Robbie Keane: Tottenham Saviour?

Little over a week ago I absolutely convinced myself that Robbie Keane would not be a Spurs player again. I just couldn't see Liverpool squandering a few million quid, in the process admitting they had made a very expensive mistake, and I couldn't see Keano himself swallowing his pride, coming to terms with his Anfield nightmare and scampering back to White Hart Lane with his tail between his legs. With the current insanity at Spurs at the moment I should have known better!

I'm happy to have been wide of the mark on that one, but let's face it, admitting you are wrong is a very difficult thing to do, even more so when it has to be done so publicly. Yet such admissions are implicit throughout this bizarre deal. Liverpool are admitting they were wrong to spend £20m on him just 6 months ago (and it's too easy to be dismissive of that figure, but what an almighty balls up that turned out to be), Spurs are admitting they were wrong to sell him (I know they say they didn't want to but they did) and Keano himself is admitting he was wrong to go there. A quite astonishing u-turn on three fronts in an incredibly short time frame.

Anyway, the Red side of things may smack of internal wrangling and the percentage of jump versus push may be debatable but one thing is for sure, we have got ourselves a top quality striker on the cheap. If there's one thing this club need right now it's more pointing and shouting. Keano has proved he is a 20 goals a season man, but he's also a fighter, a motivator, hugely respected and by all accounts a popular figure in the dressing room.

What he brings us is what we have been missing for a while, trickery and intelligence in the final third. Huddlestone's quarterback trick is tidy without being spectacular, Lennon's running into dead ends or poor delivery is frustrating, Jenas is a sideways and backwards merchant, Zokora couldn't hit a cows arse with a banjo, Defoe is more predator than provider and although Modders and Pav have shown flashes, neither look like they have Berba-esque ability to turn a game on their own.

OK, so Keane is no Berbatov, but he is a very clever player. He makes the right runs, he finds space, he can turn people inside out and he has feet quick enough to put other players through on goal without telegraphing it the way we do at the moment. In fact it wouldn't surprise me if him and Pav make a better partnership than Defoe and Pav. With Defoe's unfortunate accident it looks like he has the best part of 3 months to prove it.

I know there will be a few people out there that can't forgive and forget, but Keano has class, fight and league experience by the bucket load. With Defoe out for 10 weeks we would have been left with just Bent or Campbell to play alongside Pav for what could be Spurs' most important few months in the last 30 years.

My thoughts: Robbie Keane could be the signing that keeps us in the Premiership.