How Much Does a Top-Level Forward Cost? Tottenham Are Going to Find out Soon

What is the going rate for a forward that a team needs to lead them to the promised land known as Champions League football?

Tottenham’s fans, chairman, owner, stadium workers, parking lot attendants and consiglieres are going to find out shortly.

Ryan Day wrote a quick report on a bid from Tottenham for Internacional’s Leandro Damiao, reportedly in the neighborhood of £15 million.

I snickered when I read that. (Not at Ryan, of course.)

But the idea that somehow Tottenham are going to lure one of the three best forward prospects in Brazil to the club for such a paltry amount is a borderline gut-buster of a laugher.

Internacional are probably already kicking themselves for letting Oscar go to Chelsea for £25 million at this point. They are not about to make the same mistake twice.

If they were, Spurs should just set-up camp there and make that their new youth training facility.

Consider this for a moment: Wolves valued Steven Fletcher at £12 million.

Read the previous line again.

And Sunderland are supposedly going to pay them that for the player, according to the Daily Mail.

His career high for goals in a season is 14 while playing for Hibernian.

The phrase “hand-over-fist” does not do this swindling justice.

So, while we’re on the subject of costs, let’s look at the price for some of the forwards mooted to be Tottenham targets:

Loic Remy: £15 million (Soccernet)

Fernando Llorente: £35 million (Metro)

Hulk: £40 million+ (Mirror)

Jose Salomon Rondon: £10 million (Sold)

Adrian Lopez: £14 million (Soccernet)

Demba Ba: £7 million (Daily Mail)

Emmanuel Adebayor: £5 million….or something to that effect (Daily Mail)

And in addition, a list of players who have already moved (via Soccernet or Daily Mail):

Olivier Giroud (Arsenal) £13 million

Lukas Podolski (Arsenal) £11 million

Eden Hazard (Chelsea) £32 million

Fabio Borini (Liverpool) £10 million

Zlatan Ibrahimovic (PSG) £17.6 million

Ezequiel Lavezzi (PSG) £22.9 million

To wit: getting a primetime forward is not going to be cheap. The average price of the players above is just shy of £18 million.

But for Tottenham to get into the Champions League, they are going to have to buckle down, stick a crowbar in their pocketbook and be ready to pony up.

In the case of Damiao, the fact that he has scored six goals in five Olympic matches will not impress some but that will matter little to Internacional, who will make sure they tack that on to the price of the player.

Needless to say, Internacional would not be smart businessmen if they did not.

In conclusion, it is going to take some cash to find the forward that Tottenham need to assist their top four chase.

Take the short stories for a grain of salt; when the big numbers start flying, it's time to pay attention.