Johnson and Solanke are the future of Spurs’ attack – and they look bright

To watch Tottenham recently was to get a glimpse of a future. It’s not a future many Spurs fans would want to consider, but the evidence from September is that it might not be so bad.

We are coming to the end of the Harry Kane and Son Heung-min era at Tottenham. For eight years – from Son’s arrival in 2015 to Kane’s departure in 2023 – these two world-class strikers carried Spurs. Regardless of the problems Spurs had during that period – poor recruitment, mismanagement and all the rest – they could count on two of the best attacking players in Europe to bail them out.

When Kane was sold to Bayern Munich last summer, he left a huge hole, not just in his goals, but in his creativity, his defensive play and his leadership on and off the pitch. Son became captain (in place of Hugo Lloris) and senior player, and had a better season than the previous one, scoring 17 Premier League goals.

But even the Son will not last forever. This is the final season of his contract, although Spurs intend to activate an option that will see him signed for next season as well. But he is 32 years old and time will eventually catch up with him. He is already showing signs of slowing down: so far this season he is averaging 1.4 shots per 90 in the league, his lowest figure during his time at Spurs, and 0.28 expected goals per 90, the lowest set at Spurs.

With Kane in Germany and Son likely past his peak, Tottenham will have to rely on less established firepower. This can be scary. It will certainly be more difficult. Spurs will have to work harder to score goals and can’t just get the ball to someone on the edge of the box and trust it to end up in the bottom corner. Just two weeks ago, this may have led some to wonder if the Spurs were in trouble. With Son not scoring every game, where would the goals come from?

But it’s time for the next generation of Spurs forwards to step up and fill the gap. Two years ago they spent an initial £50m to bring in Richarlison from Everton. Despite being better last season, he has scored just 12 Premier League goals since then. After paying so much money for little return, Tottenham need their next big signings to start scoring quickly.

Spurs spent £47.5m on Brennan Johnson last summer and he did well last season, with five goals and 10 assists in 26 Premier League appearances, but it always felt like there was more to come. This summer they bought Dominic Solanke from Bournemouth for a fee that could be as high as £65m. With more than £100 million invested in their new frontline, the pressure was on.

Solanke and Johnson started together for Leicester City on the first day, and Spurs dominated possession, but neither scored and Spurs drew 1-1. Solanke suffered a knock and when he returned against Arsenal on September 15, neither he nor Johnson had much impact. Spurs lost 1-0. Fans were excited. (Johnson suffered so much abuse on social media that he deleted his accounts.) If neither man managed to score goals, Tottenham would have a frustrating season.

But when Spurs went to Coventry City in the League Cup, things started to change. Solanke worked hard all night and when Johnson came on, he scored a brilliant winner in stoppage time, latching on to Rodrigo Bentancur’s pass and finishing perfectly. It was his first goal since April and his season finally began.

Johnson always felt that if he had just one good moment, one big goal, then his confidence would return and he would never look back. So it was proven: Johnson started against Brentford, Qarabag and Manchester United, scoring in all three games. To see his delight in deflecting Micky van de Ven’s cross at Old Trafford – making that classic run at the back post that he does so well – was to see a player transformed from his appearance at the start of the season.

But Johnson can’t do it all alone. The other story of recent weeks has been the arrival of Solanke to the Tottenham player. He was signed in part for his instincts in the box, and the way he collected rebounds against Brentford and Qarabag showed his killer instinct. The same was true of the way he attacked Pape Matar Sarr’s shot from Lucas Bergvall’s corner at Old Trafford on Sunday.

Solanke also offers more than that: a relentlessness in pressing the opponent that sets the tone for the entire team, as well as an awareness of connecting with his teammates to create opportunities for them. Just watch how he recovered the ball against Qarabag and played in Johnson, to get an idea of ​​how his value to the team will be even greater than the goals he scores.

Since Johnson joined Coventry he has scored four and Solanke three, and between them you can get an idea of ​​how Spurs might attack in the future. When Tottenham went to Old Trafford on Sunday, they did so without Son and racked up Spurs’ highest xG figure since records began: 4.59.

If you go back to the data and look at Spurs’ other best xG hauls – none of them exceeding four – they are almost exclusively games in which Kane and Son played and scored. (The 4-0 win against Everton in January 2018; the 5-0 win against Swansea the previous season; the 2-0 win against Arsenal in April 2017; the 5-1 win against Stoke in December 2017; the 5-0 win at Norwich in May 2022.) The only exception is the 4-1 defeat of Newcastle United last season, by which point Kane had already departed.

Of course, we are not yet in the post-Son era. He started the seasons slowly before and then picked up the pace. He scored twice against Everton on 24 August. Although he hasn’t scored since then, there’s no doubt he will continue to be first choice on the left when he returns to form. In this system, playing this way, there will be plenty of goals on offer for him as well.

But the issue here is that for years Tottenham’s attacking game has been painfully dependent on two men. One of them left and the Son can no longer do everything alone. At some point, Tottenham will have to find a way to score goals without relying on an all-time great to do it all for them. And for the first time you can now see a sketch of what that future will look like.

(Top photo: Brennan Johnson and Dominic Solanke; by Alex Pantling via Getty Images)