Tottenham Hotspur are in the spotlight after losing to Aston Villa in the Premier League, with Steven Gerrard weighing in afterwards about Spurs' biggest problem
Steven Gerrard believes opposition coaches and players will view Tottenham Hotspur as stoppable because they no longer have a superstar in their squad.
Harry Kane is who the pundit named, but Gareth Bale and Son Heung‑min also fell into that bracket during their time at Spurs. The latter left for Los Angeles and Major League Soccer last summer, 12 months after Bayern Munich signed the club's all-time leading goalscorer.
Gerrard believes Spurs still have several very good quality players. However, the former Liverpool captain does not consider any of them to be world-class individuals who strike fear into their opponents.
He said on TNT Sports inside the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium: "I think Tottenham have signed good quality players, and you can see the squad is littered with really good players, but I look at this Tottenham team, and I do not see that world‑class superstar. Your Harry Kanes, obviously, he has moved on.
"If you are playing against this Spurs team, or coming up against them as an opposition player or coach, I think they are stoppable. I do not see any of the players that would strike fear into me.
"You think about Manchester City. (Erling) Haaland strikes fear into everyone because you know he can win a game at any given moment.
"You look at Chelsea's front three – Cole Palmer, he can change a game at any given moment, and they are consistently doing that. Liverpool with (Alexander) Isak, once he is fit and available, you have seen it at Newcastle (United).
"I look at Tottenham and think: 'they have got a lot of really good players, but have they got that real superstar?'" Gerrard continued: "Going forward, which is the big problem, the lack of goals, they haven't got a poacher, they haven't got a goal scorer.
"And I say that respectfully because they've got good players in the frontline, they've got exciting players, but who's going to get you 20 goals?
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"So the recruitment and those who decided to go for these certain types of players, they've got to look at each other and go: 'we haven't gone out and got a 20-goal-a-season man.' And if you haven't got that, and you're conceding goals at the back, it might be time to get concerned if you're Spurs fans again.
"There are two things: you either keep clean sheets, which keeps you in a safe place in this table, or you have phenomenal goal scorers in your team, as Harry Kane's done for many years here, they score the amount of goals that keep you up the top. If you're shaky at the back and you haven't got that poacher, watch out.