Luton Town: Their Story

The Hatters had started to turn heads after the 2018/19 season after they had achieved back-to-back promotions, from League Two and League One. The Town started their first season back in the Championship since their dramatic fall from the top which started in 2006 and was made worse in 2008.

The 2008/09 season seemingly ripped Luton apart as they were deducted an initial 10 points for financial irregularities, then shortly after, the FA cut deeper wounds for Luton as they deducted them another 20 points; making it the most severe punishment to ever have been given. (FourFourTwo)

Despite, their constant setbacks, Luton arose from their ashes, flirting with promotion to the Premier League in 2022 with Nathan Jones, and then securing it with Rob Edwards in May 2023.

Their promotion was inspired by the club’s never-say-die attitude which has been ever-present since its re-emergence from the ashes. Luton have assumed a rebellious approach to the football league, flying through the leagues despite little financial muscle.

This attitude is symbolised by a flag that is hung in a corner of the famous Kenilworth Road simply stating ‘Luton Town – Betrayed by the FA’.

Now the club have reached the summit of English football, Luton have encountered a new form of resistance to them; the media. As much as the fairy tale story was covered widely when their return was complete, the club have certainly experienced a lot of doubters.

The most notable has been Garth Crooks whose comments were soon knocked back by manager Rob Edwards. Crooks claimed that he ‘can’t take them [Luton] seriously’, following it up by stating that the Hatters will be ‘down by Christmas’ (BBC).

Rob Edwards provided a reason for Crooks to be wrong instantly as his side impressively beat Everton away in a 2-1 win. Their victory was achieved due to their clinical nature from set-pieces, as both goals came from a corner and freekick respectively.

How will Luton Town set up?

As mentioned prior, set pieces are key to Luton’s game, Tottenham will have to nullify their potent nature from set plays if they want to minimise the chances of an upset.

Tottenham will have to expect a lot of competition in the air, as Carlton Morris wins around 6 aerial duels per 90 minutes (FBRef), Romero and Van De Ven are currently only winning 2.38 (FBRef) and 1.28 (FBRef), respectively, and therefore will need to adjust.

Those aerial chances are bound to come from not only Luton’s most creative player, but also the Premier League’s most creative, Alfie Doughty. The 23-year-old left-wing back is creating 3.7 chances per 90 minutes (Premier League) and with the pace of Chiedozie Ogbene also on the left wing, Pedro Porro will need to be at his best to prevent Luton’s threat from that side.

Luton are still seeking their first home victory in the Premier League and will be frustrated after a late goal from Jacob Larsen denied the Hatters a valuable draw against Burnley. Tottenham will have to expect a rampant atmosphere as Edwards promised ‘give them [the fans] a performance to sing about’.

The Hatters are likely to be most vulnerable when being attacked from their left and right side of defence. Amari’i Bell was pulled off after 21 minutes on Tuesday with an injury. Bell’s absence will cause Luton to field the inexperienced Teden Mengi as well as the deputising Reece Burke as their wide centre-halves.

With Postecoglou’s inverted full-back system, the Tottenham players should certainly be trying to find some joy through those gaps. There are certainly goals to be had in this game; Luton have conceded the joint-fourth most goals in the league. (FotMob)

LONDON, ENGLAND – SEPTEMBER 30: Son Heung-min of Tottenham Hotspur celebrates the win with Pedro Porro and Alejo Veliz at full time during the Premier League match between Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool FC at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on September 30, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Marc Atkins/Getty Images)

Statement Win or Spursy Performance? 

Although Tottenham have come flying out the blocks this season with 17 points from their first 7 games; Spurs fans will be anxious at the ‘Spursy’ like nature of this game.

Early kick-offs always tend to throw up some unusual results in the Premier League, just look at how Villa picked apart Brighton 6-1 at 12:30 last Saturday, but if Tottenham do play in the same vein they have so far this season; there should be no worries for The Lilywhites.

