This Janssen guy can finish - his story and video

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This Janssen guy can finish - his story and video

Dutch striker Vincent Janssen , it seems, is the young striker we are now buying with reports that we have agreed to pay his £11.74-million (EUR15m - US$17.06m - AUS$22.89m) fee and that he was in London on Tuesday to discuss terms.

The 21-year-old (22 later this month) has been a bit of a scoring sensation for Eredivisie side AZ Alkmaar this season (new season officially starts 1 July when new contracts begin). he is a dual-footed centre forward who was let go by Feyenoord, picked up by Almere City before 2 seasons later joining AZ Alkmaar. One season on, after smashing  27 goals in 34 league games, with an additional 5 assists, he is on the verge of joining Tottenham. The season was 8 games old before he scored a goal, sound familiar. he finished the season in style, he scored 21 goals in the last 17 games including a hat-trick (his second of the season) against former club Feyenoord and four against Zwolle. From those final seventeen games there were only three that he didn't score in.

In the Eredivisie, he scored a goal every 102 minutes and had a direct hand in a goal every 85.88 minutes, so 1 a game. Achieving that in any league is impressive and he has been introduced to international football and taken to it like a duck to water. He has netted 3 goals in 5 games at full international level after scoring  8 in 10 Under-21 games and 2 in 2 Under-20 games.

Reports suggested Manchester United and Everton were extensively scouting him, but with a scoring record like that he would have been attracting scouts from all over Europe. Tottenham were well represented at the Republic of Ireland international against Holland where we scouted several players. When making these final scouting assessments a scout will exclusively concentrate on the target and almost forget the game, you need to know what he does every second on the pitch as it helps you build a picture of a player and you have a good idea how he is going to react in any given situation.

Janssen is 1.81m (5' 11") tall from a small town (Heesch) where there were no major clubs near so he was picked up later than most. NEC signed him and his success there saw the Feyenoord academy sign him. However he didn't progress and they let him go to second division side Almere City. He has had to work hard and overcome that adversity at a young age, that suggests that he has the kind of mentality we are looking for. How you overcome adversity is more important than how you deal with success, there were a few Spurs players at the end of this season who dealt with it badly. They have to now show they can learn form that and come back stronger next season.

Against England at Wembley, Janssen had an assist and made John Stones look foolish, scoring from the resulting penalty. He is an excellent finisher anywhere from within 18 yards and is a little more old fashioned than small Aguero type finisher prevalent today.

he is strong when on the ball and is a good passer, so there is more to his game than just excellent finishing. he can dribble, has a good first touch and the vision to play a pass, as he showed against England. With so little experience of top flight football, one season, he is an exciting prospect whose value could spiral if he brings his scoring boots to the Premier League. The video below shows some impressive finishing and a coolness of thought. I'd urge you to watch it and see what kind of finisher we might be getting, I think you'll be impressed and excited.


He certainly has the movement that all quality strikers need and the different type of finishes he has displayed show he is not a one-trick pony like say a Christian Benteke. There is a demonstration from one of those goals that he is prepared o put his head where it could get hurt if it means scoring a goal and also that he gets across his marker well at the near post. He isn't lightning quick but he has enough pace to go with his movement to get him into scoring positions.

Memphis Depay has shown that performing in the Eredivisie is a totally different ballgame to playing against better Premier League defences so Janssen will havr to cope with that and the pressure of expectation, a totally different level to that of AZ Alkmaar. T

hey are calculations you can only guess at but th fact he has had to fight to get where he is augers well. Christian Eriksen has shown the leap can be made, he is excelling now he has adjusted to the individual demands placed upon footballers in this country. The top four were looking at him, but none would trust he could reproduce his form over here, Tottenham took the plunge and it seems we are going to do so again.

I'm looking forward to seeing the deal finalised and his first start in a Spurs shirt.