Transfer Deadline Day: Jose Mourinho wanted a striker

Tottenham wanted to boost its striking options during the transfer window, with Harry Kane sidelined, but its hopes looked to be over.

Jose Mourinho is light in attack.

Jose Mourinho suggested a quick fix might have been the wrong move as Tottenham looked set to miss out on strengthening its strike force on deadline day.

The Spurs boss saw hopes of signing Chelsea's Olivier Giroud and Real Sociedad's Willian Jose fail to result in a new arrival.

It meant that barring an unexpected late signing on Friday, Tottenham appeared as though it would go into the closing months of the season with Son Heung-min continuing to deputise up front.

Spurs has attacking midfield strength from the likes of Lucas Moura, Dele Alli and new arrival Steven Bergwijn, who joined from PSV this week.

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But Mourinho wanted an extra striker and both Giroud and Willian Jose would have added more of a physical presence to his forward line.

Spurs will be without injured England frontman Harry Kane until April at the earliest, a blow to its Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup prospects.

"I have to answer that yes it would be better with a striker," Mourinho said. "Yes, we would need a striker to have a better squad, to face the great challenges that we have in front of us in three different competitions.

"But we want to do things not to resolve the problems of today or tomorrow; we want things that are also good for the future.

"For example, Steven Bergwijn - I prefer to say Stevie - he's the kind of player that is good for now but he's also good for our future; he's also good for the direction we want to go.

"With the difficulties of the market in January, it was really hard to find the striker that is good not just to resolve the problems of today but good also for the future of the team, so probably we are not going to do it."