Tottenham should be expected to control the ball, even away, as they are 5^th in the league for possession, averaging 60% per game, a stark contrast to Luton’s average of 37.7% (FBRef).

Saturday’s clash will likely be a test of Tottenham’s patience, persistence and dynamism as Luton aren’t likely to press Spurs frequently.

The Hatters have the least amount of tackles in the final third, 11, whereas Tottenham like to press high and have the joint 2^nd highest final third tackles with 24 (FBRef).

Rob Edwards even joked in his press conference that ‘we’re playing a flat nine with Carlton upfront’.

Tottenham have so far not appeared entirely comfortable facing an opponent that likes to sit back and allow them to have the ball, for example, Sheffield United and the final 25 minutes of last weekend’s battle against Liverpool.

At times in those games Spurs looked dumbfounded and lost in possession, struggling to find a way to unpick the tight lock in which both Sheffield United and Liverpool had constructed.

There’s obviously evidence that Spurs can break those low blocks down with Postecoglou’s men walking away with late victories in both games, but both of those fixtures were at home and the story may be different in the intimating setting of Kenilworth Road.

Opposition manager Rob Edwards has vowed to give Tottenham ‘the full Kenny experience’, an early goal could be key for Spurs.

Team News

Luton:

As expected, Luton manager, Rob Edwards confirmed in his press conference that The Town ‘will be without Amari’i Bell’ and he will ‘be assessed on Friday to see the extent of the injury’.

Luton have former Chelsea midfielder Ross Barkley back as Edwards’ explained ‘he’s fit, he’s been training, he’s part of the squad and it’s good to have him back on the grass’.

An interesting story emerging is that Andros Townsend, former Tottenham winger, is training with Luton; but not expected to be near the squad against Tottenham.

The Luton manager said ‘We’re having a look at him, and he’s having a look at us’, Andros will play on Friday night for Luton’s U-21’s side against Leeds. (Luton Official)

Tottenham:

Ange Postecoglou has been speaking to the media ahead of the short trip to Luton, the focus was inevitably upon Spurs’ star players, Son and Maddison. What the Australian had to say would be music to Spurs fans’ ears.

Despite rumours of Son not training this week after he was brought off due to a groin issue, which he was seen to be wincing with as he was taken off against Liverpool, Ange revealed simply, ‘Sonny is fine’.

The manager was then asked if Maddison was being ‘wrapped in cotton wool’, to which Postecoglou denied stating ‘No cotton wool here’ and that ‘Maddison is fine, he’s trained in every session this week’. (Football.London)

Two other players also re-joined in training with the squad and will therefore be in contention of playing, those two are Bryan Gil and Giovanni Lo Celso as Postecoglou states ‘Gio and Bryan both trained’. Whilst two players have returned, two are out: Manor Solomon and Brennan Johnson.

The club stated that ‘Manor Solomon suffered a meniscus injury to his right knee in training this week’ and that he ‘has undergone surgery’, the Israeli international is expected to be out for 2-3 months. (Spurs Official)

Luckily, Johnson’s injury is expected to be shorter-term, with Postecoglou stating ‘Johnson is close but not quite there yet. With the international break, he’ll be able to recover’.

This will obviously keep the door ajar for the young Jamie Donley who was named in the first team squad for the first time last weekend, Ange confirmed that ‘I’ve been really pleased with Jamie [Donley] and Alfie [Dorrington] though, they’ve been working well’. (Spurs Official)

Expected line-up:

Luton: Kaminski, Kabore, Mengi, Lockyer, Burke, Doughty, Mpanzu, Nakamba, Brown, Ogbene, Morris. (3-4-3)

Edwards is likely to be unchanged from Tuesday’s defeat to Burnley, apart from Reece Burke who can be expected to come in for the injured Bell.

Tottenham: Vicario, Porro, Romero, Van De Ven, Udogie, Bissouma, Sarr, Maddison, Kulusevski, Richarlison, Son. (4-3-3)

With Johnson and Solomon both out injured as well as his recent fine form, it can be expected that Richarlison will hold his place in the team, likely on the left of Tottenham’s forward three.

