Thomas Frank must let Aston Villa or Newcastle make the mistake
Sign up to our newsletter for the most distinctive football content delivered direct to your inbox
Sign up
Thank you for signing up!
Did you know with an ad-lite subscription to 3 Added Minutes, you get 70% fewer ads while viewing the news that matters to you.
Submitting...
As the problems mount for Tottenham Hotspur, Dominic Solanke’s failure to fire up front means Thomas Frank is facing down the barrel of needing to throw more money at a problem that should’ve been solved a year ago.
Bought for a club-record potential £65 million after scoring 19 Premier League goals in 2023/24 for Bournemouth and pushing for a place in England’s squad for the European Championship, almost 18 months later Solanke is still yet to match that tally in all competitions. An ankle injury has forced him to miss extended time this season and Frank’s three deputy options - Richarlison, Randal Kolo Muani and Mathys Tel combine for barely more than three expected goals (xG) in the top flight according to Opta via FBref.
Aged 28, Solanke has the runway to return to his best form when he finally recovers, but further questions linger as to whether he can replicate his sensational final season on the south coast consistently.
Since he established himself at Liverpool in 2017/18, when he made 28 senior appearances after being sold by Chelsea, 50% of Solanke’s Premier League goals came in that magic campaign for Bournemouth as he’s returned tallies of one, three, six and nine in four of his five seasons (though he was also prolific in the Championship for The Cherries).
It’s a major issue for the club who desperately need a more creative deep-lying playmaker in the mould of Ruben Neves or Martin Zubimendi, alongside more defensive depth and superstar left winger like Rodrygo. Among Tottenham’s rumoured striker targets sits Igor Thiago, who is expected to cost at least £50m and is their most Premier-League proven option, but could well end up as fools gold for a club who need to strike the real thing in January.
Spurs, Aston Villa and Newcastle all chasing Thiago
You know a striker’s not too bad when he’s being backed to lead the line for Brazil at the World Cup. Though he never represented his country at any age-group, The Selecao’s dearth of options at centre-forward (all their 2025 Copa America goals came from the wing or midfield) means a shock call-up could be on the cards for Thiago.
And it’s not hard to see why. Only Erling Haaland has scored more Premier League goals than the 24-year-old this season and he’s closer to the Norwegian than he is to third place, operating at a strike rate of one every 100 minutes.
It’s no fluke either as Thiago is one of the best in the division for both shot volume (ninth in total, fourth for shots on target) and finishing at +2.5 per goals minus xG which is why not only Tottenham but Aston Villa and Newcastle United have reportedly enquired with Brentford about his availability as several Premier League teams hunt for a star striker.
Thiago isn’t the solution to Tottenham’s problem
Though Thiago has single-handedly scored over half as many top-flight goals as Spurs have this season, he’s actually only netted one more than Richarlison excluding penalties.
Strikers who score lots of penalties are sometimes overly maligned. Plenty of people ridicule Harry Kane for his 2018 World Cup golden boot given half of his tally came from 12 yards but they’re much slower to remember that only one those spot-kicks weren’t won by Kane himself, usually for fouls in goal-scoring positions as the ‘love train’ terrorised the planet’s defenders on that dreamy run to the semi-finals.
And there’s still skill in scoring penalties - as Kane painfully found out during the subsequent World Cup. However, Thiago has already missed one this season and none of those five spot-kicks were won by the Brazilian (four of them, incidentally, were from fouls on Dango Outtara).
And while there’s no denying that Thiago’s underlying shooting numbers are fantastic Frank already has players who match that profile. However, Tottenham need more creativity in all parts of the pitch and that includes at striker - think the mould of Kane or Hugo Ekitike. They’re obviously not going to get players of that calibre for £50m, but someone like Ivan Toney or Georges Mikautadze would fit both the bill and the budget.
Tottenham’s problem is finishing off chances - Richarlison is the Premier League’s best finisher by goals minus xG and Tel is in the top 20 - it’s creating them in the first place as they have the same xG tally as basement dwellers Wolves. And all this is without considering the injury concerns around Thiago or the fact that apart from a magical few months in the Premier League, all his production has come in Bulgaria, Belgium and the Conference League.
Even if he can sustain this level of output, Thiago is the answer to a question Thiago aren’t asked and that’s why Spurs can’t fall into the trap of splashing out for him in January.