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Carlos Vinícius struggling to make an impact at Tottenham

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Tottenham signed Carlo Vinicius on a season-long loan from Benfica to challenge Harry Kane for a starting place, but the 25-year-old isn’t having the best time in North London.

Vinicius has been short of form and playing time under Jose Mourinho and may not be signed permanently by us if things haven’t improved when the season comes to a close.

Overlooked by Mourinho

The Brazilian centre-forward has made only four appearances in all competitions for Tottenham, notching two assists. He’s amassed a paltry 187 minutes of playing time under Jose Mourinho and finds himself behind Harry Kane in the pecking order.

We knew Vinicius would struggle for games when Kane and Heung-min Son were available, but he’s not even being brought off the bench to gain some match sharpness. It’s only in the Europa League that Mourinho has given Vincius opportunities – 86 minutes in our 3-0 win over LASK (October 22), 45 minutes in our 1-0 defeat to Royal Antwerp (October 29) and 45 minutes in our 3-1 win over FC Ludorgorets (November 5).

The 25-year-old joined on October 2, was left out of the matchday squad in our 6-1 win over Manchester United (October 4), was an unused substitute in our 3-3 draw with West Ham United (October 18) and 1-0 win over Burnley (October 26), was left out of the matchday squad in our 2-1 win over Brighton & Hove Albion (November 1), played 12 minutes in our 1-0 win over West Bromwich Albion (November 8) and was an unused substitute in our 2-0 win over Manchester City (November 21).

Future uncertain at Tottenham

Big things were expected of Vinicius. The Brazilian scored 24 goals and made 13 assists in 47 games for Benfica last season, but he’s not fired in a Tottenham shirt. We have the option to sign Vinicius for €45m (£40.2m), but I can’t see us triggering his clause based on what we’ve seen so far.

He’ll need substantially more playing time before we’d make the decision to sign, which is exactly why we agreed a loan deal first. Vinicius is a prolific striker who improves our squad, but he’s not done enough to impress Mourinho. Fortunately, there are many months remaining of the season for him to turn things around.

In other news, why did Matt Doherty miss Tottenham’s win over Manchester City?

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Sports journalist who is an avid football fan, enjoys debunking transfer rumours, loves to write pieces about players out in the cold and takes a large amount of pride getting a predicted XI 100% correct.

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  • Niall D says:

    Hi Alan
    This is a tough one, Vinni was probably one of the ‘fall guys” in the poor performance against Royal Antwerp. It was always going to be hard for a player to come in and cover for arguably the world’s best striker, center forward, forward player (so many different names). Harry Kane is such a great player not just goal scorer but provider, build up play, defensively and a talisman to boot.
    How does an understudy come in and cover for that.
    Given too that we now have Bale up front as well who though not as prolific a goalscorer can play up top with Lucas, and Sonny if needed.
    It’s a difficult Conundrum for the young lad. Hopefully as the season wears on he will achieve some game time and he isn’t like his compatriot Gedson.
    On reflection, we may have been better with a player like Welbeck or if Giroud had’ve came to us.
    But who knows time will tell.

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