Tottenham Hotspur star center back Micky van de Ven just signed a fresh contract extension that will keep him locked down in North London through the 2030/31 Premier League season. Roberto De Zerbi is such a huge credit to Van de Ven sticking around with Spurs and not going down the Cristian Romero path of a transfer out, because the Dutch star looked very disgruntled in the second half of the 2025/26 campaign under Thomas Frank, whom he seemed to outright hate - as all the fans did, too.
De Zerbi has made it a priority for Tottenham to pay Van de Ven what he deserves to form a Dutch duo in North London with Jan Paul van Hecke, the new 60 million euro signing from Brighton. And Van de Ven looks set to be the next adopted son of De Zerbi's here in the 2026/27 Premier League season.
And De Zerbi is already gassing up Van de Ven big time. He told reporters, via The Spurs Express, that he considers the 25 year old to be the best left sided center back in the entire English top flight right now.
MIcky van de Ven still has to prove it
That is massive praise indeed, and Tottenham Hotspur fans will love that it comes with an additional shot across the bow of a bitter rival of the club's in Arsenal's left center back Gabriel Magalhaes, who was widely praised as the best center back in the Premier League last season for the eventual champions.
Tottenham fans and many other Premier League fans, though, are arguing that Gabriel is overrated because of all the fouls he gets away with. And there has been a lot of basking in the schadenfreude of not only Gabriel's Champions League losing penalty gaffe against PSG, but also him getting Brazil eliminated from the World Cup after Norway's Erling Haaland manhandled him - just like he always does when Manchester City face Arsenal in the league.
Now, Micky van de Ven has a lot of work to do before he can actually say that he is a better center back than Gabriel Magalhaes, regardless of the Arsenal defender being overrated or not. Van de Ven himself had an underwhelming 2025/26 Premier League season before Roberto De Zerbi kicked him into high gear, and he was pretty average in 2024/25, too. Van de Ven has more raw talent and upside than Gabriel, but he has to put it together; Spurs fans will love that De Zerbi is fully backing him in that regard.
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