There’s no way to sugarcoat it; the last few weeks have been abysmal for Tottenham Hotspur.
Ange Postecoglou’s side recovered from their shock loss to Ipswich Town by hammering Manchester City 4-0 at the Etihad, but instead of going on a run after such an incredible result, the North Londoners have seemingly fallen off a cliff.
They’ve drawn at home to AS Roma and Fulham, lost to Bournemouth and Chelsea and then last night, they drew away to Rangers in a game they really should have lost.
Bar Dejan Kulusevski and Fraser Forster, the whole team were dire, but one player in particular stood out for all the wrong reasons and could be Postecoglou’s own Roberto Soldado.
Soldado's Spurs career
When it comes to transfer flops at Spurs in the last 20 years or so, one name that will always pop up, rightly or wrongly, is striker Roberto Soldado.
The Spaniard joined the North Londoners in the summer of 2013 for a then-club-record fee of £26m, and while that was a lot of money, it seemed reasonable at the time as he’d just scored 57 goals and provided 11 assists in 97 appearances across the prior two campaigns for Valencia.
However, while there were certainly glimpses of brilliance during his time in N17, like a couple of hat-tricks, the Valencia-born poacher just couldn’t get to grips with life in the Premier League and went from one of the most dangerous forwards in Europe to below-average at best.
Appearances
51
46
36
40
Goals
27
30
11
5
Assists
6
5
5
6
Goal Involvements per Match
0.64
0.76
0.44
0.27
Moreover, due to the disconnect between expectation and reality, the Spaniard became something of a scapegoat for the team’s troubles, with journalist Sam Tighe describing him as the “flop of the season.”
This simply put more pressure on him to perform, and as every mistake was magnified it became something of a spiral until he lost his place in the team and was eventually sold to Villarreal two years after joining the club.
It would be hard to describe his time at the club and transfer as anything other than a failure, and now it looks like Postecoglou could have his own Soldado in the current squad.
Postecoglou's own Soldado
So, to get straight to the point, the player in question is Timo Werner.
The first thing to say is that due to him being on loan and not a club-record signing, the pressure on the German to perform for the Lilywhites isn’t exactly the same as the pressure on Sodaldo.
However, unlike the Spaniard, the winger has shown very little quality at all during his time at the club, and is earning a whopping £165k-per-week, so he has received just as much criticism from fans and pundits alike.
Appearances
33
Minutes
1616′
Goals
3
Assists
6
Goal Involvements per Match
0.27
Minutes per Goal Involvement
179.55′
This criticism, based primarily around his simply abysmal finishing, is the crux of the reason why he’s become the club’s new scapegoat and, therefore, arguably Postecoglou’s version of the former Valencia ace.
However, the manager is the man who made or agreed to the “astonishing” decision, per talkSPORT pundit Andy Townsend, to re-sign him in the summer, so the criticism of the 28-year-old is partly on him as well.
However, the former Chelsea ace was so dismal against Rangers that even the Australian couldn’t ignore it.
He ruthlessly took him off at half-time and doubled down in his post-match press conference, telling the media that the German’s performance “wasn’t acceptable,” which could be the most scathing he’s been about a particular player since taking the job last year.
Ultimately, while Werner doesn’t have a hefty price tag hanging over his head, he is on mega money and has been even more woeful in front of goal, which has seen him become the team’s current scapegoat, akin to what eventually happened to the Spaniard at Spurs.
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