The last couple of years have been a real roller coaster for Tottenham Hotspur.
The North Londoners have seen Ange Postecoglou take the reins and turn the club from one of the more boring teams to watch in the Premier League to arguably the most entertaining, and as things stand, they’re the third-highest scoring team in the competition this year.
What makes that fact even more remarkable is that they are so dangerous in attack despite being down in 15th place and are in the midst of an injury crisis that has seen them lose their starting number nine and second top-scorer in Dominic Solanke.
The former Bournemouth star doesn’t have much competition for a starting place in the squad, as while Richarlison is back fit, his overall record of 18 goals and nine assists in 77 games is simply not good enough.
Fortunately, recent reports have touted a forward who’d be the perfect rival for the Englishman for a move to N17 this month, a forward who has previously been compared to Harry Kane of all people.
Tottenham target Premier League striker
According to a recent report from the Daily Mail, Tottenham are one of multiple clubs interested in signing Brighton & Hove Albion’s Evan Ferguson this month.
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Alongside the Lilywhites, the report has revealed that Bournemouth, Everton, Fulham, Celtic and West Ham have all asked about signing the Irish ace on loan. The Hammers are said to hold an advantage thanks to Graham Potter managing the youngster during his time on the south coast.
While this level of competition is far from ideal, the good news, for Daniel Levy and Co at least, is that the Seagulls are reportedly happy to let the exciting striker leave the club on loan, meaning that there is minimal financial downside to securing his services for the North Londoners.
It looks like it could be a challenging deal to get over the line, but given Ferguson’s raw ability and sky-high potential, it’s one worth fighting for, especially as he’d be an ideal rival for Solanke and has been compared to Kane in the past.
Why Ferguson would be a dream Solanke rival
Okay, so there are several reasons why having Ferguson in the squad would be good for the team as well as Solanke, and the first is that it would give Postecoglou the chance to rest the latter.
So far this season, the former Bournemouth star has played 29 games for the Australian, 24 of which have been starts, and while he hasn’t traditionally suffered from too many major injuries in the past, he’s also not got the cleanest of records, with nine injuries keeping him out of 40 games since the start of the 18/19 campaign.
So, if the manager knows that he has a young hungry striker who was previously tipped to reach the very top in his squad, then he can start him in some of the less important matches and allow his star poacher to rest more often, which in turn should hopefully minimise the chance of him being forced to sit out.
The second reason the Irish international would be a great rival is that he’s still the same player who was blowing people away a couple of seasons ago, and in the right environment, with the right coaching, there is no reason to suspect he couldn’t get back to that sort of form.
For example, it was only in March 2023 that former Liverpool and Ireland striker John Aldridge described the then 18-year-old centre-forward as “an Irish version of Harry Kane” and then just four months later, former Spurs star Gary Lineker mooted the idea that the club should sign the young phenom “as Kane’s replacement.”
Now, that all might sound a little hyperbolic today, but at the time, it really did look like the Bettystown-born gem was going to be the next superstar striker, as in just 25 first-team appearances across the 22/23 season, totalling 1345 minutes, the “phenomenal” striker, as dubbed by teammate James Milner, scored ten goals and provided three assists.
That means he averaged a goal involvement every 1.92 games, or every 103.46 minutes as an 18-year-old, which is unbelievably impressive, and were it not for a number of unfortunate injuries, then he might well have carried that form into the following seasons.
Appearances
25
Starts
15
Minutes
1345′
Goals
10
Assists
3
Goal Involvements per Match
0.52
Minutes per Goal Involvement
103.46′
Ultimately, Spurs need another centre-forward to genuinely rival Solanke once he’s back from his injury, and while there is an element of risk around how good Ferguson still is, it’s a risk well worth taking, as if he can recreate anything close to his form of a couple of years ago, then Postecoglou will have another extraordinary striker in his squad.
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