I guess I can’t put this off any longer — Tottenham Hotspur’s interest in Bournemouth striker Dominic Solanke appears to be genuine. But there’s a big gap between “genuine interest” and “holding a Tottenham shirt” and as always these things are particularly complicated.
First, I’ve held off on writing up Solanke because up until now the links between Spurs and the player have been a bit tenuous and squishy. Spurs have been notoriously stingy with their transfer leaks this window thanks to Johan Lange basically locking his recruitment team in a black box, but there’s a ton of smoke in the air right now that suggests Spurs are working on a deal to bring Solanke into the fold this summer. Today, our good buddy Matt Law has a piece in the Telegraph (£) basically saying exactly that, and remarkably not taking a dump on Spurs as a club in the process. So you know it’s real!
Solanke, who came through Chelsea’s academy and spent time at Liverpool before moving to Bournemouth in 2019, was the Premier League’s fourth-leading scorer last season, putting away 19 goals and three assists, with a npxG+xA/90 of 0.55. That’s good! That’s the same amount of goals as Villa’s Ollie Watkins, and more than Son Heung-Min. That’s also statistically by far his best output in the Premier League – he scored 15 and 29 goals in the Championship in 2020-22 but had just six goals and seven assists (npxG+A/90 0.41) in 2022-23, Bournemouth’s first season back in the Prem.
Stylistically, Solanke is a decent target for Tottenham Hotspur as an outright No. 9 in Ange Postecoglou’s system — he’s good at putting the ball away from central positions in the box, pretty good in the air, and can drop deeper and play with his back to goal, all very important in an Ange-Ball tactical system that is designed around getting players into the box and finding them when open to create scoring opportunities. He’s also a physical presence in and around the box for Bournemouth, something that would be a welcome addition to Tottenham’s attack, especially on set pieces and off of crosses.
But the devil is in the details, and there are a few. For starters, Solanke is statistically a pretty awful passer, averaging less than 15 pass attempts/match, and completing about 70% of his attempts. I’ll admit to not watching a ton of Bournemouth last season, so I won’t comment whether this is a result of Bournemouth’s tactics or not, but the good news is that when Solanke did pass it was generally a progressive one intended to find a teammate in the area, and he ranked very highly among Premier League strikers in the progressive passing metric.
It’s also not clear whether he can recreate last season’s production in a new system. It’s a pretty big bet to make, and there are indications it could pay off in a big way, but it could also NOT work. Those are the gambles you make in the transfer window, however, and ultimately as fans we don’t have much of a choice but to trust that Johan Lange and his team knows what they’re doing.
Bournemouth are (naturally) also reluctant to let him go. He apparently has a £65m release clause in his contract, and that’s a HUGE number for a peak-age player coming off of one solid Premier League season, and there are suggestions that Bournemouth would want most, if not all, of that fee up front, complicating things. In practical terms, it’s pretty rare that clubs pay all of a player’s actual release clause, but figuring out the structure of that deal can be sticky and protracted. In short, he’s likely to be an expensive, peak-age signing, something of a rarity for Spurs under Lange, who has mostly been focused on young players with high ceilings.
There’s also the elephant in the room — Richarlison. Solanke isn’t a very versatile player — he’s an outright No. 9, and it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to keep both him and Richy in the same team. Targeting Solanke suggests that Tottenham might be trying to offload Richarlison this window, possibly to Saudi Arabia if the rumors are true. The rumored fee for a Saudi approach for Richy are about the same as what it might take to land Solanke, but if we’re trading an oft-injured player for an English one in the same mold then Spurs might also need ANOTHER striker to come in this window as a backup, unless they’re more keen on Lankshear than we thought. I’d be sad to lose Richy, but I guess I’d understand replacing Richarlison’s production with Solanke’s if financially it’s something of a wash. But Spurs then end up in the same situation they were in prior — one decent striker and a big ???? behind him.
In summary — I’m a bit torn. It’s a lot of money for a player that has a lot of potential, but some question marks as well, and signing Solanke could have a downstream impact on the rest of Tottenham’s summer. I’m not opposed to this signing, but it’s a big bet that a good player on a middling Premier League team can make the step up to the next level. The rumors suggest Spurs are ready to make that bet. Gambling like this just makes me, personally, a bit nervous as there’s a LOT on the line.
