10 Apr 2013 16:33:02
Tottenham are tracking an Argentine player in Greece, Emanuel Perrone. Apparently Villas Boas has seen something in him and can get him for around £2 million. I have some inside knowledge on Tottenham, due to someone in a good position at Armour.
Benteke is also a priority target replacing Adebayor, who has been told he can find another club. But the signing of Benteke will mean lower end transfer targets, unless CL football is guaranteed. Villas Boas has £20 million to spend until they are definitely in the hat for the group stages and the club expect Benteke to cost at least that and so could offer a player exchange. The club are not looking at life after Bale, so are not banking on that money.
Emanuel Perrone, i've heard it all now. I bet the tea lady at our training ground could come up with more credible stories. How are our kit makers going to know anything about our scouting.
No way will Levy spend anything like £20 mill on Benteke
Absolutely agree that Levy will not pursue Benteke for anywhere near £20m. If Villa happened to get relegated, and he was available for circa £12m, then it is possible. Other than that I would think it was remote at best.
Benteke is massively overrated in my opinion. Granted he is only 22 years old and has already impressed in his first season with a 50% goals to games ratio, but surely people see past the headline statistics just like when I said similar things about David Bentley, Andy Carroll and Jordan Henderson.
Ok let's look at this supposed world class striker in the making. let's analyse his ability and then I will leave you to draw your own conclusion:
1. He has played 30 games with 28 starts, and has managed to score 15 goals and a further 4 more assists.
2. His average Opta rating has been 7. 5.
3. He has very strong ability in Aerial Duels, and is good at long shots, key passes and reasonalbe finishing.
4. He is extremely weak at holding onto the ball, and more importantly consistently fails to be aware of being offside. A pathetic 64. 7% pass success rate around the danger area is one of the worst in the league
5. He has been man of the match in seven games, but it isn't too hard at Villa to look better than the rest.
6. Looking at the teams he scored against we arrive at following: Swansea (H), Norwich (H), Reading (H), Norwich (A), 2 x Liverpool (A), Swansea (A), West Brom (A), Newcastle (H), 2 x Everton (A), West Ham (H), Reading (A), QPR (H), Liverpool (H) and Stoke (A). In summary he has scored some important goals, but is missing in action against the bigger clubs. Not a single goal against Man United, Man City, Arsenal, Tottenham or Chelsea. Infact he was poor in literally every game against a major league side.
7. He has power and speed, but uses physical aggression rather than skill, and is very one dimensional with one foot.
The truth is Benteke is improving and may turn out to be a reasonable player, but his style is not suited to the playing the non aggressive style of football at Spurs.