It’s no secret that Jose Mourinho wants another centre-forward at Tottenham, not only to provide back-up for the increasingly injury prone Harry Kane, but also to add greater competition for a starting place.
Several names have been mooted for the job, and Fenerbahce forward Vedat Muriqi is the latest to be linked with a Spurs move.
According to Kosovan Football Federation president Agim Ademi, Mourinho is “ready to pay whatever Fenerbahce wants” to sign Muriqi this summer.
“Tottenham are insisting on signing Muriqi, but there are also teams in Italy who are interested in him,” Ademi revealed in a recent interview.
But who is Muriqi and what would be bring to Tottenham? And why is Spurs manager Mourinho so intent on signing the target man given that, in England captain Kane, he already boasts one of the best out-and-out strikers in the game? After all, surely there are other areas of his team that need attention first?
Muriqi has enjoyed a successful first season in Istanbul, scoring 13 times in 26 Super Liga appearances. That comes on the back of a 17-goal season for Rizespor the season before.
The 26-year-old also scored four times in six Euro 2020 qualification outings for the Kosovo national team, catching the eye of Leicester City, Manchester United and Napoli according to reports.
But if you look beyond Muriqi’s goals record, it is easy to see why Mourinho would be interested in him. That’s because he is a centre-forward with a physical presence who is strong at holding up the ball to bring others around him into play, the ideal Mourinho frontman.
Similarities can be drawn between the way both Diego Costa and Muriqi play the game, and we all know how Mourinho got the best out of the fiery striker during his second stint at Chelsea.
The Fenerbahce striker might not be quite so volatile, but he doesn’t shirk away from a battle. He is a nightmare for opposition defenders to go up against.
Just like Costa, Muriqi’s physical nature masks how smart his movement is. He might be used as something of a battering ram, to great effect, but he also spots space in the opposition half and knows how to exploit it. Muriqi possesses sharp game intelligence, something Mourinho likes to see in his players.
There’s also a versatility to Muriqi’s game which sees him used as a wide man for the Kosovo national team and as a physical presence through the middle for Fenerbahce. In this sense, there’s an air of Mario Mandzukic about him, his imposing frame often disguising his adaptability.
This is another trait which surely appeals to Mourinho and would give him the option of using Muriqi alongside Kane, not in the place of the Tottenham icon.
Mourinho likes to have a myriad of options to give him tactical freedom, and while the signing of another striker might not, on the face of things, do this, there would be more to Muriqi’s arrival that meets the eye.
As seen in his first few months as Spurs boss, Mourinho has a big task on his hands to make his mark on a team that, in essence, is not his.
This summer will reveal a lot about what he envisages for Tottenham under his stewardship, and the signing of Muriqi would point in the direction of where Mourinho wants to head.
