Dominic Solanke made his official Tottenham debut against Leicester City in the Premier League
Tottenham Hotspur shared the spoils with newly promoted Leicester City in an entertaining contest at the King Power Stadium in the Premier League on Monday night.
The north Londoners dominated for nearly an hour in the East Midlands until Jamie Vardy sneaked in unmarked at the back post to cancel out Pedro Porro’s first-half header. The manner in which Tottenham controlled the game and were first-class in every department certainly merited more than a point.
Rather than starting his second season in north London with a win, Ange Postecoglou will be trying to analyse how his team lost grip on the game so quickly after Vardy’s equaliser. A lot of eyeballs were on record-signing Dominic Solanke, who arrived from Bournemouth earlier this month.
On his official debut and first start for Spurs, Dominic Solanke completed the full 90 minutes against the Foxes. The 26-year-old showed good energy, movement, hold-up play and pressing throughout the game, which was praised by Manchester United legend turned pundit Gary Neville. He had some fantastic opportunities to score but was denied by Leicester’s goalkeeper Mads Hermansen, meaning the centre-forward fired a blank on his first outing in a Spurs shirt.
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When asked by reporters about Solanke’s debut in the post-match presser, Postecoglou stated:
“Yeah, he was good. He worked hard for the team. He had a couple of chances. He will be disappointed he didn’t do better with and the overall performance of everyone was OK, but it doesn’t mean anything if we don’t turn that performance into outcomes.
“We had similar issues last year and if we’re going to get to the next level as a team and bridge the gap to the top sides, it is an area of the game we need to improve.”
Tottenham should have been out of sight in the first half itself had they capitalized on the chances they created. Solanke was guilty of missing a few chances and he should have been kicking himself after the game for not burying those.
Fans and pundits alike have lofty expectations from Solanke after Spurs smashed their transfer record to sign him from Bournemouth off the back of his goalscoring exploits last season, where he netted 19 goals in 38 Premier League outings.
It was just his first game and we cannot be overly critical of him as the striker showed a lot of promise when combining with creative players such as James Maddison, Son Heung-min and Dejan Kulusevski in the final third, barring a goal, of course.
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Postecoglou’s frustrations after the game were purely justified, and he will hope his team are clinical in front of goal against Everton at home on Saturday, August 24. As for Solanke, he will also be desperate to break his duck in front of our fans and help Spurs get their first win of the season.
