Parklaneyido says: Give Llorente a chance!
With the news that Harry Kane is now out until March and Son away until then also, the panic has started amongst many media outlets and some fans alike: “How will they cope?”, “Spurs have to bring in a loan striker!”, “It’s the end of our season!”, “Boo Hoo!”
In the past, when Harry was not about, I used to measure potential striker targets by the number of league goals they would regularly score in the season. I always felt we needed a striker that could score on average at least 1 in every 2 games at Spurs.
Looking at Llorente’s records, he’s never quite managed 1 in 2, but came close in 5 seasons, including one for Juventus (16 goals in 34 games) and his season at Swansea (15 goals in 33 games). Fernando’s 5 league appearances this season have rendered 0 goals, but when you take into account they account for total of 36 minutes on the pitch, that’s not so surprising.
Clearly, Fernando Llorente, who cost the club a reported £15million in 2017, is not Harry Kane. However, like Harry he is comfortable and skillful enough with the ball at his feet as well as in the air, where he can make his 6ft 4inch presence felt. Apart from possibly his season with Juventus, I would also argue he has never really played with an attacking midfield unit as creative and skillful as Alli, Eriksen, Moura and Lamela.
Tottenham’s next games are: Fulham (A), Chelsea (A) LC, Crystal Palace (A) FAC, Watford (H), Newcastle (H), Leicester (H). Apart from the Chelsea game, all of these seem perfectly winnable or more winnable than playing a fellow top 6 club.
When you consider Pochettino plays Llorente in cup games, he clearly values his contributions to some level and doesn’t consider him surplus to requirements. His comment after the Tranmere match, suggested that the main reason Llorente doesn’t get a chance is because he’s the 2nd striker after our Harry.
In the past when Harry’s been out of the team, we’ve tended to use Son as main cover instead of Fernando, but now he’s also gone, I see no justification for not giving Fernando a proper run of league games and a chance to make a name for himself in our colours.
So let’s give Fernando and a run in the team please, Mauricio. If it goes well, we might just have found our solution to the 2nd striker “problem” and then we can start worrying about who’s going to cover for Llorente!