Striker Signing Decided Today?

By: Robert Reed | January 30th, 2013

Daniel-Levy-001-e1340889955860 ‘Levy Time’ they are calling it. It appears Spurs fans are being advised to brace themselves, because it’s ‘Levy Time!’

I suspect some of you share my feelings that I don’t need Mr Miyagi, Zen like powers of self control to not literally wet myself with excitement.

‘Massive, Crushing Anti Climax As We All Sit Watching Sky Sports News Only To Find We Have Signed Nobody; Were Going To Sign Somebody But Ran Out Of Time As We Only Got In Contact At 10pm, Or Have Signed Kenwyne Jones…Time’ is a bit too much of a mouthful I suppose.

But wait; am I just being a cynical old Mr Grumpy? Possibly so, as certain decisive factors today could lead to rumblings at Castle Levy. Specifically the two matches which could be of some significance; Norwich v Spurs and Togo v Tunisia.

I don’t want us to lose to Norwich, of course I don’t; I want only a win. But a comfortable win? With Defoe scoring a couple of goals? In this one specific game, that is not really what I want. Frankly I’d like us to win in spite of Jermain having one of those nights where if you gave him a dart and pointed him at a barn door he’d somehow end up with it stuck in his own forehead. If the little guy scores a hat-trick then I believe that is all the excuse Levy will need to keep his hand in his pocket.

Then of course there is the Togo game. Togo need to win to go through to the knockout stages of the African Cup of Nations, which would of course result in Adebayor missing more games. Togo lose, and he will be back amongst us before you know it.

That is of course no bad thing; we could do with having him back, but it is not something which I would like to see sway Levy into deciding we can scrape by again this year.

Emmanuel-Adebayor Now, do not misunderstand me. I am not just being greedy here, making out the cupboard is bare when we have a couple of decent forwards. They are decent players after all, and we do have the tendency to bemoan what we have a little too much at this time of year. The problem is that we need more than two, and that they are not great strikers over a season. Defoe has scored one in his last eight, and Adebayor has scored twice since we bought him. A belt and braces approach is needed here as there’s so, so much at stake.

There is no doubt that during our maiden season in the Champions League we turned a lot of heads. Let’s face it, we were all pretty shocked ourselves. As a result players of a higher calibre than we could previously attract started to see us in a different light. Suddenly, we had credibility.

Then we didn’t qualify for the competition the following season; but that was ok. Spurs compete in a very difficult league and were clearly still improving.

Next, we threw away third place due to not signing the right standard of player when it was needed and as a result failed to qualify again. Not good, but not a complete disaster. We had the excuse that we achieved fourth place and only lost out on a technicality. It was very close, so we narrowly kept our credibility and the appearance that we were going places.

If we do the exact same thing this year though, fail to learn from our mistakes and blow it again in the same manner; then we can forget it. We will look like also rans, pretenders, charlatans. A team at the level we claim to be at cannot afford to go three consecutive seasons without Champions League football. The first time we qualified will look like a one off, and the big players Levy is rumoured to be saving for a summer bid will see us as a team where they cannot fulfil their ambitions. I will probably agree with them.

Levy must know this though, right? Are we being too hard on him? It was widely reported that he made a £38.5 million bid for Aguero a couple of seasons ago. Maybe he is preparing a massive but equally doomed bid for Cavani as we speak. Who knows. There are two issues to contend with in that we need to buy better than we have or there is no point, and that the prices are inflated in January. But we are only in this position as Levy did not buy more wisely in the summer when prices were more reasonable. The perceived wisdom in economising then will potentially cost us more now.

I do believe though that if he can get us a quality striker for what he sees as the right price in this window then he will do so, but I don’t believe we will sign Leandro Damiao; largely because all those stories seem to be speculation resulting from the news that Internacional have bought a striker. Add to that the usual complications when buying from South America; namely that he is not owned just by the club but by a whole mess of weird and not so wonderful people, and with the best will in the world I simply cannot see that kind of deal being sorted in time.

alvaro-negredo-crack-rf_393187 No; if a signing does happen, and I had to put money on who it might be, I’d have to go for The Beast of Vallecas!

Now that isn’t a particularly vicious and prolific serial killer, but of course the nickname of Sevilla’s Álvaro Negredo. Why him? It just seems like a Levy type deal.

Sevilla need money (they are denying it, but they would wouldn’t they) and it has the feel of a last minute bargain. The Spaniards want £15 million, Levy has probably offered match tickets. If they can sort their differences in time we could have a late, late answer to our prayers. That’s my theory anyway, and I’m sticking with it.

You doubt me? Oh come on, what’s the matter with you? It’s LEVY TIME!

COYS!

You can follow me on Twitter (not compulsory) @RobertReedUK

The eagle eyed of you will have spotted that this is the second publication of this article today; that is due to a mix up with scheduling. Apologies.