Clinton N’Jie Could Be The Guy For Tottenham!
It has been widely reported that Tottenham Hotspur could be about to sign up a new forward in Clinton N’Jie. A fee of £8m plus add ons has been mentioned.
Lyon President Jean Michel-Aulas has revealed a deal is edging towards completion:
“We are close to an agreement but there’s no urgency for us,”
After watching Spurs lose 1-0 to Manchester United, you could sense that they needed a new attacker and urgency lies on their side of negotiations.
In truth Tottenham didn’t have a bad game against United but they lacked a ‘Plan B’ in the final third and were calling out for a pacey striker to get in behind main frontman Harry Kane and exploit any space behind the opposition defence.
Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino has been looking for that speedy striker all summer and has also been linked with West Bromwich Albion’s Saido Berahino.
But N’Jie would come in at a fraction of the price that Berahino would cost.
Clinton will turn twenty-two on Saturday and has already shown vast potential at both Olympique Lyonnais and Cameroon. In fact the forward has scored six goals in eleven caps for the ‘Indomitable Lions’.
He has pace to burn and loves playing on the should of the defenders and would offer Tottenham that extra dimension that they were missing at Old Trafford.
Last season in Ligue1, N’Jie managed to grab himself seven goals and seven assists in his thirty appearances (fifteen starts). That is a pretty impressive return and he didn’t look out of place playing alongside Alexandre Lacazette and Nabil Fekir. In fact the threesome looked scintillating at times.
The forward isn’t the real deal yet but he offers plenty of potential and seems ready for his Premier League chance. I think at first Pochettino could look at N’Jie being an ideal firecracker to bring on in games that need a burst of pace and energy. Much like the Man Utd game this past Saturday.
If Clinton joins Tottenham and isn’t an automatic starter from the beginning, then he needs to understand that it isn’t anything personal and is just about him understanding and adapting ro his new surroundings. Hopefully he can watch games from the sidelines and learn from them, plus take his chances when they come. That should see him starting more towards the end of the season.
Even if he starts many of the games from the bench initially I’d still expect Clinton to get quite a lot of minutes on the field as he’ll be seen as the number two striker. If he could strike up a good rapport with Harry Kane instantly, then that could see his chances of more starts increase dramatically
For a better in-depth look at Clinton N’Jie’s attributes take a look at Four-Four-Two.
Spurs will be happy that they have managed to offload Spanish striker Roberto Soldado, who is leaving for Villarreal. The £26m purchase is the polar opposite to the N’Jie deal. Soldado was a fine finisher in La Liga but his style never suited Spurs and the club didn’t have the right personnel to provide the hitman with the right kind of ammunition.
The move for N’Jie is a smarter way of doing business as he will come in and add something new and has the ability to improve his game. He also solves a problem that Spurs needed to solve, as they’re in dire need of a pacey forward.
You get a good feeling about this move. It shows that Tottenham Hotspur have learned lessons from previous transfer failures and that they are now specifically targeting players that will improve the squad rather than big-name players that they need to try and fit in.
Hopefully Clinton N’jie can hit the ground running and prove to be a bargain buy!
Posted on August 14th, 2015 by scott
Filed under: Article
Another potential waste of money. Why spend 10 million on an inexperienced player when you can get Austin who is a proven premier league goal scorer for 15 million.
Spurs never learn. After being robbed with Paulinho, Capoue, Soldado and Lamela, you would have thought that they would have chosen a top English goal scorer. Only time will tell.
@Luke – because he is younger, has a higher ceiling of potential development and, as the author has explained in detail, he has pace, which is something that has been missing from the team, and Pochettino has mentioned recently as being missing. 🙂
Get off Charlie Austin’s dick.
No one uses 2 out and out strikers anymore deal with it!
Austin is too similar to Kane and he’s too good to be just a deputy.
We need pace to stretch defenses, we lack that Njie offers that, simple.
I’m hoping he’s been analysed in detail by the scouting team and they figured he can make just as big a contributiont as Berahino,but at half the price.