This striker that we are looking for thats going to solve all our problems

[Rossi22]

It's half the problem. The other half is the lack of intelligence/craft/guile in the team.

 

[Kingdawson]

I agree Africanspurs. Ade and Defoe were admittedly poor but we were not a side who were creating clean cut chances like the first half of the year before. I think we are not set up to be a free scoring side right now.

Good post...we created next to fudge all for the most part and crossed our fingers for a Gareth Bale special.

 

[Yossarian]

We've been missed a creative player with some vision in midfield since Modric and VDV left. Holtby was the great hope when he joined.

We are still going to struggle to break down team sitting deep playing for a draw unless we sign that play with a creative spark.

I think Holtby will surprise a few this season. Pleasantly.

 

[mudshark]

Dempsey scored more scruffy goals for us than I remember for some years.

Ah, but did he follow any of them up with a raggedy cartwheel segueing into a forward roll afterwards?

 

[spurspinter1]

We've been missed a creative player with some vision in midfield since Modric and VDV left. Holtby was the great hope when he joined.

Why the word was?

It was always going to be a period of transition for him, new league, new teammates and new country/culture as well this it being a critical point in the season when he joined. Maybe I've misread part of your post but it already seems like you've given up on him, Spurs fans don't really seem to give new signings much of a chance, as many said, it was always going to be a period of transition for him and I definitely saw a lot that gave me the impression that he will be an important player for us

 

[africanspurs]

There are better strikers out there than Ade and Defoe which to me suggests that we will do better, if we have said striker in place of Ade or Defoe.

Better strikers at doing what exactly? and How much better in terms of goals a season in comparison with our highest scoring forward?

 

[africanspurs]

Five goals can win us five games i.e. 15 points - enough to have finished higher than we had. Also this is five goals directly from the striker, but what about high contributions too which could also add another five to 10 goals. Combined - youre starting to talk about title winners.

I do not want Ade at this club pure and simple. Dont really care what others think. I wouldnt ever employ someone who was as unreliable as he was and who took the fudgein biscuit. I would take a hard stance on him.

We could do a hell of alot worse than Ade but we could do a hell of alot better too and id rather focus on the 'hell of alot better' view point as that is what will get us up the ladder and beyond.

right, so the guarantee is that the 5 goals extra are 5 WINNING goals in games where without said goals we would have drawn the game. So these are game winners, why are they game winners in the first place and not close out goals then?
remember how many games we drew that we felt we were better than the opposition? Much better on paper at least? why would we still be lack lustre in those games that we would need winning goals to take us higher over the edge

Thats not even to mention that if we were still void of any true cutting edge in games then the next thing you have to ask yourself is how are the winning goals going to come about? the difference has been bale, a REAL game winner. Other game winners in the category you describe are not many , they are EXTREMELY scarce. Some that you have described as a FIFTEEN, not 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 6 points even, FIFTEEN!!! points differential.....players like Bale, Van persie, Tevez, Ronaldo,messi, Mata & Hazard together, ....these are game winner type players that you can feasibly hope and pray for game winning type goals and FIFTEEN points differential....i.e the difference from relegation to Uefa cup places..., the difference from Uefa cup places to winning an actual Title. You're saying that a single striker that WE can get is going to be able to offer this to us.

I dont know personally, i think it would take a bit more to see the significant change we are looking for

also , all those 40 million pound plus players i mentioned...ALL play for teams with more stuff going on outside of their respective teams strikers/forwards than we have.

You have to ask yourself what makes them i.e their team, play better in the first place? Is it the players themselves? what is it that these players offer in conjunction with other layers in their starting 11 that makes their team come across as ruthless and potent when they have the ball

 

[africanspurs]

If you look at the lack of intelligent movement of our strikers it's clear we can do better. They are so bloody static it is no surprise it looks like they lack service. There's no point passing to a player who's standing flat-footed next to a defender.

