Wednesday 19 November 2014 09:34, UK
Sky Sports’ Spanish football expert Terry Gibson worries that Roberto Soldado’s days as a Tottenham Hotspur player may be numbered.
The striker only joined the north London club from La Liga outfit Valencia for a then club-record £26 million deal in August 2013.
However, the experienced Spain international has struggled to live up to that exorbitant price tag in the intervening period, finding the back of the net on just six occasions in 33 Premier League games for his new team.
Gibson, though, feels that Soldado is not entirely to blame for his struggles up front at White Hart Lane, with the former Tottenham forward claiming that there are a number of other factors that have contributed to the player’s indifferent start to life in the capital.
I want him to be the old Soldado that we saw at Valencia, where he was just cracking in goals for fun, but I do fear that it might be beyond him now.
“I am surprised and disappointed, but I am going to stick up for Soldado here as he is on his third manager already at Spurs in just over a season, and I do not think that any of them have shown any faith in him,” Gibson told the Revista de La Liga podcast.
“I have seen a change in his playing style. At Valencia he was an 18-yard box player, he was aggressive when he needed to be, he could hold the ball up, he could back into central defenders when it was played up to him and when a cross came into the box, he was on the end of it. And when a goalkeeper spilled a shot, he was snapping up the rebound, anticipating any mistakes or loose balls in the box.
“I thought he was a fantastic signing for Spurs, and I am still hopeful that he is going to be, but I am not sure that he is getting the support from the playing systems that the club have had, and I do not think that he has had the support from the managers either, particularly Andre Villas-Boas.
“When he came to Spurs, he was in and around the Spain squad, with a good goalscoring record, he was the top dog at Valencia, a really important player and then before you know it he was sitting on the bench and getting taken off in games.
“He did not get off to a great start, but that was down to the style of play that Villas-Boas was playing at that particular time, and I thought that they were using him wrong at the start.”
End of the road?
However, despite noticing an increase in Soldado’s work-rate so far this season, Gibson feels that the 29-year-old’s future at Spurs is now in doubt.
“He is trying to make up for it, I have seen him working really hard, I am actually seeing him appear at times a better player than I thought he was,” Gibson added.
“But as a Spurs fan, I do not want him to be that, I want him to be the old Soldado that we saw at Valencia, where he was just cracking in goals for fun, but I do fear that it might be beyond him now and his self-esteem and confidence will have taken a real battering.
“He is nowhere near the Spain squad, he has been left out, he is not sure when is going to play at Spurs and when he does, he is not sure when he is going to be taken off.”
Gibson does, however, urge new Tottenham head coach Mauricio Pochettino to persevere with Soldado in attack at the Lane between now and the end of the campaign, rather than simply leaving the Spaniard to warm the substitutes’ bench as he has been doing of late.
“I still personally have confidence in him and if I was Pochettino, I’d have faith in him and give him a run of games with the right players and the right style of play, and I’d still be hopeful that he could be a success and come good,” he said.
