Unfortunately, Premier League football clubs in the 21st century are are ethically dubious whore houses, not club-class rescue centres for football’s waifs and strays.
Roberto Soldado’s time at Spurs hasn’t been a happy one. Word is that he has endured a particularly torrid time of it in his personal life, whilst maintaining an exceptional reputation within the club in regards to his attitude and application. I’m told that he’s much loved by the rest of the lads and well respected by the younger players, to whom he sets an excellent role model.
But the problem is, that he’s a striker who doesn’t really score any goals. He’s probably nearly scored dozens of times. But real goals, that actually went in, crossed the line, were counted etc in all competitions, amounts to a paltry ‘5’.
Even if one were to ignore what his reported transfer fee and were to ignore what he’s almost certainly earning, he still isn’t living up to his job description. Aside from the lack of goals, he has otherwise contributed a meagre 4 assists. His passing accuracy rate is 76% and his shooting accuracy 72%. These are not the figures of a champion.
Tottenham fans are divided. At the ground, the boos and groans are reserved for Adebayor. But Emmanuel’s public image has been destroyed by his inability to actually be continuously available to play, allegations of being disruptive and inflicting an incessant stream of Instagram pictures of himself in various scenes of unmitigated grotesque luxury, curiously hash-tagged with #GodIsLove and other genuflections to an invisible friend who has guided him to unimaginable opulence and excess.
Online, Bobby gets as a rougher, or shall we say, more conditional ride. My sense is that patience with even the most forgiving fans has worn super thin. He has displayed some wonderful moments of skill, but nothing that was more than a fleeting glimpse of what is required, and required on a pretty regular basis.
It is my belief after getting their fingers so badly burnt with The Magnificent Seven, that Levy & Co will now adopt a very much pro youth policy mixed with moderately priced maturer talent. Quite why it has taken them so long to work out that the likes of buying a Berbatov, a Bale or a Modric were not just inspirational for the performance of the football team is beyond me. The club’s splurge on expensive/over-priced euro trash was completely at odds with any successful forays THFC had ever had in the transfer market.
Which of course brings us back to the ever present issue, namely the Director of Football ‘thing’ doesn’t work.
Until Levy has the courage or dare I say wit, to allow talented professionals such as Mitchell & Co to do their job, unhindered by a proven untalented amateur (namely himself) then the situation won’t change. Overtime you want a Schniederlin, you’ll get a Stambouli. And so on.
Anyway. One man who THFC have supposedly spied to fill Bobby’s boots is Simone Zaza. Zaza is a 23 year old striker who plays for Serie A side Sassuolo. Cub chief executive of the John Carnevali told Tuttosport.
At the end of the season we will know the best solution for everybody.
It is being said that Simone must move to Juve but that isn’t necessarily the case as there are some foreign clubs looking at him as well, most notably Tottenham Hotspur, so we want to try and maximise the best deal for the football club.”
Juve asked us about Zaza in January. We told them that we would rather talk about this in June. Relationships are excellent between the two clubs and they already have an option to buy back the player.”
A cursory glance at Zaza doesn’t bode that well. Last season he scored just 9 goals in 33 appearances, and so far this season, he’s buried 8 from 20.
But then you see that he might only cost about €15million and you immediately recognise Baldini’s DNA splattered all over the case file and we see it’s another spreadsheet purchase on the horizon. Mind you, the player is thought to prefer a move to Juve. The bullet could yet be dodged.
On a side note, our old pineapple pub-head Jamie Sanderson has published another misleading piece in today’s Metro. His headline is the rather grand: Simone Zaza’s agent ‘flying to London to hold Tottenham transfer talks’ but the truth is the source article in Calciomercato actually says…
Christian Maifredi and his collaborators, who hold the prosecutor Simone Zaza, are planning a trip to London: at the moment there is only the desire to understand what is the proposal of Tottenham, but Juventus is the first choice.”
The problem with Bobby as with Erik Lamela, is that for all the grumblings and rumblings by those of us who see some good, but not enough, potential buyers will feel the same way, and it is difficult to believe THFC will ever get what they are likely to ask for Soldado or anyone else who’s value has nosedived since joining Spurs.
If UKIP bingo mosques are your thing, we’ve got that covered in this week’s Hotspur’s Half Hour.
