Spurs will be Spurs will be Spurs – but what exactly will that mean next season? « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. 800,000 visits last month

By Phil Gregory

While “Sky Sports understands…” may or may not ever be true, it seems Spurs are closing in on their new manager which could well be Andre Villas Boas of Chelsea acclaim. This got me thinking about their squad and chances for next season, particularly with Gareth Bale signing a new contract recently.

When researching for this article, I was surprised to find that Spurs only released two senior first teamers this summer, Nelsen and Saha, both of whom arrived in January on a Redknapp flight of fancy. To me, this seem utterly bizarre, given they have about a hundred players who can play in central defence (ever seen Khumalo play for Spurs? Me neither) not least a few ageing, injury prone names such as Gallas and King. I’m not sure about Gallas’s contract situation – surely they can’t be daft enough to give him a long term deal? – but extending Ledley King’s deal on anything but a pay-as-you play with a basic wage of £10k/week would be pure folly.

While with the latter you can understand a certain amount of nostalgia given he is club captain, you’ve got to have consistency in your defensive players -particularly centreback partnerships – which we found out to our cost last season with a range of injuries to Koscielny, Vermaelen and Mertesacker.

Vertonghen would be a cracking signing for them but it seems a contract dispute may mean the Belgian is forced to run down his final year rather than leaving Ajax this summer, which would surely mean Spurs miss out next year on him.

Central defence is certainly an area they need to work on, you can perhaps justify having one ageing, injury prone centreback but two is just foolish, and I bet their wages don’t reflect their lack of appearances either.

There are some good players in there like Kaboul and Bassong (I think Arry’s “legendary” man management didn’t quite work out with this fella, but a new manager should get him involved) and Dawson is capable of playing at this level, even if eulogised a little too much by Spurs fans, possibly because he’s English.

Caulker had a cracking season on loan at Swansea and should probably start for them if a new manager wants a decent passing style of football. If they could shift some of the extras and secure Vertonghen it looks like they’d be good to go for central defence, but instead they might be relying on unreliables for another season. Caulker could prove key.

The likes of Ekotto and Walker are good players, but there is a certain lack of depth at full back. Again, poor man-management may be to blame here: Corluka is a good Premier League defender but has been shipped off after not getting a sniff under Arry. If he wants first team football then it is understandable, but it seems strange they can’t keep solid backups happy. Danny Rose popping up at left back is also a sight that only Arsenal fans want to see really. Some depth at fullback needed here.

Bale’s new contract is certainly an interesting one; from what digging I did it seems the new deal only adds an extra year onto his deal compared to his last extension, so it seems likely he’s been given a bit of a raise to secure his continued loyalty. I think he’d do well to stay at Spurs and not buy into his own hype: he’s a good player no doubt but when he’s talking of Real and Barca… he needs to get a grip really.

It seems also that Modric may be leaning towards an exit, but big money will likely be required as the dozy sod signed a long term back in 2010 despite eyeing the exit. Levy may be tempted to take £30m if he gets an astute manager in – you only have to look at Newcastle to see what a difference a few intelligent, mid-priced players can do for you.

Van Der Vaart is neither here nor there, he seemed a real fan of Arry so may now be unsettled, but I imagine the new manager could be decisive here. If they want to challenge for the top four they’ll need a quality replacement for Modric and some more depth in central midfield as Huddlestone is not going to cut it.

The surely soon to be announced signing of Sigurdsson is a good move for them. A bit of quality on the right wing wouldn’t go amiss either, with Lennon not reaching that early career potential. Solid Premier League players are good, but as regular starters they won’t get you to the top four and Scott Parker is simply not a Champions League (or indeed international) player . Perhaps a new manager could get more out of Steven Pienaar for them. Similar to the defence, they could do with getting deadwood such as Jenas and Bentley (cheers for the sell-on cash by the way Spurs!) on their bikes.

Like it or not, Adebayor is a great striker and was a cracking loan signing for them last season. There’s been a lack of noise on that front in the last few weeks, no doubt a new manager will be keen to see if City mind subsidising his wages again. If not, they need a top class centre forward to score goals for them. As it stands, their only striker is Defoe who while handy off the bench, is never going to fire them into consistently competing for the top four. Perhaps a big centre forward with VdV buzzing in behind would lessen the need for a shopping spree of strikers, but at least one to start and another for squad depth would be needed.

On the whole, Spurs are in fairly mixed condition. They’ve a serious deficiency in that they only have one striker in their squad, but provided they fix that and replace Modric adequately, they don’t have a bad first eleven at all.

The problem lies however in depth. Spurs could not cope with three first choice centre backs or four fullbacks being injured like Arsenal suffered last season. If they get a manager in who can perform a Pardew-esque job of buying five or six players for reasonable value that all do very well they could well be up there challenging for the top four for seasons to come. Another look at them come the close of the transfer window would be wise, but a transitional season of challenging-but-not-quite for the top four seems likely, but with stability going forward and investment in youth for squad depth and development there’s no reason they can’t keep themselves at the head of the Liverpool/Newcastle/Spurs pack. A rebuilt Chelsea side could concern Spurs fans.

If you don’t mind my innane ramblings, feel free to check out my economics blog

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