Roberto Soldado – Will We Ever See The Man From Valencia?

I remember back in the summer seeing Franco Baldini pictured in Spain negotiating with Valencia for the sale of Roberto Soldado to Tottenham. Those last words, ‘Roberto Soldado to Tottenham’, was something I had been hoping to see for a long time yet never in a million years expecting to see on our official site. Naturally, I was extremely pleased with Franco and Levy’s work when the deal was finally announced. I thought we finally had our striker, the man to lead our attack and make us properly forget about Berbatov.

Sadly, things haven’t exactly panned out as I expected. He hasn’t been the player who in his three seasons scored 25, 27 and 30 goals in all competitions. One goal from open play in the Premier League, a string of penalties and numerous chances spurned has left the country wondering what we paid so much money for. Soldado was supposed to be our poacher, the man who took his chances clinically, wasn’t perpetually offside and would fire us into the holy grail of the Champions League.

The fact that this has yet to happen has left many people ready to discard the man in the summer, a far cry from the almost universal jubilance amongst Spurs fans when we signed him. This, I feel, would encapsulate the fickle nature that so many people associate with our club and our fans. Look at Adebayor this season, scoring for fun since Sherwood took over, yet last season he was missing the chances that Soldado has been missing (bar the Chelsea wonder goal of course!) and most were ready to sell him to anybody who’d take him in the summer.

Football fans are quick to forget. We forgot Adebayor’s debut season with us, we are forgetting Soldado’s record across his whole career and assuming that the version we have now is the only Soldado there is. What if Arsene Wenger did that with Aaron Ramsey, or Harry Redknapp did with Gareth Bale? Given time to adjust and gain some confidence, I truly think Soldado can be a valuable asset to this club and hopefully he will get back to the man we thought we had signed and his name will be sung from the terraces rather than associated with regret.

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