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Tottenham's inability to bring in backup for Harry Kane could be costly

Not with a bang, but a whimper. The mid-season transfer window came and went and Spurs' squad remains substantially unchanged.

Kyle Naughton has gone to Swansea, DeAndre Yedlin has arrived from the Seattle Sounders, Aaron Lennon has been loaned out to Everton, Benoit Assou-Ekotto has had his contract cancelled and Dele Alli came from MK Dons and went straight back on loan the same day. No great surprises there and, as far as the first team squad is concerned, little has changed.

There's something to be said for not paying over the odds in January for a player who may or may not make a great deal of difference to the course of the last months of the season. There's also the question of pragmatics: the very best players who are available are not likely to have White Hart Lane at the top of their list of preferred destinations. And yet there's no doubt that Spurs' unusually quiet January window does come with risks attached -- most notably in the absence of any back-up for striker Harry Kane.

With a top four Premier league place, the Europa league knockout stages and the Capital One cup Final at stake, Spurs have a crowded fixture list with precious few easy games. While it may be possible to rotate the midfield and the back four, it's hard to see how Mauricio Pochettino can afford to give the in-form Kane a break. Ensuring that Kane remains fit and fresh for the next four months won't be easy.

Should Kane get injured or jaded then Spurs will be in trouble. Roberto Soldado tries and works hard but his self-confidence is shattered. He looks like someone who no longer believes he will score and just as significantly, his team mates don't think he will score either.

The result is a vicious circle where Soldado seldom takes a chance on making a run into open spaces and the rest of the team only pass the ball to him as a last resort. However good his work rate may be, a forward who doesn't score goals is a luxury that few teams can afford. Not least a team with a poor goal difference that has relied on two players, Kane (10 goals in 19 Premier League games) and attacking midfielder Christian Eriksen (nine in 23 Premier League games), for the majority of its goals (35 this season).

And yet Soldado is now all Spurs have left as backup striker in the dressing room. Indeed the biggest mystery of the transfer window surrounds a player whom the club might have sold. By all accounts, chairman Daniel Levy, personally blocked Emmanuel Adebayor leaving to West Ham on a loan deal.

The precise details have not been revealed but on the surface it looks a mystifying decision. Adebayor clearly doesn't feature in either Levy's or Pochettino's plans. They have both given up on him; they don't think he's good enough anymore and they don't like his attitude. He's both expensive and divisive.

Given this, you might have thought Spurs would have been happy to see Adebayor leave White Hart Lane to stem the drain on both team finances and morale. There may be a bad feeling between Spurs and West Ham over the Olympic stadium bid (which ended up with West Ham securing a move to the arena), but Levy could well have shot himself in the foot by blocking the move. Anyone who has watched Adebayor closely this season can see he is a shadow of the player he was last season.

It could be that his age has caught up with him; it could be that he has struggled to shake off the malaria he had at the beginning of the season; it could be that he has just fallen out of love with playing for Spurs -- the same way he has fallen out of love with playing for his previous clubs in Manchester City and Arsenal. Whichever it is, and it could be a combination of the three, the chances of Adebayor coming good again this season look vanishingly small.

Pochettino, the players and the fans will be praying Spurs don't find themselves in a position later in the season where they are relying on him. In the meantime, Pochettino has been left with the conundrum of keeping the infamously unhappy Adebayor happy. Good luck with that.