Since Tottenham Hotspur sold club legend Harry Kane to Bayern Munich for a fee of £86.45m in the summer of 2023, the Lilywhites have been on the hunt for their next prolific marksman.
Kane scored at least 17 goals in all nine of his full Premier League seasons with Spurs after coming up through the academy system.
Unfortunately, though, Tottenham's top scoring striker in the 2023/24 campaign was Richarlison with 11 league goals and their most prolific number nine last season was Dominic Solanke with nine top-flight strikes.
This shows that the board have failed to replace Kane in the last two and a half years, which is why they are still in the market to bring in another centre-forward to bolster Thomas Frank's squad.
Spurs in talks to sign Serie A striker
In fact, the Lilywhites are reportedly looking at a new attacker who could arrive in North London as the club's best number nine since Kane moved to Bayern almost three years ago.
According to TEAMtalk, Tottenham Hotspur are one of a number of clubs interested in a deal to sign Juventus centre-forward Dusan Vlahovic in the upcoming summer transfer window.
His contract with the Italian giants is due to expire at the end of the 2025/26 campaign, which has created a big race to land his services on a free transfer later this year.
The report claims that Premier League sides Spurs and Chelsea have both refused to back away from discussions, as they both remain in ongoing talks with his representatives.
It adds that AC Milan are also keen on keeping him in the Serie A beyond the summer, but Vlahovic is open to a move to England and would be excited by a Premier League switch.
Why Vlahovic would be Tottenham's best striker since Kane
As aforementioned, no Spurs striker has scored more than 11 league goals for the club since Kane joined Bayern, which means that it is not a particularly high bar to become the club's best number nine since the England captain.
Vlahovic, though, is a player who has the quality to take on the mantle, and still would even if the bar was high, because he has been a lethal goalscorer for many years in Italy.
The Serbian star, once hailed as an "absolute monster" in this regard by Italian football expert Carlo Garganese, has only scored six goals so far this season, per Sofascore, but that is because he has been out with an injury since November, which means that he has not had enough time on the pitch to hit double figures quite yet.
However, the 25-year-old marksman scored 14 or more goals in each of his last five full seasons in all competitions for Fiorentina and Juventus combined, and still has time to reach that tally in the second half of the campaign if he can get fit and firing again.
Vlahovic, as shown in the table above, has proven himself to be a prolific scorer in Italy when fit and available to play consistent minutes, which means that Spurs would not be signing a one-season wonder.
Tottenham splashed £65m to sign Solanke from Bournemouth after he scored 21 goals in all competitions in the 2023/24 campaign, but that was the first season in his career that he had scored more than seven goals in a season outside of the Championship, per Sofascore.
It should not have been a total surprise, though, to see the English striker only score nine Premier League goals in his first season with the Lilywhites, as his prolific form for the Cherries in the previous campaign was an outlier compared to the rest of his career.
Vlahovic, though, has a strong record of scoring plenty of goals year-in-year-out in Italy and Spurs would not just be signing him after one impressive season in front of goal, which shows that they would be bringing in a proven goalscorer, something they have not had since Kane.
At the age of 25, the Juventus marksman would also arrive in North London with plenty of time left ahead of him to be the club's main number nine for many, many, years. He would not be a short-term fix, but rather the eventual successor to Kane up front for Spurs.
That is why the Lilywhites have to push hard to win the race to sign him ahead of Chelsea and Milan on a free transfer in the summer, as he could solve a problem they have been desperate to solve since Kane left the club.