Fernando Llorente - a bit-part striker now working


Fernando Llorente - 8 goals, 5 assists in 13 games


Fernando-Llorente

Fernando Llorente is a bit-part striker now working at Tottenham Hotspur. The 34-year-old (35 next February) has not had much game time and therefore struggled at Tottenham, but he has had his significant moments, even when not scoring.
You may be surprised to learn he has scored 8 goals in 12.9 games for Spurs and had 5 assists, quite apart from his part in build-up play, like the winner against Ajax.

When we were first playing him, we were still playing the ball on the floor and giving him no crosses. As this season has gone on we have started to play to his strengths more.

A run of games when Kane was injured and an FA Cup hat-trick helped him and showed how we are at fault for not getting the best out of the strikers we have bought. Yes they haven't adapted very well, but when they have scored a goal and therefore gained a little bit of confidence, it was important that we gave them cameos as soon as possible when we were winning a game. We had the opportunity but Pochettino left them on the bench and the confidence boost of scoring was lost.

During his run of games, Llorente started to show what he could do, holding the ball up well and starting to show some skills on the floor.

Latterly we have started playing long balls up to him and he has created goals and we have created goals from his presence. The winner against Ajax was a ball played to him that he flicked to Dele Alli, who played it into the path of Lucas Moura who slotted home to seal our UEFA Champions League final place.

The experienced Spanish striker set up both goals to change the game in the home tie against PSV, he scored the third goal at home against Borussia Dortmund to take the tie away from the German Bundesliga  leaders, scored the goal against Manchester City that took us through to the semi-finals and was instrumental in the second half when he came on to help get us past Ajax..

He used his experience as a World Cup winner (Spain 2010), European Championship winner (Spain 2012), 3 time Italian Serie A winner (Juventus 2013/14, 2014/15, 2015/16), Italian Cup winner (Juventus 2014/15), Italian Super Cup winner (Juventus 2014/15) and UEFA Europa League winner (Sevilla 2015/16) to bully Daley Blind in that second half and was winning most of the balls played to him, same as the first leg but without the resulting goals.

For the record, he has scored 8 goals and had 5 assists in 33 games. He has played 1,161 minutes, which is the equivalent of full 12.9 games. He has scored a goal every 145 minutes and had a goal or an assist every 89.3 minutes. They are surprising statistics and he has to go down as a success.


His contract is up in the summer and he may well depart for pastures new, there are a host of clubs interested in him and regular football at one of them may appeal. He probably never thought he would be in a Champions League Final at this age but he is a certainty for the bench.

What happens in the summer and whether we offer him a new one-year deal we will have to wait and see. I guess it will depend upon if we sign another striker to replace Vincent Janssen.

COYS