Tottenham Hotspur finally have another striker after the Brazilian joined from Benfica to provide support to Harry Kane in Jose Mourinho’s squad
A Portuguese football expert believes Carlos Vinicius will score goals and shine for Tottenham Hotspur following his move from Benfica.
Spurs signed the 25-year-old Brazilian on loan for £2.7million with an option to make the deal permanent for a further £38million should Vinicius impress.
The striker scored 24 goals and laid on 13 assists last season for Benfica as he finished as the joint top scorer in Liga NOS.
Now Vinicius will be turning his attentions to the Premier League and Tiago Peres Costa of Sport TV in Portugal, explained what Spurs fans can expect from their new front man.
“He’s a striker, a number nine, a forward with mobility and he has a great left foot,” he told Spurs’ official website.
“One of the things he can improve on is his work with the right foot but last year, he developed his heading game – he scored many goals with his head. When he arrived in Portugal, he wasn’t so good with his head but now he has developed that part of his game very well.
“He’s only 25 years old. He’s very tall, he’s strong against defenders, he can take and keep the ball very well and combine with the players around him to get them into the area. He’s very good with his left foot – he strikes the ball very well with it.”
Costa believes that Vinicius will only become better by working alongside Kane and will benefit from the service he will receive at Tottenham and could even soon be rewarded with a call-up for Brazil.
“He is a very humble guy yet, even with Benfica being the biggest club in terms of history in Portugal, he arrived and became the top goalscorer at the club in his first season – a huge impact,” he said.
“He’s a guy with good confidence. Now he has a Portuguese coach who can talk to him in his language in Jose Mourinho and his technical staff, I think he can improve, especially with the pace and intensity of the Premier League.
“He is a coach’s player and now he is an adult. When Harry Kane needs to rest, Vinicius can step up and perform the role very well. Whether that be in the Europa League or even a hard game in the Premier League, say if Tottenham are drawing 0-0 with 20 minutes to go, he can play perfectly alongside Kane and it will be a powerful strike force.”
“A point in favour for him is he will not be the main striker for Spurs. He will work alongside one of the best forwards in the world in the shape of Harry Kane so we can say that he can only improve.
“With the players behind him providing him with assists, I think it will be easy for him to score goals for Tottenham.
“One handicap is that he doesn’t speak English very well, so he will need to improve that but the language of the field, of scoring goals, he knows that very well. I think over the next few seasons, if he continues to improve, he could be called into Brazil’s national team.”
He added: “He has a nickname here in Portugal – ‘Vinigol’. We also knew him as Vinicius – we didn’t call him Carlos.
“With Vinicius, we called him ‘Vinigol’ because he scored lots of goals in the teams that he played for in Portugal, so it will be good for Tottenham supporters to start calling him ‘Vinigol’ – I think he would like it!”
Lucas Moura is delighted to have his compatriot in the Spurs squad.
“I’m very happy because I have a Brazilian guy with me!” he said. “I can speak Portuguese, I can joke with him about the things we speak about in Brazil. So, I’m very happy.
“I’m so happy for him because he deserves it. He had such a good season with Benfica. Let’s help him now, and he will be good for us.”
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