Tottenham due for shake up, claim pessimists
By Ryan Wrenn
As they finish off what objectively is their best season in decades, Tottenham appear set to fall victim to that old adage: “no good deed goes unpunished.”
Seeing as how winning out the season will take Tottenham to an unprecedented 86 points — a tally that would have been sufficient to win the title in any of the previous ten seasons — it’s hard to imagine why so much gloom now appears to be descending on the club.
Actually, it’s not to hard to discern the motivation of pieces like the one that ran this morning in the Guardian. While it was framed around objectively positive quotes from Harry Kane — which we’ll get to — in inevitably wound down into speculation about the club’s future health and the likelihood of them holding on to their best players.
To some extent, that’s understandable. Kane’s quotes, coming after Spurs’ White Hart Lane finale on Sunday, were about pushing on from the substantial progress the club’s made over the last two seasons.
"“It was special out there today but imagine what it would be like winning a Premier League, or winning an FA Cup or a Champions League or something. That’s got to be the next celebration. That’s got to be our next step. We’re young but we’re getting more experience year in, year out. We’ve just got to go and make it happen. We’ve got the team, we’ve got the belief, so next season hopefully it’s our year.”"
And he’s absolutely right. The club do need to do everything in their power to hold on to the talent already in the first team, nurture the prospects coming up from the Academy and move aggressively on the transfer market when they can.
Acknowledging those facts does not imply weakness however. Kane talks about doing these things because he knows that the club will do these things. They have demonstrated nothing but over the last two seasons as they have signed the core of the team to new contracts and recruited depth when possible.
Sometimes those efforts don’t work out. Last summer’s transfers were almost a complete failure, with only really Victor Wanyama shining through this season. Plus, while most everyone including Kane put pen to paper on new deals with the club, some remain elusive. Kyle Walker is currently rumored to be looking for a more lucrative deal, perhaps with a move to Manchester City in the making.
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Payroll is a real concern for a club like Tottenham of — temporary — limited means. Financing the new stadium is a huge expense, and chairman Daniel Levy is prudent to install an upper limit to salary even Spurs’ best players can get.
Lucky, he has Mauricio Pochettino’s grace and man management to help balance out what would otherwise be a crippling drawback. Players want to play for Pochettino, regardless of how much money they could make at City or Chelsea. If Spurs can go on and win a title, that incentive to stay will only strengthen.
What seems to be lost to those predicting that the sky is falling is that Spurs are an ongoing, evolving project, one in which every level of the club from Levy on down to an Academy player are invested. This isn’t some fly by night operation.
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Spurs, then, will not be tempted by suitors for the likes of Toby Alderweireld or Christian Eriksen, any more than they were last year when circumstances weren’t nearly as rosy as they are now.