I’ve pooh-poohed the idea of Tottenham signing Christian Benteke this summer, but the links aren’t going away.
Football Insider say Jose Mourinho has greenlit a move for the out-of-favour Crystal Palace striker after missing out on Alexander Sorloth, Danny Ings, Ollie Watkins and Callum Wilson, but it would be embarrassing if we did pull it off.
What does our scouting team see in Benteke?
I really don’t get it. He doesn’t score many goals, earns far too much money at Crystal Palace and he’ll turn 30 December. Benteke isn’t good enough for Tottenham, having flopped in his last three seasons with the Eagles, so it makes little sense why this story won’t die.
We do need competition for Harry Kane and have been linked with Arkadiusz Milik, Haris Seferovic, Danny Ings, Wout Weghorst, Loren Moron, Carlos Vinicius, Callum Wilson, Vedat Muriqi, Patrik Schick, Troy Deeney, Robin Quaison, Rhian Brewster, Ollie Watkins, Alexander Sørloth, Bas Dost, Habib Diallo, Willian Jose and Mario Mandzukic, so Benteke shouldn’t be on our shortlist.
The Belgian international made 115 appearances in all competitions for Crystal Palace since joining from Liverpool in 2016, scoring 23 goals with 10 assists. Benteke scored three goals in 31 league games in 2017/18, one goal in 16 league games in 2018/19 and two goals in 24 games in 2019/20.
He has an £8m asking price and earns £120k-per-week/£6.24m-a-year at Palace, so it will cost more than £26m to sign him on a standard three-year deal. Benteke really isn’t worth it. Scoring just six goals in his last 73 games is aysmal.
Benteke is a good target man who wins the majority of his aerial duels last season (145/258 aerial duels won) while boasting quick feet to beat his opponent in one-on-ones (19/23 successful dribbles), but he’s not on the level of Kane.
There are plenty of target men who know where the back of the net is, so I don’t know why Benteke is being considered.
Palace don’t even want him either. Benteke finds himself behind Jordan Ayew and Michy Batshuayi in the pecking order, but he’ll get a game for Tottenham?
No chance.
In other news, what are the pros and cons to Tottenham signing Josh King?