Solanke, the £65m, and the price of a hasty promise

At the 66th minute of the match against Aston Villa, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium fell into a strange silence. Dominic Solanke left the pitch, head down, without a single complaint. On the bench, Roberto De Zerbi neither shouted nor gestured; he simply made notes in his notebook. The 2-3 home defeat was the second shock in a five-game winless run in the Premier League, but for me the most telling moment was the silence of a 29-year-old striker. Solanke walked down the tunnel, and the whole stadium seemed to understand that a £65m contract was rewriting its own terms. They call the decline of young men a lack of discipline; with Solanke, it is a bigger question: did we place our expectations wrongly, or is he losing himself? That is the question Roberto De Zerbi just answered in the bluntest way possible: his physical condition is not good enough. He told the press that Solanke must improve his fitness, regain his confidence, and that he would stand by him until the end. In theory, that is public protection combined with public challenge. But in football, a phrase like not good enough from a head coach, even wrapped in diplomatic language, is still a crack in the paint of expectation. It took me thirty years to understand that the golden boy does not rise; it is the paint of our expectation that begins to crack. Solanke is not a golden boy, but he carries a £65m fee on his back – a shirt heavy enough to turn every goal into an obligation and every scoreless game into a crime. Look at the numbers. Across seven appearances, Solanke has scored exactly one goal – and that came against Charlton in the Carabao Cup, a lower-division side. In the Premier League, he has failed to score, was substituted after 66 minutes against Aston Villa, and had already produced an anonymous display at Everton as Tottenham left with a 0-0 draw. Tottenham are now winless in five league matches. Their attack cannot score from the centre-forward position; the goals that ended their drought came from Conor Gallagher and centre-back Jan Paul van Hecke. Listen again: a midfielder and a defender broke the deadlock, while the most expensive striker in the squad watched. This is not a failing tactical system; it is an execution crisis at the striker position. When a £65m striker does not score, analysts usually talk about formations, creation, pressing systems. But here, the problem lies in the player's own body and mind. De Zerbi did not talk about positioning or passing; he talked about physical condition not being good enough and a lack of confidence. Solanke entered the 2026-26 season after a lengthy injury layoff and missed all of pre-season. A striker who relies on pace and power, after a summer without training with the team, usually needs six to ten competitive matches to regain his rhythm. Seven games is a small sample, but it is not an excuse. At £65m, no one is allowed to wait quietly. The financial issue is even more serious. Solanke is 29. For a centre-forward dependent on physicality, this is the beginning of the depreciation phase of his value. He signed his contract at his peak, but his resale value will be close to zero if he keeps suffering injuries and losing form. Tottenham cannot sell him at a loss in January without recording an asset impairment that could affect Profit and Sustainability metrics. In other words, they are trapped with an expensive, declining asset, while their backup options sit in the stands or remain unregistered. On that point, let us talk about the elephant in the room. Richarlison, who scored 11 Premier League goals last season and is widely credited with keeping Tottenham in the top flight, was left out of the 25-man squad. De Zerbi chose to keep Xavi Simons – a long-term absentee through injury – instead of a proven goalscorer. He explained that Richarlison decided everything alone after his attempt to leave in August and the collapse of the move to Everton. But that explanation cannot erase one fact: Tottenham have removed an 11-goal striker from the squad, while their main striker has scored once in seven games. This is no longer about discipline; it is a squad-management gamble that could backfire. Worse still, Mathys Tel – a young forward expected to replace Solanke in the future – sat on the bench for the entire match against Aston Villa. When asked why he did not use Tel while Tottenham were chasing a goal, De Zerbi said it was a technical decision and that the substitutes who came on had more chances to change the game. He insisted Tel understood and was very nice. That sounds gentle, but for a young player desperate for opportunity, being ignored while the team searches for goals is a terrible signal. It shows the coach trusts veterans more than he dares to bet on youth. And it sends a message to the whole dressing room: no one is safe, not even the highly rated ones. From another angle, this story reveals a fracture in the striker supply chain. When a big club spends £65m on a 29-year-old centre-forward, they accept a win-now model. But if that model collapses, the entire transfer market feels the impact: other clubs become more cautious about expensive deals, and young players like Tel find it even harder to get opportunities. Tottenham are sending a dangerous signal: they would rather overpay for a name than be patient with development. The greater the media pressure, the easier it is to repeat mistakes. When all eyes are on Solanke, everyone around him – from the coaching staff to the board – wants a scapegoat. As a man who has lived through World Cups and heard the crack of history in Moscow, I know football never judges by intention. It judges by results. And Tottenham's results are so bad that even a hardened old man like me must ask: are we burying a player too quickly simply because he does not live up to his transfer fee? There is no xG data, no chance-creation numbers, no measurement showing whether Solanke is broken or just unlucky. Seven games after injury is a thin sample. I might be wrong, but I remember how Germany were eliminated at the 2026 World Cup: they had 74% possession, 28 shots, then lost 0-2 to South Korea. They did not deserve to lose, but they lost. Solanke does not need pity; he needs a goal, one lucky touch, one moment to remember why he plays this game. Sitting in the stands at Tottenham Hotspur on a September evening, I remembered a line I once wrote after the days of empty stadiums: An empty stadium does not take away the shout; it only makes us hear more clearly the sigh of the coaching bench. That night, the bench did not sigh. De Zerbi sat still, watching, waiting. He does not have much time left to wait for a striker to find himself. Tottenham cannot turn things around with a January transfer alone; they need a solution from within. Either Solanke wakes up, or De Zerbi must find another way to put the ball in the net. And the questions about Richarlison, about Tel, about the £65m value, will keep haunting them like an unfinished prophecy. There is no great prophecy, only an old man cynical enough to see the crack the crowd chooses to ignore. Tottenham are at a crossroads: turn Solanke's crisis into an opportunity to rebuild the attack, or keep pouring money into a bleeding position. For a club that once had to fight to stay up, this choice matters more than any tactic. For a coach saying not good enough in front of the microphone, his words become a prophecy: if Solanke does not answer with goals, De Zerbi himself will be the next one questioned. I do not know the future, but I know that in football, expectation is the most expensive thing. Tottenham paid £65m for Solanke, and now they are paying with their reputation in every scoreless match.