Creating a list of Tottenham’s all-time starting XI is not easy.
There’s the task of breaking down the club’s history into eras, and deciding which of the stars of those eras deserves to be included. Then there’s the debate over whether the players of the past are up to modern standards – and even vice versa. Would a member of Mauricio Pochettino’s squad today make it in Bill Nicholson’s title winning squad from 1961? How would Osvaldo Ardiles fair in a Harry Redknapp team?
In short: what qualities make a good player? Is it performance? Is it loyalty? Is it something as difficult to quantify as spirit or mojo?
In the end, for this list of Tottenham’s very best in each position, it came down to a combination of all of these factors. This XI is reflective of the team’s history as a whole, but also the talents of the individual players.
Broken down by position in a rough 4-2-3-1 formation favored by the current manager, here are Tottenham’s All-Time Starting XI
Next: Goalkeeper
Goalkeeper: Pat Jennings
Though the Tottenham team that won their historic league and FA Cup double in 1960/61 weren’t able to go on a run of title wins, it did mark the beginning of a period of sustained dominance for the club. Few players represent that era better than goalkeeper Pat Jennings.
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Over 591 appearances in all competitions for the club between 1964 and 1977, Jennings helped the team win an FA Cup, two League Cups and the first ever UEFA Cup in 1972. Even in a time when such prolonged stays at one club were more common than they are today, that’s an impressive record.
Jennings is also the only player on this list to have the dubious honor of also being a legend for north London rivals Arsenal. He left Tottenham after the club was relegated in 1977 and spent the next eight years playing for the Gunners. Still, there’s no denying how his contributions to one of Tottenham’s finest and most storied eras.
Next: Right-back
Right-back: Steve Perryman
Surprisingly, Jennings is not the longest serving member of this Tottenham XI. That honor falls to Steve Perryman, who played alongside Jennings in the 60s and 70s.
Over seventeen years and 866 first team appearances in all competitions, Perryman is a talent if only for his endurance and unwavering loyalty. Though he began his career as a midfielder, he would end it at right-back. In between he helped Tottenham to achieve a lot of the same glory Jennings played a role in, though Perryman actually stuck around for the year in England’s second division.
He helped win promotion back into the top flight, and helped re-ignite Tottenham as the club won the FA Cup twice in the early ’80s and also claimed their second UEFA Cup in 1984.
Next: Centre-back
Centre-back: Ledley King
What more can be said about King? He is a true one-club man, coming up through Tottenham’s youth system in the late ’90s and going onto become one of the best centre-backs in the Premier League for much of the opening decade of the 21st century. One thinks that if injuries hadn’t ultimately ended his career, he’d still be playing for Tottenham at every opportunity.
More than simply being one of the best Spurs players in the last twenty years, King also serves as something of an archetype for the youth-oriented project currently underway at the club. Even as the madness of the transfer market picked up steam in the ’00s, King stood out as a testament to the value of player development. And even as other clubs came calling, he resisted the urge to leave White Hart Lane, going on to be a crucial foundation on which this current era of quality was built.
Everyone from Daniel Levy to Pochettino to Harry Kane owes a debt to King’s career at Tottenham.
Next: Centre-back
Centre-back: Graham Roberts
The era that followed Tottenham’s promotion back into the English First Division in 1978 were among the most hopeful and triumphant in the club’s history. Though they didn’t win another league title, they won enough to rejuvenate the reputation of the club as a whole and made White Hart Lane an attractive destination for players throughout the 1980s.
Among the better ambassadors for Tottenham’s rebirth was centre-back Graham Roberts. He arrived in 1980 and played proper English football, diving into tackles and earning enough of a fearsome reputation that his name on the teamsheet alone was sometimes enough to limit opposing forwards. Tottenham were lucky to have such a bulldog right when they needed one.
Next: Left-back
Left-back: Cyril Knowles
Truly, the ’60s were a prolific time for Tottenham Hotspur. Five of this starting XI either began their careers at the club or reached their peak during that decade. With 402 appearances to his credit, left-back Cyril Knowles easily ranks among the era’s best and most regular players.
Knowles was in many ways a precursor to Leighton Baines. He even looks a little like the Everton veteran in the above picture.
He was a force all up and down the left touchline, contributing in defense as well as overlapping with the attackers in front of him. Coupled with his fine set pieces, Knowles helped create the idea of the modern full-back for the entire sport.
Next: Central Midfielder
Central Midfielder: Glenn Hoddle
Some music fans might remember Hoddle more for his turn as pop star than his efforts on a football pitch, though the latter was arguably the more famous of his exploits.