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Liverpool’s clash at Tottenham saw VAR be called in for judgement three times. The first occasion was the dismissal of midfielder, Curtis Jones, whose challenge on Bissouma was deemed dangerous.

VAR instructed referee Simon Hooper to consult with the video replay of the challenge; to which the English referee decided to upgrade Jones’ punishment from yellow to red, much to the dismay of Liverpool fans and pundits.

The visitors then took the lead eight minutes after losing Jones as Diaz fired a shot into the bottom left corner. VAR yet again was called upon to check the call for offside, the goal was deemed illegal and Tottenham went on to go 1-0 up.

Despite little awareness amongst the fans inside the stadium, VAR had made a glaring error which prompted a later apology from the PGMOL (Sky News). Inevitably, this led to more media onslaught for inconsistent officiating which has been a theme throughout the start of this season.

The controversy seemed to absorb so much attention that little has been said about Tottenham finally defeating one of their toughest opponents, only beating The Reds once across the past six years.

So, exactly how good was Tottenham’s victory despite the officiating mishaps which continue to dominate the headlines?

LONDON, ENGLAND – SEPTEMBER 30: Son Heung-min of Tottenham Hotspur celebrates the win with Pedro Porro and Alejo Veliz at full time during the Premier League match between Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool FC at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on September 30, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Marc Atkins/Getty Images)

Richarlison’s successful re-introduction?

Despite Richarlison’s heroic cameo against Sheffield United two weeks ago, Ange Postecoglou opted for the pace of Brennan Johnson against North London rivals, Arsenal, but an injury to the Welsh winger paved the way for the Brazilians’ reintegration into the starting line-up against Liverpool.

For many Spurs fans, it may have been perceived that Son would be pushed back out onto the left for the game, allowing Richarlison to operate through the middle, but those perceptions were quickly dispelled pre-game as Postecoglou confirmed to Sky Sports ‘He [Richarlison] will start on the left’.

Richarlison offered a different type of threat from the left-hand side than Tottenham had experienced so far this season. Richarlison despite creating 2 chances, one being an unselfish cutback for Son’s opener, the winger also had five shots of his own, two of which were on target and perhaps were unlucky to have not hit the back of the net (FotMob).

Postecoglou had deployed Solomon, Son and briefly Johnson on the left so far this season; Richarlison had the most xG out of them all. The Brazilian experienced 0.78 xG (FotMob), Tottenham’s highest xG from their left-sided attacker all season, by some way too with Johnson’s 0.59xG last weekend being the only performance that came close (FotMob).

It can be frustrating that Richarlison therefore didn’t end up putting himself on the scoresheet, but his quality of chances display that his runs and movement offer something Tottenham haven’t experienced all season, and with Tottenham’s number 9 now grabbing 1 goal and 2 assists in his last 111 minutes of football, it could allow him to lock down a spot in Postecoglou’s team.

Pedro Porro’s outstanding display

A common preconception before the start of the season amongst fans was that you could not start Pedro Porro and Destiny Udogie together, but in true Postecoglou fashion; Ange ripped up the rulebook. Porro has found a new level at Tottenham since the Australian came in and Saturday’s performance was an embodiment of his hard work, especially on his defensive game.

Porro’s Spurs career certainly took off turbulently as former Tottenham boss judged him as being ‘so bad it’s unbelievable’ whilst also claiming his ‘positioning was absolutely disgusting’ (Sky Sports) as Tottenham fell to a 4-1 defeat away at Leicester, Porro failed to make a single tackle that game and was substituted after 75 minutes.

Porro when asked about those Sherwood comments at the time stated, ‘Let me loose in a prison and I’ll end up owning the place’, his flash of arrogance was balanced with a sense of understanding that he’d need to adjust as Pedro also stated ‘it’s hard: it was only a week, I’d never played a minute at City, never played in England in my life’ (The Guardian). It’s now seeming not so hard for the Spaniard.

