Tottenham Hotspur sold 21-year-old striker Will Lankshear to Middlesborough this summer transfer window for what could potentially become 20 million pounds. While Spurs knew Lankshear is a great young striker, they likely felt that this was money they could not pass up on, thinking they would sign a new center forward and still have both Dominic Solanke and Richarlison.
Fast forward to October, and Spurs are winless in the Premier League, Richarlison isn't a part of the official squad after three transfers fell apart and a silly feud with Roberto De Zerbi emerged, Dominic Solanke has been an outright disaster, and Omar Marmoush is the only center forward Spurs were able to sign in the summer window.
Lankshear, on the other hand, is thriving. The young striker is banging home the goals for MIddlesborough in the EFL Championship and for the England youth national team setup. In league play, Lankshear has found the back of the net six times in eight starts, and he also has two goals in the League Cup in just 121 minutes of action.
Will Lankshear couldn't be worse than Dominic Solanke
Even considering the lesser competition in the Championship, Lankshear has been so impressive and so clinical that it is difficult to imagine that he would be any worse than Solanke in the first team. And with Richarlison ostracized, Lankshear would have gotten real minutes for Spurs this season as a candidate behind Omar Marmoush - or even as a starter if Marmoush's finishing continues to go begging, which could have then opened up more minutes for the Egyptian international on the left wing as an inverted scorer.
The larger issue with Will Lankshear is that he never got much of a chance to play for Tottenham Hotspur despite being tabbed as a promising young prospect, so Spurs really had no way of knowing he would be this good. And to this day, they have no way of knowing if he would have cut it in the Tottenham first team or been a better option to Dominic Solanke and Richarlison.
Tottenham need to win now, but they are also building something lasting for the future. That leads to an age-old debate regarding the balance of giving young players of the future like Lankshear minutes and giving players like Solanke and Richarlison who are veterans and maybe help you win now.
Roberto De Zerbi leaned on veteran players to stay up in the Premier League, but he has been using more young players this season. And last season, it was the young players like Mathys Tel, Antonin Kinsky, and Archie Gray who helped the team the most. Meanwhile, a lot of Spurs worst players were the more experienced ones like Cristian Romero, Randal Kolo Muani, Guglielmo Vicario, and Dominic Solanke.
Tottenham have to find the right balance under De Zerbi, and De Zerbi has to be more ruthless with players like Solanke who are not helping the team win now and have no future value. They are just taking up a spot from someone, like even Mathys Tel as a No. 9, who can help the team both in the future and maybe even in the short term. And the Lankshear failure, for example, could make Tottenham and De Zerbi think a little bit more about someone like Luca Williams-Barnett getting their chance.
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