Chadder View: Tottenham must prioritise signing an attacker in January, not a defender
Matthew Chadder is a lifelong Tottenham fan who grew up just down the road from his beloved club in North London. He’s now putting his passion for Spurs into words with a daily fan view for Tottenham News…
A lack of cutting edge in attack is the reason Tottenham failed to beat Aston Villa on Sunday, not shortcomings in defence.
Don’t get me wrong, Spurs’ defensive options are by no means ideal at this moment in time. In fact, I would go as far as to say the central partnership of Ben Davies and Emerson Royal is a mid-table back-two, and that is me being generous.
For starters, neither of them are natural centre-backs by trade, and at this point, I am not quite sure what Emerson’s strongest position even is anymore, and I don’t think Ange Postecoglou knows either.
However, if you are a Spurs supporter reading this column, can you really reflect on the game against Aston Villa and blame either Davies or Emerson for that defeat? I can’t.
Yes, they both could have done better for Ollie Watkins’ goal in the second half, there is no getting around that, and perhaps a more assured defensive line would have dealt with Pau Torres’ equaliser on the stroke of half-time, but that is me really clutching at straws.
The truth is, Postecoglou coached a 5-2 win, it is as simple as that.
Had Spurs’ attacking players buried the chances they had throughout what was a dominant first 30 minutes, they could have been three or four ahead by the time Villa even had a sniff.
But they didn’t, and as the old saying goes, the rest is history.
Now I am by no means suggesting Tottenham don’t need new defenders. We absolutely do.
What I am suggesting is that bringing them in is not a priority, what should be a priority is bringing in a clinical attacker who can help ease the burden on Son Heung-min’s shoulders, because, at this moment in time, he is the only player I trust to consistently find the back of the net.
I mean, after all, he did do it three times yesterday, even if they were all offside.
By the time January rolls around, Cristian Romero will be back in the team (providing he doesn’t decide to take anyone else out over Christmas) and Micky van de Ven will presumably be close to making a recovery.
I personally saw enough against Villa to feel confident in Davies and if needed Emerson as backup options until the summer, as you would like to think we wouldn’t get another stroke of luck so unfortunate that means they need to play together again.
What didn’t fill me with confidence, was the lack of composure up front, and that was with our starting attackers, minus perhaps the goals James Maddison chips in with.
With that all in mind, I believe we need to prioritise the signing of a quality first-choice attacking option over a quality first-choice defensive option.
Hypothetically yes, I would love to sign both. But we all know with Daniel Levy that will not happen, so being realistic, I would go for the attacker.
After all, with a more clinical attacker, we might have beaten Villa 5-2 yesterday, even without Romero or van de Ven at the back.
In other Tottenham news, one of the club’s fringe attackers let Postecoglou down with his performance against Villa.