Like Steve Perryman, Hoddle rose to Tottenham’s first team in the years before the 1977 regulation. Despite that set back, he stayed with the team and went on to play a crucial role in the team’s revitalization in the early ’80s, scoring 88 goals in 377 appearances in lilywhite from his position in attacking midfield.
Those goals came in efforts to win cups both domestic and international, along with a title charge in 1982. For that production, and for his his twelve years with the club, Hoddle is an easy inclusion in Tottenham’s best starting XI.
Next: Midfielder
Central Midfielder: Luka Modrić
Modrić was slated for big things from the very beginning. The £16.5 million it took to pry him away from Dinamo Zagreb in 2008 equaled the club’s record fee spent on Darren Bent the year before. He stalled a bit under the physical pressure of the Premier League, though by the time Harry Redknapp came along he was well adapted.
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Redknapp and his predecessors played Modrić deeper than he was played at Dinamo and the Croatian national team, recognizing that his considerable passing skillset made him the ideal platform to launch counter-attacks. That style of play became synonmous with both Modrić and Redknapp as Tottenham made it into the Champions League for the first time in their history in 2010.
For two more years, Modrić built the case for him being one of the best midfielders in the world. His vision, timing and accuracy paired supremely well with the pacey attackers ahead of him, so well in fact that he was picked up by Real Madrid in 2012 as their long-term Xabi Alonso replacement. Though his career at Tottenham was short, there’s no doubting how much Modrić helped the club reached the next level of quality that they continue to play on to this day.
Next: Winger
Winger: Danny Branchflower
Blanchflower is the only player on this list to have played in Bill Nicholson’s 1961 double winning team. That’s less a slight on that team, and more an indication of just how good of a player Blanchflower was.
Though he didn’t score much from his position on the right side of midfield, he didn’t have to. His leadership on and off the pitch were arguably his most valuable contributions. As club captain and therefore Nicholson’s deputy, Blanchflower was a massive presence in midfield, coordinating his team’s still-unbeaten run of 11 wins to begin the 1960/61 season. Individual personalities rarely have that kind of impact in modern football.
Next: Attacking Midfielder
Attacking Midfielder: Paul Gascoigne
Remember in the preamble when we talked about mojo? That’s what Paul Gascogine had. He only spent four years at the club, but there are few more memorable players in Tottenham’s history.
His style of play was flamboyant and oftentimes borderline perilous, much like his life off the pitch. Eventually his personal demons would get the better of him more often than not, but his time at Tottenham was arguably his peak. At the peak of his game, there were few better players on a football pitch. Gazza was a genuine force to be reckoned with.
Next: Winger
Winger: Gareth Bale
It wasn’t like Bale played in a poor Tottenham team. Modrić was there, as were Ledley King and Rafael Van Der Vaart and Peter Crouch. Rather, it was that Bale was simply one of the best footballers in the world during his last few years in a Tottenham shirt. He rose above every player on the pitch.
Bale’s career skyrocketed shortly after Harry Redknapp moved him up from the full-back position he began his career in. Early on, his primary quality was sheer speed. There was simply no one on the pitch that could catch him with the ball at his feet.
As he aged and his game evolved, goals became more and more prominent. And not just goals. Spectacular efforts from outside the box. Impossible free-kicks. Amazing runs from the halfway line through defenses and into the net. He was – and is – capable of perhaps some of the most mind-boggling efforts seen in any era of football’s long and storied history.
That seems like hyperbole, especially after his relatively modest years as a galactico at Real Madrid. But at his height with Tottenham, it was beyond argument. He alone won a significant portion of Tottenham’s games, especially in the last year before his record-setting transfer in 2013. Such players come along very rarely, and Tottenham should be happy they had him at all.
Next: Striker
Striker: Jimmy Greaves
If there’s one number that justified Greaves’ inclusion on this list, it’s 220. That’s the amount of goals the striker scored for Tottenham over nine seasons and 321 appearances.
By way of perspective, that’s an average tally of 24 goals per season, or one goal every 1.46 games. How many such players can you name in England today that could regularly make the same boast season to season?
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In fairness to those players, Greaves was a true poacher. He was good at precisely one thing and he did it supremely well. The game then didn’t ask for strikers to be better at much else. He just had to make sure he was in the right place at the right time, and he would find away into the back of the net.
Still, there’s no denying the impact of those goals on Tottenham’s fortunes in the ’60s. Greaves is without doubt the greatest striker Tottenham has ever had, and maybe one of the best pure goalscorers England has ever seen.