His display against Liverpool was nearly immaculate, he often dampened the Liverpool attack and utilised his pace to stop any counter-attacking threats, especially when the visitors often used it as their only attacking outlet as they dropped to nine men.

Porro made the most tackles out of anyone in the game (6) (SofaScore) and made the all-important fizzing cross across the Liverpool box which forced Matip to deflect the cross into his own net, sending the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium into raptures.

Porro’s performance was arguably man-of-the-match worthy and won Tottenham the tie; now that the Spanish international has improved his defensive ability, it’s hard to see a true weakness in the full-backs game.

The un-Spursy result

When Tottenham came from behind twice away to Arsenal last weekend to clinch a rare point at the Emirates, James Maddison stated that ‘Neutrals talk about Tottenham, they often say; soft, weak, bottle it, Spursy, all that rubbish.

I think the last couple of weeks shows we might be going in a slightly different direction’ (Mirror), and Saturday’s result suggests that perhaps the tide is certainly turning at Tottenham.

Obviously, the expectation would have been to get a winning goal in those final 20 minutes against a nine-man Liverpool, however, the Reds effectively had all nine of those men behind the ball at times.

Other than the odd outlier Tottenham have notoriously struggled to finish the job off against sides with a low block, but Postecoglou’s side have now defeated two teams back-to-back at home that end the game with an extremely low block with the intention of nullifying Spurs’ threat.

Spurs patiently plugged away, with little sign of players becoming frustrated, shown by the fact that Tottenham only had eight shots from the moment that Jota was sent off.

The patient passing around the Liverpool box is shown by the fact that Spurs had 42 more passes in the final 20 minutes of the second half than they did in the first 25 minutes of the second half (Opta).

Spurs’ winner was the clearest display of the confidence that Postecoglou has breathed into the side and the lack of ‘bottling it’ which Maddison alluded to.

Kulusevski doesn’t panic at the start of the move which caused the winner and even passes it back to the wide-open Romero; a decision which was met with audible groans around the ground.

Romero continues the calmness and confidence in playing Postecoglou’s way as the Argentine holds the ball for six seconds, a time which seems like an eternity when it’s the final minute of the game, but it was a much-needed wait as allowed Porro to drift out wide and ultimately fire in his cross which ensured Tottenham would get three points against Liverpool since October of 2017.

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(Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)

Winners

Cristian Romero

The young centre-back is clearly Tottenham’s most obvious winner from the Qatar 2022 World Cup as Romero will be the only player returning to Tottenham with a winners medal around his neck, despite how close his club teammate, Hugo Lloris, came to back-to-back glory as Argentina were victorious on penalties

Romero managed two clean sheets over his World Cup campaign, his performances at the tournament were made even more impressive when it’s considered that Cristian joined up with the Argentinian national team with a hamstring injury (Football.London) and he hadn’t played a match since the injury back in late October.

Romero started the World Cup with only eighty minutes across Argentina’s first two opening games but after his start against Poland, a game in which Argentina secured their ticket to the knockouts, Romero stayed in the starting eleven all the way to the final.

The 24-year-old has now helped Argentina end their 36-year wait for World Cup glory and has forever immersed himself in a moment of history as Messi and Argentina eclipse the achievements of Maradona for ‘La Albiceleste’. 

Harvey White

The winners of this World Cup for Tottenham aren’t necessarily the players who have been there, it’s some of the ones that didn’t.

A perfect example of this is 21-year-old Tottenham academy graduate Harvey White who has had an extended period of attention and time with the first team due the absence of many first-team regulars. White has subsequently undertaken an unusually prominent role in the Tottenham starting eleven in both of the publicised ‘mid-season’ friendlies against Motherwell and Nice.

The Tottenham youngster has become a constant in the Spurs youth teams but has appeared to have struggled to make the leap from the youth squads to the first team, but perhaps this World Cup has worked in his favour and allowed for the first team coaches to inspect White more closely and therefore hand him two starts, in a slightly unusual, forward role.

