Football management is difficult at the best of times, but what do you do when you spend a lot of money on one striker and the other scores four goals in two starts? This is the issue that Andre Villas-Boas is facing at Tottenham Hotspur as he looks to accommodate the £26million Roberto Soldado and the long-serving Spurs stalwart Jermain Defoe. It is an unenviable situation as both strikers want to be playing to give themselves the best possible chance of being included in potential World Cup squads but only one can be picked in the match day squad due to the formation that is utilised at White Hart Lane. Considering Jermain Defoe has already said about how he does not want to be known as an impact player in an interview with BBC Sport, indicating that he would prefer to be starting. When looking at the qualities of both players one has to ask whether is it possible for one of them to remain patient, especially with the enigmatic Emmanuel Adebayor lurking in the background. Looking at it strictly in terms of the events of the last couple of seasons, Soldado is the better option as he has scored 61 goals in 88 appearances for Valencia and Spain, as well as scoring four in his first three games at Tottenham. In contrast to this, Defoe has scored 34 goals in 60 games for club and country in the same time frame, meaning that the Spaniard's goals to games ratio is slightly better than Defoe's, whilst he has also been more consistent than the Englishman as well. Whilst Soldado spreads his goals across a season, his English rival has a habit of scoring in fits and bursts, scoring a spate of goals in a short space of time and then failing to find the back of the net for a while, something he did last year which made the intervention by Gareth Bale all the more important. The issue here does not seem to be in terms of the quality of the striker as Soldado seems like the better option just in terms of his goal rate in recent seasons; however Defoe is making a good account of himself with consecutive doubles against Dinamo Tbilisi and Tromso in the Europa League. Defoe was left out of the squad on Sunday, which was surprising considering his performance three days earlier, especially when his replacement was Harry Kane, who is largely unproven at Premier League level. However, just because Defoe is not playing week in week it does not mean that he is not part of Villas-Boas' plans as football, as many have said before, is a squad game. The wealth of attacking talent at White Hart Lane means that it is impossible to keep everyone happy as with the likes of Erik Lamela, Nacer Chadli and Gylfi Sigurdsson to accommodate, somebody is going to have to be left out. Defoe is no stranger to having to fight for his place though as in his first spell he was competing with Dimitar Berbatov and Robbie Keane for a spot in the Spurs starting line-up, whilst in his second spell he has been trying to fight off the likes of Roman Pavlyuchenko and the aforementioned Adebayor. Defoe managed to oust Keane and Berbatov after returning to Tottenham following a year at Portsmouth when both of his rivals had moved on to Liverpool and Manchester United respectively. During this spell his only real challenge has been from Emmanuel Adebayor, who has kept the Englishman out of the first team for long stretches over the last couple of season, but now the Togolese international has fallen behind both Soldado and Defoe. Including the Englishman in a team line-up would provide Tottenham with a player who is experienced at the top level and has a proven Premier League pedigree, something which can only be a positive for a side with aspirations of qualifying for the Champions League. However, just the pedigree alone will not guarantee the diminutive forward a place in the side. The cost of Soldado alone is enough to keep him in the line-up and four goals in his first eight games is not a bad return for a striker playing in a new league. The only issue is the lack of goals from open play but that is something that will come with time as Soldado adapts to the more physical style of the Premier League, while Defoe will have to be content with starting cup games and acting as an impact player for the time being. If Soldado does seriously misfire at some point, then Defoe will be in prime position to take advantage. Until then, Defoe will have to be happy with starting in the cups.