I think defoe significantly improved in this aspect last season. Significantly .

that isnt to say his positioning and movement couldnt be better...it could, but so oculd most peoples. I just keep having this image of defoe in an arsenal shirt, for a start i think defoe's movement is at least as good as Girouds. I see defoe working channels in that team that have been opened up by clever well timed full back marauding and wing forwards pulling defensive players out of the way, and i see defoe fed by these players and not to mention creative types with some vision in the form of wiltshire and cazorla and arteta......

now if you were to ask me if defoe could finish in front of goal..about 5 years ago i would say, probably not 'finish' but he can blast it in......today? i think defoe can finish and i think he would get a BUCKET load of goals in the arsenal team

i totally agree that a stagnant effect comes from no mobile players, and players with no real movement, but this effect is also visible in players with lower level technical ability, poor or slow decision making or players that have no vision combined with no real balls or players without football intelligence. It doesnt have to be a player lacking in all of these to give a stagnant effect though. For instance Sandro is technically not that good, and his passing isnt the best technically and its limited in range...BUT his decision making isnt slow, it isnt indecisive, he has balls, and he can see the pass he wants to make early and he makes smart ones, his footballing intelligence and zonal awareness is HIGH imo. he makes well timed forward runs...etc. with him i see more fluidity in the team all over despite his lack of technique or passing.

I think if we can sort out the general APPROACH our team has in build up to the striker...then we are talking CL certain or at least CL guaranteed competing every year...and i mean properly competing like its hard to see us NOT make it but possible. I think with refined and decisive embedded style of play throughout the club that we would see alot of dividends ...and the striker situation would sort itself out..whether with someone else or even with our own players

then we can get that good or really good forward and start talking title, then people will start moaning that we havent won the league in a 100 years

 

[Gutter Boy]

Our forwards (and I include Lennon in this) just dont show enough in attack. No movement, no cleverness, no intent, no trickiness and not nearly enough GOALS. Bale was too often our only source of inspiration up front. We need some new strikers desperately. 5 more goals a season is likely to make all the difference.

That's very true. It's why I'm a bit concerned that our plan b after missing out on Villa is Benteke, as he adds none of these.

 

[billyiddo]

If that's true what you say about Defoe Affy (scoring a bucket load for Arsenal) why has he never attracted serious interest from sides better than us? Sides who would have been able to scout him and come to the same conclusion as you - that our teams lack of movment/intelligence is all that's stopping him from being a 20-30 goal a season?

 

[Baleforce]

That's very true. It's why I'm a bit concerned that our plan b after missing out on Villa is Benteke, as he adds none of these.

I think its more likely that Benteke was always plan A but when Villa became available he became plan A1

 

[Armchair Expert]

It doesn't matter if Benteke was plan A or not really. You have to show flexibility in the market, and if a player's circumstances change making him potentialy gettable whereas before he appeared out of reach, then why shoudn't we be able to shift our attention onto said player?

Jermain Defoe? Ok, he never looked like scoring 20 goals in a league season in any Spurs team: didn't do it last year when we were apparently lacking craft in midfield. Didn't do it when we had the guile of Modric and VdV. Didn't do it when had players like Berbatov or Kanoute alongside him, didn'T do it as a lone striker, didn't do it with a ball playing CM like Carrick threading the balls through. When will he do it? Never. Not a chance.

I'm struggling to understand the mild attitudes towards Ade. By all accounts he isnt an inconsitent kid who is desperate for success, he is a lazy taco, probably the highest paid player in the club and he didn't score all season. His goal vs Chelsea? Cameron Jerome scored a screamer against Southampton - should we sign him?

If we had had a striker instead of Ade who could possibly have scored 10-15 goals then we knows where we may have finished. I can't believe that people seem to be adverse to the notion that if your strikers score then you finish higher in the league. Bonkers.

But then again scoring goals isnt a criteria most are interested in for our new striker. I am. Big time.

 

[DHSF]

right, so the guarantee is that the 5 goals extra are 5 WINNING goals in games where without said goals we would have drawn the game. So these are game winners, why are they game winners in the first place and not close out goals then?
remember how many games we drew that we felt we were better than the opposition? Much better on paper at least? why would we still be lack lustre in those games that we would need winning goals to take us higher over the edge

Thats not even to mention that if we were still void of any true cutting edge in games then the next thing you have to ask yourself is how are the winning goals going to come about? the difference has been bale, a REAL game winner. Other game winners in the category you describe are not many , they are EXTREMELY scarce. Some that you have described as a FIFTEEN, not 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 6 points even, FIFTEEN!!! points differential.....players like Bale, Van persie, Tevez, Ronaldo,messi, Mata & Hazard together, ....these are game winner type players that you can feasibly hope and pray for game winning type goals and FIFTEEN points differential....i.e the difference from relegation to Uefa cup places..., the difference from Uefa cup places to winning an actual Title. You're saying that a single striker that WE can get is going to be able to offer this to us.