White is more of a recognised midfielder, but his versatility and age means that Conte clearly feels he can deploy him in various areas of the pitch as the Italian told SPURSPLAY ‘Harvey White played like a number nine, he is a young player that I think is really, really intelligent, he can play in any role’.

Harvey is also known to be a real danger from set-pieces and seeming as Tottenham haven’t scored a direct freekick since Son’s effort against Watford at the start of the 2021/2022 season, White could offer something a little different to Tottenham over the upcoming seasons.

Matt Doherty

Matt Doherty’s time at Tottenham has been an incredibly unusual one as the Irish international joined Spurs in the summer of 2020, when Jose Mourinho was in charge.

The fee seemed as if Tottenham had picked up a bargain at about £13.4 million (Football.London) as the Wolves wing-back had contributed 7 Premier League goals and assists over the 2019/20 season for the West Midlands side (FotMob).

Despite the deal being impressive, Doherty failed to fit into Mourinho’s plans as Doherty only featured 17 times in the league (FotMob) and failed to adapt to a less attacking, full-back role.

Therefore, when Antonio Conte arrived it seemed destined for Matt Doherty to be the Italians’ chosen right-wing back, which he was for several months after he finally seemed to rise above Emerson Royal in the pecking order.

Doherty scored twice and assisted four times under Antonio Conte in the 2021/2022 season and helped Tottenham push towards the top four until he was then injured by Matty Cash on the 9^th of April (Sky Sports).

The thirty-year-old finally returned to fitness just for the start of the new season, but it had got to October and Doherty had still not managed to work his way back into the starting eleven, even when Emerson Royal wasn’t impressing.

When Antonio Conte was questioned about Doherty ahead of the game away to Eintracht Frankfurt the Italian manager claimed ‘I’m not seeing him in the right way to start the game. I’m not stupid, I don’t want to lose.’ (Football.London)

This quote seemed harsh and in stark contrast to the opinion Conte had of Doherty before his injury. It appeared as if Tottenham’s right wing back position was starting to become a messy situation with Emerson not performing well and fans not impressed, Doherty apparently not being ‘in the right way to start a game’ and Spence seemingly out of favour.

However, when it reached the World Cup none of Emerson, Doherty or Spence had been selected for their national teams, giving Antonio Conte time to inspect and work with each of the different right-sided wing backs.

It seems as though Matt Doherty has been the player who has excelled and impressed the manager the most. Something that would have undoubtedly helped is the fact that the Irishman scored three goals across Tottenham’s ‘mid-season friendly games’ against Motherwell and Nice.

Doherty was subsequently picked for Tottenham’s return to action on Boxing Day against Brentford and despite the game being frustrating Doherty seemed to be one of the more impressive players on the pitch and looked threatening going forward as he created two big chances and made six passes into the final third (FotMob).

It certainly seems Doherty has made the most of his time off and he now should have a crucial few games coming up where he could reclaim his position in the starting team for good.

Losers

Richarlison

It feels strange to claim that a player who has won goal of the tournament (FIFA) and had overall an impressive World Cup a ‘loser’ of the tournament. However, when you look at Richarlison’s time at the World Cup from a Tottenham perspective, it can be hard to not feel a little frustrated.

Richarlison has had a rather stuttering start since joining Spurs, with his match-winning brace against Marseille being his most memorable moment so far, but it seems as though whenever the Brazilian gets going, he’s hit by an injury, and this World Cup appears to have handed the former Everton forward another setback.

Richarlison had a battle for his fitness ahead of the World Cup after he picked up a calf injury against his former club, Everton, back in the middle of October (Eurosport). However, Richarlison did get some Premier League minutes before he joined up with the Brazil national team, even though he didn’t look like he was fully fit and firing when he featured.

