has dismissed suggestions that should have signed Victor Boniface instead of .
in the summer and the England captain has made an impressive start to life in Germany with three goals in four appearances so far.
However, Koln head coach Steffen Baumgart believes the Bundesliga champions would have been better off signing Boniface, the 22-year-old Nigerian striker who joined Bayer Leverkusen for €20m (£17.4m) in July.
When asked if Kane would significantly improve the Bundesliga, Baumgart told Sport Bild in August: ‘We already have a high level. A year ago, we said with Sadio Mane that everything was getting better. Now he’s gone. We saw his quality but he didn’t become the saviour that he was made out to be when he was signed.
‘Harry Kane is a player we [Koln] cannot afford. And if we had the money, we wouldn’t have thought about him either. I think Harry Kane is a very good footballer but he is not the type of player I would be looking for.
‘In my opinion, the boy [Boniface] is one of the best strikers in Europe. He’s 22 years old, has a good body – you know that his development is far from complete and that there’s a lot more to come from him.’
Boniface has made an excellent start at Leverkusen with four goals in his first three Bundesliga games this season.
But when asked about Baumgart’s comments, Tuchel said ahead of Bayern’s clash with Leverkusen on Friday evening: ‘It’s nice that the Koln coach is thinking about our transfer window. If we had known that earlier, we could have expanded it [Bayern’s transfer committee] to nine people.
‘Victor Boniface is a completely different type of striker to Harry Kane. We have exactly the types of players and personalities that we need. We’ll do more to get him even better integrated into our play.
‘Boniface is a perfect fit for Leverkusen. His power is impressive. We found the perfect striker for us. We need to cut out Leverkusen’s counter-attacks and stand up to them physically, including Boniface. He’s a target man. We have to stop their runs.’
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