Tottenham Hotspur are on the verge of extending veteran center midfielder Rodrigo Bentancur, and if you asked Spurs supporters how they would feel about this move roughly six months ago, the majority would probably be all for it. But now, Spurs fans are starting to wonder if keeping Bentancur around for a few more years makes sense at all.
Lately, Bentancur has been earning criticism from fans, and they are absolutely right - and quite sharp at picking out the problem here. Bentancur, especially in juxtaposition to Archie Gray, is playing a lot less positive. He holds onto the ball, he's not really creating anything meaningful, and he plays scared against any sort of pressure.
For a few seasons, Bentancur has been a serviceable player for Tottenham, and when their midfield was at its worst, he was practically a gift from above and was one of the few players who could reliably string some passes together and give Spurs some semblance of a feel of a real midfield under the Wild West that was Ange Postecoglou's reign.
But now that Tottenham are no longer a 17th-placed side in a Premier League with three historically bad promoted teams, Bentancur no longer looks like a savior, but, rather, a mediocre footballer who is, quite frankly, a liability against certain sides.
Rodrigo Bentancur is not a net positive
Juventus fans will see all of these opinions from Tottenham fans about Bentancur and simply chuckle to themselves, because during that bleak 2020/21 Serie A season under Andrea Pirlo when the Bianconeri first lost their hegemony of the venerable Scudetto, the young Uruguayan's stock plummeted.
That's the problem with Bentancur. He's not bad technically, he has experience, and he works hard enough defensively. It's just that he never stands out in any particular area, and he's not got the bravery or the chops to drive the ball forward to the team. He is a net zero, which is good for a team that needs to avoid getting totally run over, but it's useless for a team that wants to start competing at the elite level of European football, which is what clubs like Juventus and Tottenham aim for.
Tottenham are rapidly outgrowing players like Bentancur. The best thing to do is to thank them for their service to the club, politely acknowledge their positive contributions, but also be mindful that their ceiling is capped and that Spurs have to move on to grow as a club. Keeping Bentancur around is stagnation, and while there are a lot of bad things we can say about how Juve are managed, at least they weren't willing to settle for that with Bentancur.