Tottenham Hotspur have long faced one huge conundrum; who on earth can offer support to Harry Kane?
The long-stated issue is that Kane is the clear first-choice striker, and few other really talented strikers would want to sit behind him at Spurs.
Vincent Jansson didn’t work out, Fernando Llorente was a decent stop-gap and Carlos Vinicius seemingly won’t be staying beyond the end of his loan deal this season.
This has been going on for years now, and Jose Mourinho looked into a shock move during the January 2020 transfer window.
Spurs were interested in signing Odion Ighalo on loan from Shanghai Shenhua, challenging Manchester United for his signature, and Ighalo has now admitted that the most was ‘close’.
Ighalo has admitted to Sky Sports that he ended up picking United because they were his boyhood club, meaning Tottenham’s offer fell on deaf ears.
“That was close – my agent called me and told me they had offered to match whatever I was earning but once I heard Manchester United were interested, there was no turning back,” said Ighalo.
“I couldn’t think about anything else other than making the Manchester United deal work. I was going to have to take a pay cut but I didn’t care, I just wanted the deal to happen.
I just wanted to play for Manchester United. It’s my dream club and it was always going to be a privilege for me to play at Old Trafford,” he added.
Ighalo, 31, scored five times in 23 games for United, offering something of a stop-gap for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer before heading off to Saudi Arabia with Al Shabab.
Spurs fans won’t be losing too much sleep over this one; Ighalo’s last Premier League goal came way back in the 2016-17 season, and given the huge wages he commanded, Tottenham didn’t miss out on too much here.
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