Spurs Strikers – Stats review – Premier League season so far

Here is a review of the performance of Spurs’ three strikers performance in the Premier League so far. It makes for grim reading.

Our strikers have scored half as many goals as their main rivals – apart from Liverpool, whose figures show quickly the reason behind their fall from grace.

Goals against is also an issue, which I’ll look into in a separate article, but with our defence most would agree has some options for cover. In attack as you’ll see we have been supported by goals from Harry Kane, and damaged by shocking contributions from both Soldado and Adebayor.

As it stands, and unless our strike options change in January, then Harry Kane has become a single point of failure should he be injured for any part of the remaining season. Indeed it makes you wonder what our season would look like had Kane not provided so many goals, in League and Cup competition.

Here is the detail. Green means the player started the match, Amber means the player was a sub.

As you can see Soldado and Adebayor aren’t just bad, they are terrible.

Adebayor – 2 Goals in 10 games (9 starts) – 782 minutes
Soldado – 1 Goal in 11 games (8 starts) – 630 minutes
Kane – 8 Goals in 16 games (12 starts) 1037 minutes

At the half way point of the season Spur’s three strikers combined had scored 9 goals in 19 games – ouch.

Adebayor has played for Spurs 106 times now so by now we know exactly what we are going to get. When you remember he cost £5m you have to say it was a gamble that paid off as he scored 41 goals. If he was more consistent the fee would have been much higher and in honesty he would not have come to Spurs.

Soldado has now played 55 games for Spurs with 15 goals, this amount of games over two seasons suggests he’s had all the time he needs to adapt to the English game.
As a season ticket holder I am lucky to see players in the flesh. I have to admit I was surprised when I first saw Soldado that having just sold Defoe we brought in a player more similar to him that to Drogba, who remains the benchmark for a Premier League striker.

What next?

January remains a difficult time to attract players, teams reluctant to loose key assets. But as it stands any injury to Kane could end of our season on multiple fronts just think back to that dreadful 1^st FA cup 0-0 draw against Burnley for a vison of the future. As such perhaps a loan deal one in and one out represents a worthwhile roll of the dice. The strike rate from Adebayor and Soldado is so bad you struggle to see a new player doing any worse.

One more thing…

Manchester City deserve to crash and burn even at the hands of Arsenal. The income they receive for sale of “Intellectual Property” from their wholly owned sister club – New York Red Bulls is an insult to the Fair Play rules and every other team in the Premier League. Along with Chelsea they are jointly responsible for the huge rise in player values and salaries. Both are the enemy of football. But I have to say a half season loan for Dzecko could be just what Spurs need, what do you think?