Article by Joe FishClick here to follow e-Spurs on Twitter for the latest news!
There has been a lot of talk this week about Mauricio Pochettino needing to reduce the numbers in his Tottenham squad before the end of the window.
With 32 senior players currently on the books, at least seven need to be cut to accommodate Premier League registration rules, while room will certainly be left for more additions to be made before the transfer deadline on September 1.
The under-21 statuses of Eric Dier, Nabil Bentaleb, Ben Davies and Harry Kane will give Pochettino some leeway when his list of 25 has to be submitted, but there is still the need for some inessentials to be sold or loaned out.
A report in the Daily Mail on Wednesday claimed that up to 11 Lillywhites are being made available in order for the squad to be balanced out.
It seems that a reasonable proportion of the White Hart Lane ranks are deemed dispensable, from flops of last summer such as Nacer Chadli and Etienne Capoue, to long-serving crowd favourites Michael Dawson and Aaron Lennon.
Injury-prone trio Sandro, Mousa Dembele and Younes Kaboul and homegrown pairing Andros Townsend and Kyle Naughton could also be discarded for the right price, while there is interest in Vlad Chiriches and Roberto Soldado.
But there is a group of core players that the club have clearly indicated they are desperate to hang onto in a bid to spearhead a fresh assault on the top four.
How the below quintet perform this season will likely have a strong bearing on whether Pochettino can lead us to our Champions League holy grail.
Note: The author has omitted Hugo Lloris and Christian Eriksen because he assumes that they will play well. Of these five, there is less certainty…
Jan Vertonghen
Judging by his transfer activity so far, Pochettino has made addressing what has been an ever-changing and thus dodgy defence one of his top priorities.
What Tottenham desperately need is a stable centre-back partnership and, having swatted away interest in him from Barcelona earlier this summer, Vertonghen is almost certain to represent one half of that.
Last year, the Belgian fell way short of the standards that he set himself in his debut Premier League season, when he was named in the PFA Team of the Year.
He was one of the first to throw the towel in when things got tough and looked thoroughly disinterested, as if he had already decided that he was going to leave.
However, quotes in the media suggest that this attitude has improved significantly and, if this is reflected by his performances on the pitch, Tottenham have an outstanding centre-half around who to build their back line.
Emmanuel Adebayor
Pochettino has yet to dip into the market for a striker, and with top targets Romelu Lukaku taken and Christian Benteke injured, he may not do so at all.
That would leave Spurs with a three-man strike force of Adebayor, Roberto Soldado and Harry Kane, and with the latter two boasting only nine Premier League goals between them, much of the onus may fall on Adebayor’s shoulders.
Those shoulders, of course, have never been the most reliable, with the Togolese going from unplayable to anonymous with infuriating regularity.
Under Tim Sherwood’s guidance, he seemed to be more mentally mature than in previous seasons, but with a new man at the helm, there is no way to be sure which Adebayor will turn up if he starts against West Ham this weekend.
If Pochettino can keep him motivated, then Spurs have one of the Premier League’s best lone forwards and a 20-goal striker on their hands. Hopefully Roberto Soldado can produce the form that will keep him on his toes too.
Paulinho
Spurs infamously took a few drubbings from the big teams last season – 6-0 and 5-1 by Manchester City, 5-0 and 4-0 by Liverpool and 4-0 by Chelsea.
These matches, pitting the (supposed) elite against each other, are often won in the centre of the park, and Paulinho is likely to be a regular there this term.
Critics of the Brazilian questioned his consistency and desire in his last dozen outings, but let us not forget some of the brighter contributions that he made in his debut season, including a return of six Premier League goals.
If used in the deeper role that made him such a key figure for his national team in their 2013 Confederations Cup triumph, Paulinho could recapture his best form and provide Spurs with the rare gem that is a complete box-to-box midfielder.
Erik Lamela
Erik Lamela is the great hope for Tottenham fans this season. Having barely featured due to form and injuries since becoming our club-record signing last summer, Spurs fans are desperate to see what the wide-man will deliver.
With an Argentine compatriot in the dugout, Lamela is likely to get a run in the team from the season’s kickoff to show us what he is capable of.
It he is even close to the player that Franco Baldini thought that he had signed from Roma, then Lamela will add much-needed quality and goals to our attack.
His promising pre-season has raised optimism among the Spurs faithful that the 22-year-old has finally settled in England and is ready to repay his £30m fee.
But, if he continues to struggle, and Pochettino is forced to go with Lennon or Townsend on the right, that will likely spell doom for our top-four hopes.
Kyle Walker
The England international is expected to miss the first few games of the campaign while continuing to recover from the pelvic injury which ruled him out of the World Cup, but, when he returns, he will be first-choice right-back.
Walker has not quite reached the heights that some anticipated that he would after his breakthrough 2011-2012 season, but the arrival of Pochettino will hopefully extract the best out of a 24-year-old who has every raw attribute.
The Argentine worked wonders with young full-backs such as Luke Shaw, Calum Chambers and Nathaniel Clyne at St Mary’s and is likely to give Walker the same license to express his attacking play that was so stifled under Andre Villas-Boas.
As quick across the ground as anyone, Walker could be a brilliant offensive outlet for Spurs and offer the width that will be sacrificed by Lamela drifting inside.
His defensive solidity is probably even more important, especially considering that he is not likely to get much support from Lamela, and he must erase the naïve errors that have been marring his game over the past two years.
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I would replace Walker with Eriksen in this list because the latter has been proven to play a greater role at Spurs than the former. I am not denying the importance of the role Walker may play in our season this year, only saying that Eriksen edges past Walker in result v performance.
ReplyDeleteThe Telegraph got the list from one of the poorest online sites (follow it back to source). It is a thrown together list including players that are options to be sold adding to more than will actually be sold, and lumped in with some of last season's new signings, that whoever invented it flt hadn't performed too well. To take one example: Capoue was pretty good until his injury. He was then played out of position in a formation that hardly suited him. He was then dropped by InterTim who had points he wanted to prove. Under 21 at time of signing, and an overseas player, he deserved a year to settle anyway, without having to endure that in his first season (most of which applies to other summer signings, too). Anyone who has paid attention to Pochettino's preferences, the way he has used Capoue in preseason and the way Capoue has performed in preseason, will find it a little odd that Pochettino may put him up for sale.
ReplyDeleteThe list, and the stoey around it, was BS, I'm afraid.