There is no question that Tottenham Hotspur have one of the finest center back partnerships in world football. Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven are two of the best all around athletes and attacking helpers in central defense while being tackling mavens and elite readers of the game who can hang with any striker in the world one on one and are rarely beaten for pace, strength, or any other athletic endeavor.
Of the two world class Tottenham center backs, Romero tends to get the most praise as a former World Cup and Copa America winner. But ask any Tottenham fan, and they will tell you that Van de Ven is just about as good defensively when factoring in his speed, consistency, and reading of the game.
Quietly, Van de Ven is boosting his stock further in the 2025/26 season for Tottenham, helping keep Spur afloat despite serious question marks about manager Thomas Frank and other aspects of this team.
Tottenham are humiliating themselves
And as Spurs continue to drop points and embarrass themselves in front of a national audience, including this past weekend with a 3-0 defeat to Sean Dyche's bottom feeding Nottingham Forest, fans are getting increasingly worried that Van de Ven will dream more and more of an exit to a truly elite club like Real Madrid. Because any club in the world would dream of a versatile, athletic, and technically skilled 24 year old center backs.
The popular The Overlap podcast just announced an exclusive interview with the Dutch sensation, and the first thing every single Tottenham Hotspur said in response to this seemingly innocuous announcement of an interview was the fear of Micky van de Ven using some sort of major platform to tease a transfer away from Tottenham.
There have been loose transfer rumors bubbling up about Van de Ven to Madrid or another big club, and earlier this year, Spurs fans already had a bit of a scare when Cristian Romero was flirting with the idea of moving to a La Liga giant, specifically Atletico Madrid.
Now, there is currently no reason to believe that Van de Ven is going to leave Spurs, and the club is actually working on extending the former Wolfsburg man further. But with the results not going in Spurs way and more and more fans around the world recognizing Van de Vens world class - and only growing - defensive talent, it is only a matter of time before the transfer interest truly accelerates. And Spurs fans are beyond paranoid about Van de Ven dropping any slight hint about thinking of leaving N17.