Let's Talk About All These Striker-related Rumors

So, if you don't follow some of the staff on Twitter, or if you didn't read the Hoddle this morning, maybe you're a bit in the dark over the lastest transfer rumblings. Allow me to fill you in. Now that Tottenham Hotspur have completed the long rumored signing of Jan Vertonghen from Ajax and have surprisingly trumped Liverpool to acquire Gylfi Sigurdsson it seems that the next item on Spurs' shopping list is a striker.

Personally, it's a bit frustrating that the acquisition of a striker has waited this long (approximately 800 transfer windows), but I suppose if we finally get a competent goalscoring threat I'll be able to let bygones be bygones. The problem is, however, that some of these rumors are "pants on head crazy". Before anyone gets too excited (I'm looking at you Mr. Sleep) I want to discuss how realistic these rumors may or may not be.

The rumor that has burning up the Twitter-verse lately is that Tottenham Hotspur have agreed to a fee with Borussia Dortmund for Polish striker Robert Lewandowski. On the face of it this is awesome. Lewandowski is an excellent player. He's a big number 9 that would certainly be capable of leading the line in the Premier League. However, he's at a club that has won back-to-back Bundesliga titles and is playing in the Champions League. The management at BVB have said on many occasions they're not willing to part with the 23 year-old at this point and I don't see any reason why he would want to leave. There is 0% chance of this happening.

Another name being thrown about by the Twitter-atti is that of Emmanuel Adebayor. Adebayor spent last season on loan with Spurs and bringing him on full-time has seem like a goal of the club for a while now. Then, however, I started seeing rumors that Tottenham manager Andre Villas-Boas wasn't interested in Adebayor's services. Now, it seems increasingly likely that the Togolese striker will be returning to White Hart Lane on a permanent deal. The alleged price is only £5 million pounds, but I'm assuming he'll be on hefty wages (somewhere near £90,000 per week). I won't be surprised when this deal happens, but I don't think it's a certainty. This has a 90% chance of going down.

When rumors that Marco Bielsa had quit Athletic Bilbao began last week people started talking about what this might mean for some of the more in demand players at the Basque club. For Tottenham Hotspur fans, this meant speculation on the future of Fernando Llorente. Well, it turns out Bielsa, at least according to Athletic, is still in charge of the club and even if he wasn't that probably wouldn't change Athletic's view on the sale of Llorente. We can all fantasize about having him at Spurs, but the truth of the matter is that he's probably not going anywhere until Barcelona or Real Madrid come for him. This one also gets a 0% chance of happening.

On Friday, Kevin warned us that we may start hearing more Leandro Damiao rumors. He was right. Now that Internacional have signed Diego Forlan rumors of Damiao's departure are heating up. I still think this a gigantic tease and that Leandro won't go anywhere until January and even then he won't be joining Spurs, but if nothing else it's more likely to happen than it was a week ago. I'll say that there is a 33% chance Damiao moves to Spurs.

When a team hires a new manager it's inevitable that they get linked with some of that managers former players. Unless your new manager is Harry Redknapp, then you just buy back the players your club's previous manager sold. Anyways, a number of Porto players are being linked with Spurs, but so far the strongest rumors point towards a Chelsea player, Daniel Sturridge. It was believed that Sturridge didn't like playing out on the right under AVB, but he saw his role greatly diminished under new manager Roberto Di Mateo, so maybe this move makes some sense. I think there's moves a toss-up; 50% chance.

Those are the big 5 that are out there right now. Mostly because Loic Remy seems happy to stay at Marseille and also because I refuse to acknowledge the ridiculous "Theo Walcott to Tottenham" rumors that some of the rags are running. Now, we just play the waiting game to find out who our next signing is. On the bright side, we probably won't have to wait until transfer deadline day.