Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal sparred a few times in the summer 2025 transfer window, and Spurs unfortunately came up on the losing side in transfer battles for Thomas Frank's teacher's pet Christian Norgaard in the defensive midfield, as well as local hero Eberechi Eze in the attacking midfield.
Ahead of the North London Derby after the November international break - the first of the Thomas Frank tenure as Tottenham manager - the Gunners and Spurs are already waiting to do battle off the pitch in the transfer market for a highly prized German midfield prospect.
They aren't the only elite clubs interested either. According to a report from Fraser Fletcher of TEAMtalk, Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, Real Madrid, PSG, Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Barcelona, and Manchester United are all interested in signing Hertha Berlin 16-year-old defensive midfielder Kennet Eichhorn. And that's just the list of the very elite clubs, as virtually all the big boys in the Bundesliga want him, too.
The next big thing in German football
Eichhorn looks like the next big thing in German football, and he could follow in the footsteps of Joshua Kimmich and Toni Kroos as the next real midfield general in European football. He's already been compared to Kroos by scouts, who are raving about his long term potential.
Thus, Eichhorn is exactly the rare profile every team in European football is looking for, from Real Madrid to Spurs. Tottenham and all these other elite clubs have been looking at players like Adam Wharton over at Crystal Palace as young, deep lying midfield generals who can transform the entire team.
Not even Thomas Frank has been able to fix the personnel at Tottenham in midfield, as the group remains disjointed without that unifying and brave deep lying tempo setter. Rodrigo Bentancur clearly isn't that player, and while Archie Gray could be, Spurs haven't really been giving him that chance.
Eichhorn will need at least a few more years before he can shine at the elite level, even if he ends up being every bit the phenom that he is hyped to be. With a 10.5 million pound release clause at Hertha, one of the worst run clubs in European football, Eichhorn could be easy enough to acquire and is about as expensive - and perhaps as brilliant - as Lucas Bergvall, whom Spurs also signed above all the elite clubs in Europe. Eichhorn is exactly the kind of player Spurs should - and love to - go after these days, so he's worth watching closely now.