Roberto Soldado's just sitting out here, if anyone wants to claim him

This post is part of a deadline morning series on potential Tottenham transfers.You can find all of the posts in the series right here, as well as the initial post explaining this series right here.

Long-time readers of this site will be familiar with the #weneedastriker movement, which started very shortly after this site's inception. We spent a lot of time playing without a quality, line-leading striker who was actually contracted to us. We were over the moon when we signed Roberto Soldado, who was supposed to be the solution to all our problems.

And then he was bad. Really bad. Based on his Valencia career, we assumed he'd be good at finishing if nothing else, but he couldn't finish. He hasn't looked better in preseason or run-outs in competitive matches. It's possible Bobby's just broken.

The only reason not to ditch Soldado is that we paid £26m for him last season and we're embarrassed about looking bad if we take a massive loss on him. But it's okay, we already look bad for throwing that down in the first place. He's on dumb wages and we should try to get rid of them any way we can.

Age: 29

Likelihood he'll play if he stays: Not great, Bob! He probably is -- and very well should be -- our 3rd striker.

Potential suitors: Apparently Real Madrid! He's also been linked to a loan move to Juventus.

Price if he's sold: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Loan or sale?: They seem equally likely

The verdict - Will he be an active Spurs player on September 2?: Is it okay to say that I hope not? I'm never going to root for Spurs players to fail or anything, but I'd really prefer we figure out any way to get his wages off the books and get anyone else in. Don't compound bad decisions by trying to justify them. We made a bad decision to buy him. Let's not make it worse by continuing to flush money down the toilet.