da premier bet： [ad_pod ]
da heads bet： FootballFanCast.com’s Fixture In Focus coverage is brought to you by 5p0rtz. Play our free West ham v Tottenham predictor to win the £50 jackpot with 5p0rtz. Click here to play.
Much has been made of Tottenham Hotspur’s lack of summer spending. As the transfer window just gone by came to a close, the North London club became the first in Premier League history to have conducted no business at all across a summer window.
Spurs still have a strong team and ought to seriously challenge for the top four once again. However, since the beginning of Mauricio Pochettino’s reign at White Hart Lane, rarely before have his side looked as stagnant and uninspired as they currently appear.
Remarkably, this has been the club’s best start to a league campaign in the Premier League era, yet there is no denying that the club aren’t at their free flowing best. Whilst this can partially be attributed to a World Cup hangover effect, there are other factors at play.
[ffc_insert title=”Try 5p0rtz’s Beat The Streak Predictor and you could win £1MILLION!” name=”Win £1MILLION with 5p0rtz” image_ link=”https://app.5p0rtz.com/affiliate_join_pool?saved_game_state=%7B%0A%09%22gameconfiguration_id%22%3A%2252148%22%0A%7D&affiliate=FFCEditorialBTS” link_text=”Click here to play”]
The transfer markets are an opportunity to shake up and improve the team. Not only do new arrivals add quality to the ranks, they can also boost those around them and create further competition for places, therefore lifting the level of each individual in the squad. Doing no business this summer risked allowing a malaise to set in and demonstrated no tangible growth – this can easily be perceived as a lack of ambition too.
What’s more, key figures in Pochettino’s squad are now past their peak. In goal, Hugo Lloris cuts a more fragile figure than he has in seasons past. In the middle of the park, Mousa Dembele’s age has caught up with him and he can no longer dominate and dictate matches with regularity.
The truth is, despite their club-record start, Spurs are further away from winning the title now than they were two/three years ago. With Manchester City and Liverpool now playing at such a high level and spending such vast quantities of cash, the opportunity for Pochettino to deliver a league title looks to have gone.
Spurs had their chance. In both the 2015/16 and 2016/17 seasons they were in the hunt. On the former occasion in particular – a campaign that was ultimately immortalised by Leicester City’s remarkable shock triumph – Tottenham could have claimed the glory for themselves.
However, their shortfall was of their own making. Had Spurs – or more specifically, Daniel Levy – addressed the Achilles heel in the team on any one of the numerous occasions when he had the opportunity to do so prior to the aforementioned campaign, then the club’s current wait for a top flight title would not stretch back to 1961.
That Achilles heel is Spurs’ inability to improve the standard of their midfield. In the likes of Harry Kane, Dele Alli and Christian Eriksen, ably assisted by Erik Lamela and Heung-min Son, Spurs can boast some top class attacking talent. In recent seasons, Hugo Lloris, Jan Vertonghen, Toby Alderweireld and Kyle Walker have provided a very solid base.
Those are defensive and attacking units worthy of title-winning sides. The problem has always been in the middle. Spurs have not been able to replicate the quality shown in their forward and defensive lines in their midfield contingent.
Arguably, Tottenham haven’t had a truly top class central midfielder since Luka Modric.
Since the Croatian departed in 2012, the likes of Tom Huddlestone, Etienne Capoue, Paulinho, Nabil Bentaleb, Moussa Sissoko, Ryan Mason and Tom Carroll have all failed to replace his influence. Whilst Dembele has been good, and Eric Dier and Harry Winks are promising players with potential, nothing has ever been enough to raise the bar of Spurs’ midfield to the standards set elsewhere in the team.
Had Levy and Co. been able to address this deficiency then there is a strong chance that one of English football’s greatest fairytale stories would have never come to pass, and Spurs, rather than Leicester, would have been crowned champions in 2016.
Yet the weakness pervades to this day. The entirely inactive recent summer only served to further highlight the issue. Now, as a consequence, it looks as though Spurs’ brief window of opportunity to truly challenge for the top prize in English football has slammed shut.
[brid autoplay=”true” video=”307232″ player=”12034″ title=”Rafa’s Pub Facts Germany Hit New Low & Jadon Sancho Makes Us Feel Old”]