggressive defensive shape.
A good example of Solanke’s pressing can be found in December’s defeat to Chelsea. He hassled his England colleague Levi Colwill and forced him to pass the ball to Marc Cucurella, who was also being hunted down by Johnson. Cucurella slipped, Johnson drove forward and whipped a cross into the box which Solanke fired past Robert Sanchez.
There have been lots of other occasions when Solanke has disrupted the opposition’s build-up, which has led to a chance for one of his team-mates. He will not receive the official assists but is clearly the architect of those goalscoring situations.
In an interview with Sky Sports last week, Solanke admitted it has been a “difficult” season. That knee injury disrupted his momentum, and other players also being sidelined means it has been difficult to build up any chemistry.
Spurs have lost more than half of their 32 league games and are 15th in the 20-team table with just two more points than fourth-bottom West Ham United while Bournemouth, the club Solanke moved on from last summer, are eighth and pushing to qualify for Europe. The forward has experienced the joy of returning to the England setup, seven years after his previous appearance, but has failed to match last season’s impressive output in front of goal.
There have been a couple of moments of brilliance this season, including a beautiful chip in a 4-1 defeat of Aston Villa in November but Solanke could do with a game-changing goal and the best time to provide it would be tonight in Frankfurt.
(Top photo: Julian Finney via Getty Images)