Tottenham has announced their player numbers and start the Premier League season in just three days, but the Spurs still have unfinished transfer business.
The season may start this weekend, but the 20 players selected for the squad are not likely to reflect the final first-team squad for Nuno Espirito Santo and Tottenham Hotspur. Even with a few completed transfers, the window is still a good news-bad news situation for the Lilywhites. The good news is that the window is open until August 31, the bad news is Spurs still have a lot of work to do before that day comes.
Tottenham have started the rebuilding process
With a new football director in place, Fabio Paratici has started the process of the painful rebuild Mauricio Pochettino spoke of all those years ago. Of course, to have a rebuild, you have to both bring in new players and move old players on. Thus far this offseason, six players have technically left the club, but only three really played any role last season.
Juan Foyth and Paulo Gazzaniga spent most of last season on loan, whereas Danny Rose was simply left out last year. Those three moving on did bring some funds in with Foyth but the space created was kind of a given.
Toby Alderweireld’s departure marks the ongoing revamp of the defense and he has immediately been replaced by Cuti Romero. Joe Hart is gone as well but like Romero is a potential upgrade on Alderweireld, Pierluigi Gollini is certainly an upgrade on Joe Hart.
Finally, Bryan Gil came to London in a trade with Sevilla with Erik Lamela moving to Spain. Tottenham did also drop a hefty sum on Bryan but his potential and ceiling are likely higher than Lamela’s.
These are all nice enough moves and certainly, the players added in Bryan, Gollini, and Romero have wonderful potential but there is a lot of work still to do.
Tottenham need to sell some more players
While the possible transfer of Harry Kane away from N17 grabs most of the headlines, the reality is Tottenham Hotspur needs to move a lot of other players out of the club still, who are not Harry Kane.
Harry WInks, is one player whose future is certainly up for debate. There have been rumors that Manchester United – earlier in the summer – and Everton – more recently – were interested in the English midfielder. However, unless it was a total secret no bid for WInks has been received.
Likewise, Moussa Sissoko seems a midfielder whose time has run its course at Hotspur Way. Like Winks, to date, Tottenham has not received a solid bid for the Frenchman, or else he likely would have already been sold.
Some may wonder about Tanguy Ndombele‘s future in the Tottenham midfield as well but the ideal would certainly be moving Winks and Sissoko first and hopefully having Tanguy come good.
Tottenham needs to move some defenders too
Despite selling two center-backs already, it is likely Tottenham needs to move one or more defenders. The real problem with the position is that so many of the players Tottenham has all prefer the ride side of the formation outside of Eric Dier.
While Dier moving on – particularly taking up a foreign place in the European competitions – would be good but only if you can get a legitimate left-footed, left-sided center-half to replace him. If not Dier, Davinson Sanchez could potentially be sold. Further, Japhet Tanganga and Cameron Carter-Vickers could still both be sent out on loan to help them develop and to open more space in the squad.
Finally, it seemed almost a given that coming into the window at least one of the Tottenham right-backs would be sold and a replacement brought in. While a replacement is still potentially in the works, it seems no one is in any hurry to purchase either Serge Aurier or Matt Doherty.
Spurs really need to sell to keep buying
The problem at this point is that to bring more players in Tottenham needs to move more players on. Even if Kane were sold for a large amount, to bring in several new players, other players would have to leave as well.
Tottenham is still kicking tires on different strikers, which seems likely to happen with or without a Kane transfer. However, to bring in a new right-back or a new midfielder, one imagines one of the existing midfielders would need to be moved.
It is when a few more players get sold that we can again get existed about incoming transfers, which means this may be a long new few weeks.