Will Roberto Soldado find his feet in the Premier League?

Spanish international striker Roberto Soldado has struggled for goals since his summer arrival at White Hart Lane

Tottenham are still very much in the race for the top four and a Champions League spot for next season.

That chase has been aided by a highly-rated and expensive striker, who has scored nine goals in just 12 Premier League appearances this season.

Unfortunately for the Spanish international striker Roberto Soldado, that striker is Togo Emmanuel Adebayor and not the Spaniard himself.

Transformation

The transformation in Adebayor’s form has meant that Soldado has not started many matches, as Spurs boss Tim Sherwood has gone with a lone striker system, after at first experimenting with two up front in the early tenure at the club.

Adebayor has been a revelation since Sherwood brought him back into the Spurs squad, after being frozen out by former-boss Andre Villas-Boas. The Togo striker is now undoubted first choice striker and questions are being asked about the Spaniard’s ability to play in the English top-flight.

Poor form

The £26million summer signing from Valencia missed a golden opportunity in Spurs’ 1-0 defeat at Ukrainian Dnipro on Thursday night and has scored just once in his last 10 games for the north London club.

Soldado has netted 10 times in 26 games since his summer arrival from Los Ches. That does not seem like a terrible record, but for a player of his value and reputation he will be disappointed by his goal return this season.

Reputation

Roberto Soldado arrived in the Premier League with a big reputation as a goal poacher. His ratio of a goal every other game in La Liga was impressive and he is proven goal scorer. The transition from La Liga to Premier League has been a difficult one for the Spain international.

His reputation has unfortunately meant that he needed to hit the ground running in English football, but many of his early goals came from the penalty spot and he has struggled to find the net from open play.

Chances

Soldado is regarded as a player that is renowned for his ability for putting the ball in the back of the net from inside the penalty area. However, the Spaniard has looked low on confidence in his time at Spurs.

He is missing chances this season that he would have scored at Valencia and suddenly looking like a poor player, which he never did at Valencia. He is now struggling when he does get the chances he because he is trying so hard to impress.

Backed

Having seen a lot of Soldado in La Liga for Valencia, I really did believe that he could make the transition to the Premier League and be as prolific in England as he was in Spain. However, Soldado just has not got up and running in his new environment.

In the last few weeks both boss Tim Sherwood and teammate Jan Vertonghen have backed the striker to re-discover his touch in front of goal. His boss and teammate may believe that he is going to recover his form, but I am not so sure he is going to re-discover his form in English football.

Doubts

If Emmanuel Adebayor continues in his current vein of form then Roberto Soldado will continue to struggle to get into the Spurs starting line-up. This will lead to doubts over the future of Soldado at Spurs and in English football.

Roberto Soldado may be a player that is just not equipped to play in the Premier League. The proof of his ability would be that there would be a long queue for his services if he became available for transfer in the summer.

I have always been a big fan of the Spaniard and I really hope that he starts scoring goals, as it would be a crying shame if he left Spurs in the summer and not proved his ability in the Premier League.

Can Roberto Soldado recover his goal scoring form this season?