As Tottenham Hotspur found out last summer, replacing your star centre-forward is easier than done.
And, after Harry Kane completed his move to German giants Bayern Munich, it would be a stretch to suggest that Spurs replaced him at all.
Yes, Ange Postecoglou’s players shared the goals around pretty effectively. Yes, the likes of Heung-Min Son, Richarlison and Brennan Johnson stepped up at moments. But, 12 months on, there remains a sizeable, Kane-shaped hole at the heart of Tottenham Hotspur’s frontline.
Over in the Netherlands, another striker who has just said his goodbyes to the North London outfit is under pressure to prove that there is life after Vangelis Pavlidis at AZ Alkmaar.
Pavlidis finished joint-top of last season’s Eredivisie goalscoring charts, netting 33 across all competitions before his £18 million move to Benfica.
The challenge now falls on the shoulders of Troy Parrott to emulate the talismanic Greek international. Parrott, a Tottenham academy graduate, sealed a £7 million move to AZ after his slow-burning loan spell with Excelsior ended in a flourish.
Tottenham Hotspur sell Troy Parrott to AZ Alkmaar
Parrott finished 2023/24 with 17 goals for his name, though that was still not enough to save Excelsior from relegation.
The good news for AZ is that Parrott is making quite an impression early doors. The 22-year-old Irishman needed only a few minutes to find the net on his unofficial AZ debut, scoring in the scorching heat of a 3-0 pre-season victory over KV Kortrijk.
“(Parrott) just looks good. I think he’s a complete player,” head coach Maarten Martens tells NOS. “We had that with Pavlidis too. He was someone who finished, but someone you could also combine with.
“Parrott has that too. He still has to prove to us that he guarantees goals. He’s still young so, if he listens to us, he’ll get even better.”
“We should not keep comparing him (with Pavlidis). This is a new season, a new striker. We think we have a very good one in him.”
Parrott caught the eye during Spurs’ pre-season tour back in 2019 but that early promise was never delivered upon once Mauricio Pochettino lost his job to the ultimate short-termist in Jose Mourinho.
Hit-and-miss loan spells at Millwall, Ipswich Town, MK Dons and Preston North End then followed, with Parrott finally finding his wings over in the Eredivisie.
Former Spurs man scores on pre-season debut
Speaking to AZ’s fan site, Parrott accepts that he will have to play a different sort of role under Martens than he did at Excelsior.
“He expects me to give a lot of pressure when we don’t have the ball,” Parrott says, AZ tending to press from the front. “The goal is to win the ball as quickly as possible.
“When we have the ball, we have to show what we can do. It is not for nothing that we play in the AZ shirt and we have to show that when we have the ball.
“Compared to Excelsior, that’s a completely different approach to the game. At Excelsior, we didn’t have the ball in our possession that much. But I’ve also played in teams where we did have the ball a lot, so in that respect, it’s not new to me. I feel comfortable with this way of playing.”
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