Richarlison started his tournament with a bang as he kicked off Brazil’s campaign with a brace against Serbia. Brazil progressed into the round of 16 where Richarlison started and scored in a 4-1 win against his Tottenham teammate, Heung Min Son of South Korea, a clash against Croatia awaited Brazil and as one of the favourites for the tournament, the ‘Selecao’ were fancying their chances to win it.

However, there started to be injury concerns raised about Richarlison’s fitness ahead of their game against Croatia, Richarlison did start the match, but he looked slow and played as if he was carrying a slight knock, he was subbed off after 84 minutes with extra time looming.

Therefore, the ultimate reason why this World Cup hasn’t particularly helped Richarlison at club level is that he is expected to be sidelined for another month as a result of his ‘hamstring injury’ (Evening Standard), Richarlison is likely to miss some crunch games for Tottenham as a result with games against Arsenal and Man City (twice) upcoming.

Harry Kane

The whole of the Tottenham fanbase will be feeling for Harry Kane after his agonising penalty miss against France in the quarterfinals which basically ended England’s World Cup hopes. It’s a painful moment for Kane who is notoriously clinical from the penalty spot, he did miss one recently against Eintracht Frankfurt in the Champions League but before that his misses from the spot were very rare.

As the England captain he has taken his responsibility in the exit as he posted stating ‘it’s come down to a small detail which I take responsibility for. There’s no hiding from it, it hurts and it’ll take some time to get over it but that’s part of sport’ (@HKane – Twitter)

It seems unfair for Kane to be the man who has put England out after the countless goals he’s scored and the perhaps understated impressive performance that Kane put on throughout the World Cup as he ended the tournament with two goals and three assists across the five appearances he made (FotMob).

As expected, it appears that Kane has picked himself back up and is focussed on Tottenham again as he scored on his return to club football against Brentford.

Tottenham’s pursuit of Sofyan Amrabat

Back in January of 2022 the Tottenham squad was significantly weaker and appeared in a phase of transition under Antonio Conte. Spurs had chased Adama Traore and Luiz Diaz for the majority of the winter window (Express), only for both to make eventual moves to Barcelona and Liverpool respectively.

However, as well as a winger/wing back Paratici and Conte clearly had a central midfielder on their January wish list, especially as 2019 summer signings: Giovanni Lo Celso and Tanguy Ndombele were set to depart on six-month-long loans (Sky Sports).

A player who was a target for Tottenham, therefore, was Fiorentina’s Sofyan Amrabat. Amrabat was highly rated by people within the game as Rino Foschi, a former sporting director, claimed that ‘Whoever takes Amrabat makes a bargain: he will make up for it.’ (Football.London)

Tottenham looked set to sign the Morrocan midfielder as one report stated that ‘Tottenham agreement for Amrabat: only the ‘yes’ of the player is missing’ (Viola News).

However, Tottenham decided to complete the moves for Dejan Kulusevski and Rodrigo Bentancur in the final days of the window, leaving Amrabat at Fiorentina.

But now that the Qatar World Cup has been and gone, Sofyan Amrabat’s name is one that isn’t only being mentioned in the same breath as Tottenham but now various top clubs around the world, most notably Liverpool (Mail Online). Tottenham appear to still be interested in the Moroccan after his very impressive World Cup campaign with the semi-finalists (Mail Online).

However, now Fiorentina have reportedly ramped up their asking price to match the midfielders’ impressive World Cup display as ‘Viola’ are now demanding around 40 million euros for the player (Relevo).

Tottenham are clearly big appreciators of Amrabat and it’s likely after his impressive World Cup display that their expectations of the player have been met, but with interest from other big clubs and a high price tag, Amrabat may go on to be a top player at another club meaning Tottenham will be kicking themselves about not making the transfer happen back in January 2022.

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Tottenham reportedly paid £21.6m as well as Erik Lamela for the then 20-year-old (Sky Sports). Gil agreed to a five-year deal (Official) when joining and arrived alongside Romero, Gollini, Sarr and Emerson: all players that newly appointed sporting director Fabio Paratici signed for the also recently arrived manager, Nuno Espirito Santo.

