Gary Cahill: Why Not Signing Him Was a Good Decision for Tottenham

The transfer window of August has passed and the center defender Gary Cahill still finds himself on the same team he was before, Bolton.

There were numerous teams that were looking to sign the 25-year-old Sheffield native, including the Tottenham Hotspur.

Tottenham loaned and sold numerous players in the transfer window including Alan Hutton and Jermaine Jenas to Aston Villa, Peter Crouch and Wilson Palacios to Stoke City, David Bentley to West Ham, as well as Robbie Keane to Los Angeles of the MLS. All of those transfers freed up about £20 million which was around what Bolton was looking for in order to get the transfer of Gary Cahill completed.

Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp expressed a great deal of anger in the fact that they could not finalize the deal when he spoke with Sky Sports (h/t ESPN), "I have always been a big admirer of Gary Cahill, so we will have to see what happens."

However, Cahill may have not exactly been the perfect fit in Tottenham like he thought or many Spur fans would have thought. Even though Tottenham have given up eight goals in the two games, defense does not seem to be the issue which the team needs to address first.

Spurs have many defensive players who can perform just fine if they just step up their game some. Players like Michael Dawson, Benoit Assou-Ekotto, Younes Kaboul, Kyle Walker, Vedran Corluka and Sebastien Bassong are all solid defenders. Granted, it would have benefited to bring in a player such as Cahill, but it almost seems redundant with those guys.

Also, one of the biggest flaws of Cahill is his positioning which is commonly exposed by attackers. This is one big red flag for a team looking for a person to anchor a defense. This transfer window was definitely one of the weaker ones considering that someone like Cahill could be transferred at the price of £21 million plus fees.

Why should Spurs spend £21 million plus fees to a player who has his contract ending in a year? A player like Cahill will see a lot more attention when his contract is up by teams like Manchester City, Arsenal or even Manchester United who will pay a lot more than Tottenham can even afford.

The main issues for Tottenham is the striker position as well as defensive midfielder position. The midfield of Tottenham was exposed in the first two games which caused Spurs not to be able to run their game plan of controlling the ball. Bringing in Scott Parker was a huge addition as he can bring exactly that into the midfield.

Tottenham now has all the money that they pocketed from the transfers to spend on other places of need in the offseason or even in the January transfer window.

One player who would have been a better fit to this squad rather than paying the amount that Bolton would have wanted, would have been the Werder Bremen defender Per Mertesacker. Arsenal was able to agree to terms on this guy for less than £10 million. Mertesacker is not as established as Cahill is, but he would have been a perfect fit considering what he can bring to the squad as well as the price.

For the reasons of price, redundancy and his contract situation, the failed signing of defender Gary Cahill from Bolton may have been the best for the Tottenham Hotspur.