I dont know personally, i think it would take a bit more to see the significant change we are looking for

also , all those 40 million pound plus players i mentioned...ALL play for teams with more stuff going on outside of their respective teams strikers/forwards than we have.

You have to ask yourself what makes them i.e their team, play better in the first place? Is it the players themselves? what is it that these players offer in conjunction with other layers in their starting 11 that makes their team come across as ruthless and potent when they have the ball

'can' doesnt mean 'will' I didnt say 'will'. Its all semantics and you know it is.

I think this whole idea that we struggle to break teams down is 100% correct ESPECIALLY at home where we struggle and to be honest I have been bored to death. Away we are brilliant and have no qualms about that, its at home that we struggle and thats no coincidence because we do lack that creative outlet. But you can create all you like, if you dont have the finisher to finish off the chances then youre still not gonna score the goals. Ideally you need both a creative outlet and a goalscorer but i think we wont have the funds for both so if its either/or then its a striker for me.

How many chances did we see Ade miss that even you could have scored? Sunderland, Swansea etc etc etc

I mentioned 15 but I could also have mentioned one or two and you know what? that would have got us CL... its one or two points forget 15.

 

[Robspur12]

When we had Keano and berba up front we had a midfield of Zokora, Jenas, Tainio and Lennon. Still scored a shed load of goals. Very good strikers or a good strike partnership create the chances themselves even where the rest of the team is mediocre. imagine that partnership with the midfield we have now.

 

[Robspur12]

By the way when Arsenal have not had a clinical striker they have struggled to score even with their midfield, in fact they have been accused of trying to walk the ball into the net iirc.

 

[gnspurs]

I think a new striker is definitely the way to go... people seem to be forgetting that we didn't have our best team out at all last season (or at least no more than a couple of times), our best team includes both Kaboul and Sandro, who both with overlapping injuries didn't/barely played together last season. The inclusion of those two back into the team would see us strengthen up at the back, and give us a more solid spine to the team, plus the inclusion of a new decent striker would get us those few extra goals and reduce the reliance on bale and in turn change us into the top 3 challenging team that we all want us to be!

 

[SubZero]

Five goals can win us five games i.e. 15 points - enough to have finished higher than we had. Also this is five goals directly from the striker, but what about high contributions too which could also add another five to 10 goals. Combined - youre starting to talk about title winners.

I do not want Ade at this club pure and simple. Dont really care what others think. I wouldnt ever employ someone who was as unreliable as he was and who took the fudgein biscuit. I would take a hard stance on him.

We could do a hell of alot worse than Ade but we could do a hell of alot better too and id rather focus on the 'hell of alot better' view point as that is what will get us up the ladder and beyond.

Actually, five goals could win us 10 points, other than that I definately agree with you. I think many players, even within our own setup could do better than Adebayor. Not necessarily because of skills, but because of hunger, work ethics and the need to be recognized. Which Adebayor incidentally has near end of seasons and/or contracts.

 

[NaijaSpurs]

I am not saying it has to be Benteke, Soldaldo or Damiao but he does have to be a striker of such ability that befits a top team battling for Champions League qualification.

Maybe it is just me but I would have thought we would have signed a player like that by now bearing in mind how well Defoe and Adebayor excelled in displaying their limitations and proving that neither player possessed the capabilities to be the first choice striker in in a team that may consider playing either 433 / 4231 / 451 and if neccessary he should be able to play with a partner should we decide to go 2 up top.

Now is this really too much to ask, especially when you consider how long we have been waiting for this mystical striker? Methinks getting this important decision right is the only chance we have of keeping Bale beyond next season

 

[NaijaSpurs]

Well now that Benteke has signed a new contract it ain't going to be him.

 

[NaijaSpurs]

Amazing how many clubs around Europe can close a deal for a striker and we cannot. Am I concerned? Hell yeah