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Bryan Gil hardly had a soft landing into life at Spurs as Nuno was dismissed by the club just five months after he was appointed, allowing for the introduction of Antonio Conte in November of 2021.

Gil would have been wishing for a chance under the Italian, but the former Chelsea manager seemed to refuse the winger the opportunity as Gil only experienced 86 minutes of Premier League football (TransferMarkt) until exiting the club on loan in January 2022 to head back to Spain and join La Liga side Valencia CF.

Spurs fans were in agreement at the time that Gil needed to leave to experience first-team minutes elsewhere, but there was a shared frustration that the loan was one that saw Gil return to Spain as a large concern for Gil was in regard to his thin and small frame.

It’s far from unlikely for players of Gil’s build to be successful in the Premier League, for example look at David Silva, Kante and Luka Modric; but it requires the player to put in the strength training, step up and adapt to the demands of the league, something that Gil hasn’t yet been able to do.

Despite concerns, Gil did complete his six-month loan to Valencia, making 13 appearances in La Liga and even contributed with an assist during his time in his homeland (TransferMarkt).

However, since Gil had been away Tottenham signed Dejan Kulusevski who had hit the ground running and almost instantly promoted himself to become Antonio Conte’s first-choice right forward.

With Lucas Moura still at the club and Richarlison arriving from Everton it appeared that something would have to give at Spurs. The final days of the transfer window drew closer, and it appeared as if Conte would be electing Gil to be the player who leaves Tottenham to go back out on loan.

That was until Tottenham became hesitant on their squad size and chose to not send Gil back to Valencia. Antonio Conte explained ‘we wanted to send him on loan to Valencia, but the situation changed’ (Fabrizio Romano).

There is perhaps the question of: why did Kulusevski have faith poured into him so quickly and Gil didn’t? It looks obvious now but when the Swede signed it could be suggested that Tottenham had loaned out one young winger for another, but it’s the difference between the two is their maturity.

Bryan Gil has only made 98 professional appearances (FotMob), of which a large share have been short cameos; whereas, Kulusevski had made 143 appearances before joining Tottenham (FotMob), many of which were at Parma Calcio where he had the added responsibility of being the sides main star.

Most fans would have anticipated that this season would be much like Gil’s last at Tottenham, in and around the first team but never getting his chance to shine.

Although, due to the unforeseen circumstances of both Dejan Kulusevski and Richarlison being out with a thigh injury and a calf strain, respectively (Football.London). Due to Tottenham’s injury difficulties, it’s meant that Antonio Conte has turned to Gil more often as his attacking option from the bench.

The turning point for Gil seemed to be against Eintracht Frankfurt at home in the Champions League as the 21-year-old twisted and turned his way through the Europa League champions.

Gil may have even crowned his second appearance of the 2022/23 season with a goal if Kane hadn’t elevated his cross over the Spaniard’s head.

Kane uncharacteristically denied Gil another goal contribution in the same game as Gil jinked his way inside of Frankfurt defender, Hvoje Smolic, who was too slow to react to Gil’s turn, leaving the referee no option but to award a Tottenham penalty.

It seemed as if Gil had gifted Kane a golden opportunity to seal the game, but the England captain fired the spot kick over the bar.

Nevertheless, Bryan Gil’s cameo that game showed that he has the capabilities to threaten top defences and be a thorn in Tottenham’s attack when called upon, despite his appearance being only around ten minutes long it earned Gil a further twenty minutes against Sporting CP.

The fact that Conte turned to Gil when Spurs were needing a goal showed how much of an impression, he had made on Antonio Conte Gil changed the game and created as many key passes as Moura had across 81 minutes (2) (SofaScore).

This impressive nature of this performance wasn’t lost on Conte who explained ‘he understands football in an important way. I’m sure that we’re talking about a player that will be an important prospect for the future’ (Football365).

