The road back to the top will have to come via Damascus for Tottenham Hotspur.
After failing to maximise the Harry Kane era, they are now trying to atone for the sins that led them to two successive 17th-placed finishes in the Premier League.
The simplest reason as to why Spurs are in such a mess relates to recruitment. In the final years of Daniel Levy’s tenure, the club found themselves dropping further back down the table than an England team in a semi-final coached by Thomas Tuchel (too soon?).
And so here we are today, with Tottenham a tad fortunate to even still be a Premier League side. The manager who saved them, Roberto De Zerbi, has arguably earned the right to lead an expensive rebuild, but there are plenty of reasons to be cautious and pessimistic about the plan of action.
At the time of writing, Spurs have signed six new players during the summer window, all of whom played in the Premier League last season – Jan Paul van Hecke, Martin Dubravka, Marcos Senesi, Andy Robertson, Mateus Fernandes and Sandro Tonali. The last two names on that list saw Tottenham obliterate their transfer record with extreme overpays, with Fernandes costing a flat £85m and Tonali’s final price projected to reach £100m.
Spurs’ Catch-22
Spurs’ net spend stands at £164.7m, helped out by Dubravka, Senesi and Robertson arriving on Bosman transfers in deals more akin to the club’s previous modus operandi. The major difference comes down to the other financials.
This new Tottenham, powered by the Lewis family (a soft rebrand of Enic), are not afraid to stump up for their targets, nor to pay them an extravagant wage to blow their rivals out of the water. These were the two main factors which held the club back in the market under Levy’s regime.
Tottenham appear to have two top targets to strengthen in the final third: Liverpool’s Cody Gakpo and Manchester City’s Savinho. Both fine players, both would immediately improve Spurs, and yet both would feel like underwhelming signings – even though they could cost a combined £140m.
There has been little creativity or imagination to Spurs’ window. They are both playing it safe and taking huge risks at the same time, trying to raise the floor of their team with the enlightenment that they simply cannot cut costs in the window anymore.
Adding Premier League-proven players should keep them out of another relegation battle, though that shouldn’t even have to be in their thinking. Tottenham have to make expensive mistakes just to break even in righting the wrongs of the past.
The hierarchy are still in place
That brings us to the elephant in the room. Well, the two elephants. The architects of last season’s mess, CEO Vinai Venkatesham and sporting director Johan Lange, are still in post.
Nobody upstairs has paid the price for nearly sending the ninth-richest club in world football down. Not in a physical sense, anyway. De Zerbi becoming the face of their transfer business is a clear shift in strategy, with the club backing a manager more than they ever have before.
The Italian himself has alluded to this. Speaking to gathered media on their pre-season tour of Oceania, he said of his involvement on transfers: “I don’t know why I love it, maybe because when you take the decision, you take the responsibility, but I think if the coach calls the player, you can build a special connection at the beginning with them.
Read more
“The player knows you are the key for this transfer, and maybe this player feels they have to give you back something more than if, for example, Johan Lange calls the player.”
Spurs’ years of neglecting the playing squad and always playing catch-up in the market has led them to this purgatory between a rock and a hard place. Vinkatesham and Lange should absolutely not be leading the project, but is handing over the keys to the most fiery manager in the league the best strategy either?
At worst, Tottenham should be a competitive team this season. Then again, we all said that this time last year, didn’t we?
from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/sgJFuTA
Post a Comment