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For a couple of days, it has been widely reported that Tottenham Hotspur are signing striker Antonio Pedroza. Pedroza is a 20-year-old striker who possesses both good size and pace. He was born in England, but has come up through the Jaguares de Chiapas team as a youngster. And now, apparently, he is about to be a Tottenham player. He even says so himself.
I've seen a lot of grumbling about and praise for Pedroza, all of which seems like a load of nonsense. I'm going to tackle these one at a time because that's what I do. Here are all of the asinine things I've heard about Antonio Pedroza in the last 24 hours.
1. THIS IS YOUR BIG SUMMER SIGNING?!? F--K OFF HARRY AND LEVY!
No, this is not their big summer signing. Just because the club needs a legitimate starting striker doesn't mean that they're prohibited from buying bargain players as well. Please stop talking about football.
More after the jump.
2. HE'S THE NEXT CHICHARITO!
This was said by the above-linked ESPN article and a bunch of parrots on twitter. The exact quote in the ESPN article is "Pedroza, 20, has often been compared to Manchester United striker Javier Hernandez." There's one problem here: No, he hasn't been.
He's only been compared to Chicharito 'often' in the last 24 hours by rags and people on twitter who have never seen him play. Pedroza has a chance to be a good player but I have NEVER heard him compared to Hernandez before 24 hours ago. If you didn't know, I watch a ton of FMF and run a Mexican football blog in addition to this blog, so this is not because I don't pay attention to football in Mexico.
The fact is. Pedroza is a decent young player. He did not get much of a chance in the Jaguares team over the last couple of years. When he played, he was very average, but he appeared to be slowly improving. Against Cerro Porteño in Copa Libertadores, he scored a nice headed goal. This is far and away the most notable thing he has done in his career to date.
Pedroza is a decent young player who has a chance to play for Spurs in a couple of years, if this signing does, in fact, go through. He is not the last striker that Spurs will sign in this window, and he is not the next Javier Hernandez (at least in the next two years). More likely than not, this is a value for money signing. If Pedroza is loaned out and becomes a 10 goal scorer in the Championship, they'll make a profit on him. If he ends up being better than that, the signing was an incredible value. If he's a total nothing, they didn't lose much money.
I'm getting impatient too, guys. I want to see the big summer signing we've all been waiting for, and as every day goes by without news, I get a little less hopeful that the big summer signing is ever going to come. However, the lack of a big signing doesn't mean that Spurs aren't allowed to sign value players. The lack of a big signing also shouldn't trick us into thinking Pedroza is more than he is.
He's a good value for money signing that might pan out, if he is even a real signing at all. Cool your jets, homies.