DrkeemIt’s been a brilliant summer for Tottenham Hotspur this year.
Ange Postecoglou’s side have looked pretty good in preseason, with tight defeats to Bayern Munich and several wins over sides like Hearts, Queens Park Rangers and Vissel Kobe.
However, it’s not just the action on the pitch that’s encouraging. Daniel Levy and Co have been hard at work in the transfer market over the last month or so, bringing in Archie Gray, Yang Min-Hyeok and most importantly, Dominic Solanke.The signing of the £65m marksman is a signal of intent from the North Londoners for this season, although based on recent reports, the club could be doubling down in the forward area and already be looking to bring in some competition for the Englishman.
Tottenham Hotspur transfer news
According to a recent report from Graeme Bailey, FC Porto’s goalscoring dynamo, Evanilson, is on Tottenham’s radar.The report claims that the North Londoners have already held talks with the Brazilian’s representatives this summer, suggesting that there is more than a passing interest in the player from the Lilywhites.
The report does not mention how much the Fortaleza-born poacher might cost Spurs, but earlier this week, stories claimed that his contract contained a release clause worth €100m, which converts to around £86m.
Whether the Portuguese club demands such a fee remains to be seen, but based on his form last season, bringing Evanilson to N17 in the coming weeks would be a great idea. He would seriously improve Postecoglou’s squad, and who knows, he could help push Solanke to be even better or even form a fantastic striker partnership with him.
How Evanilson compares to Solanke
So, the first thing to say is it would be incredibly surprising if Spurs were looking to sign Evanilson to play him ahead of Solanke, as that would be a bizarre use of resources.
Instead, what they could be thinking about are the ways in which he could help push the ex-Bournemouth man to get better, start games for him when he needs to rest, or even start games alongside him to form a deadly striker partnership that could get the most out of Postecoglou’s all-guns blazing style of football and philosophy.
So, with that said, how do the pair stack up to one another Well, from a pure output perspective, it’s a very closely fought affair, and while the Brazilian comes out ahead, it’s not quite as simple as that, as you have to factor in the league in which they play. While the Liga Portugal isn’t a bad league, it’s obviously of a lower standard than that of the Premier League.Nonetheless, the fact that the “clinical” 24-year-old, as talent scout Jacek Kulig dubbed him, scored 25 goals and provided seven assists in 42 games, equating to a goal involvement on average every 1.31 games is undeniably encouraging and suggests he could further develop at a club like Spurs.
For his efforts last season, the former Liverpool ace scored 21 goals and provided four assists in 42 appearances, which comes to an average of a goal involvement every 1.68 games.
This trend of the 24-year-old coming out on top in comparisons continues when we examine the pair’s underlying numbers from last season as well.For example, the “electric” centre-forward, as dubbed by Kulig, comes out ahead in a number of metrics, including, but not limited to, non-penalty expected goals plus assists, actual non-penalty goals plus assists, progressive carries and passes, key passes, shots and shots on target, and shot and goal-creating actions, all per 90.Now, like his output, these figures and the fact he beats out Solanke have to be considered in the context of a weaker league, but they still show that there is some serious talent there and that there is no reason to think he couldn’t replicate some of his impressive underlying numbers in EnglandUltimately, depending on the final price, bringing Evanilson to the white side of North London this summer would be a brilliant idea. With two top-quality strikers in the team, who knows how far Postecoglou could take Tottenham?
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