Will Lankshear has scored 15 goals in 16 games since Tottenham sold him in the summer, and the whole Spurs team have managed only one more than that.
The 21-year-old was at it again on Saturday afternoon, scoring twice as Middlesbrough beat Charlton Athletic 3-0 at the Riverside Stadium to stay top of the Championship. A few hours later, it took Jan Paul van Hecke’s goal against Crystal Palace to keep Tottenham’s season total one ahead of their former striker.
Middlesbrough paid an initial £8m for the England Under-21 international, with a further £12m tied to performance-based add-ons. On this evidence, a fair chunk of those add-ons could be heading to N17 sooner than anyone expected.
How did Lankshear hurt Charlton?
With two very different finishes. Sebastian Berhalter had broken the deadlock in the first half, and shortly before the break he slid an excellent pass through for Lankshear, who ran into the space behind the Charlton back line and dinked the ball over Arthur Okonkwo from close range.
The second was better still. In the 82nd minute he bent a shot into the top left-hand corner from just outside the box, and he did it with his left foot, supposedly the weaker one.
Why this one stings for Tottenham
Because goals from strikers are exactly what Roberto De Zerbi’s side are short of. Spurs have won three in a row and climbed to eighth, but only one of the seven goals in that run came from a striker, Omar Marmoush against Coventry City. The rest came from defenders, a playmaker, a winger and a Chelsea goalkeeper, and Dominic Solanke has not scored in any of the three wins.
Meanwhile the natural goalscorer they sold is banging them in on Teesside. Fifteen goals in 16 appearances across all competitions is the kind of return that puts a young striker among the most promising in the country, and Tottenham let him go on sporting director Johan Lange’s watch for an upfront fee that barely registers in the modern market.
It also explains why the club are already looking outside for help. Spurs have contacted the agent of Eintracht Frankfurt striker Younes Ebnoutalib, and that kind of move costs a lot more than £8m.
What has Kim Hellberg said about him?
The Middlesbrough boss gave the credit for the signing to his recruitment staff. Asked over the weekend how Boro had prised Lankshear away from Spurs, Kim Hellberg said:
“To be fair, I think he watched us play, and I think it was more about Kieran [Scott] and everyone around that met him and talked to him. He had good control of the Championship and how we played.”
He added that the player was hungry for the move from the start: “When I talked to him, you could feel he was so interested in getting into it and to wear the shirt, to get into the way we play. He could see himself doing so much good in it. So, fair play to him.”
“Always a smile on his face”
Hellberg was just as warm about the person. “He’s exactly the same boy who came through the doors some months ago, and that I meet every day,” he said. “Always a smile on his face, except when he misses chances in training! He works very, very hard, he wants to improve, and he has a very good relationship with all the players in the group. When he wasn’t starting the game, he was very positive to other players.”
Better at more than finishing
Hellberg also pointed to the side of Lankshear’s game that has grown since he arrived. “I think he was top from the first day in the box and how he finished, but he has increased his quality in the run-and-turn game, which he was strong in today, but also in the pressing, which gave him the third goal,” Hellberg said, before sharing the praise with the players around him: “I don’t think many teams in Europe create more chances than us. He has unbelievable teammates around him that suit him very well in his role.”
Should Tottenham have kept Will Lankshear?
Hellberg’s last point is a fair one. Middlesbrough create chance after chance, and a striker in a side that dominates the Championship will usually get more chances than he would fighting for minutes at a Premier League club. Nobody can say for sure that Lankshear would have 15 goals in a Spurs shirt.
But that is not really the question. Spurs have spent the autumn hoping Solanke finds his touch and are now scouting Europe for a forward, while a young finisher who already knew the club and the dressing room is pressing, turning and scoring for someone else. Even if the add-ons do come in, the sale looks worse every weekend Lankshear scores, and on this form, that is most weekends.