This was a sign of how Gil had risen in Conte’s estimation that he’d been deployed by his manager in the Champions League with so much at stake, Conte said ‘I believe in him, otherwise, I don’t risk playing him in the Champions League’ (Football.London).

Such public praise from Conte is rare and will be good reading for Spurs fans as they clearly have a very technically gifted player on their books who has the manager’s faith. Gil’s promise has also been a redeeming factor of Conte’s side of late.

Tottenham’s performances of late have been lacklustre and dull, especially in the first half so Gil’s bright sparks from the bench have been a welcome surprise for fans, the only frustration may be that he isn’t getting a chance from the start of the game.

However, that could soon change as Son received a blow to the head early on against Marseille, despite the South Korean not being on his best form this season Spurs will miss the winger due to the dwindling options of alternatives to him.

It appears this is Gil’s clearest chance to step into the starting eleven as Conte could only have Kane, Gil and Moura as his available attackers against Liverpool on Sunday.

Conte could still opt to go with a 3-5-2, but with it seems to be that Conte prefers having three frontmen, especially when you consider that it would mean Lucas Moura is Harry Kane’s strike partner despite the Brazilian being a natural winger.

It would be naive to assume that Conte doesn’t note the flaws that Gil does still naturally hold in his game despite the flattering comparisons to Bernardo Silva earlier this week Conte admitted that ‘Silva is physically stronger than him, but we are talking about this type of player’ (Football.London).

The quotes suggest that there are no questions around Gil’s abilities on and off the ball as Conte said ‘he can be helpful in this [defensive] situations’ (Football.London) but there’s an overwhelming feeling that Gil must improve and adapt to the physicality of the Premier League otherwise he could end up seeing his abilities be made redundant.

There is one thing for certain, if Gil is given the nod for Tottenham’s clash against Liverpool it will be a golden opportunity for the 21-year-old to announce himself as a huge prospect in England and finally allow him to transition from a promising, raw prospect to a flourishing, exciting talent at one of the biggest clubs in England.

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These two sides have played each other before in this competition as last season Tottenham ran out 4-3 winners against ‘Boro. Tottenham would certainly take that result again this time round as the academy are yet to register a win this season.

Stevenage dominated the first half, controlling the game with a greater share of possession. Tottenham rarely ventured into Stevenage’s half, Yago Alonso had Spurs’ best chance in the first half an hour as he dribbled through Stevenage’s backline and got himself one-on-one with the goalkeeper, only to hit it straight at the home side’s keeper, Aaron Chapman.

Stevenage kept probing and eventually found their breakthrough in the 24^th minute as full-back Max Clark crossed the ball towards Tottenham’s box, Stevenage’s Jordan Roberts committed himself the most and poked the ball into the right of Tottenham’s goal.

In the 42^nd minute it looked as though Tottenham could be in on goal as Jamie Donley picked up on a loose ball, the forward threaded through Yago Alonso, but the striker frustratingly slipped, letting the ball and chance run away from him.

Referee Samuel Barrott called time on the first half and Tottenham couldn’t have many complaints about the score as Stevenage had looked the more mature and better side for the first 45 minutes and ultimately deserved their lead.

The second half starts a lot more evenly than the first, Tottenham are manufacturing more chances for themselves and start to test the Stevenage defence.

However, the spell of dominance is ended by Nile John giving away a freekick in Stevenage’s half, a foul that is awarded with a booking for John.

John finds himself at the heart of the action again as he weaves his way through Stevenage’s defence but Stevenage’s captain, Vancooten denies the midfielder as soon as he starts to pull the trigger.

Tottenham become aware of the increasingly slim chances of them progressing and give minutes to Lyons-Foster and summer signing Will Lankshear.

Despite bringing on attack-minded players Tottenham find themselves having to defend again, and Stevenage may have even scored if it wasn’t for Fagan-Walcott’s sliding block.

The game starts to draw to a close, and it seems as if the result will finish unchanged, but it didn’t mean there still wasn’t to be late drama as Nile John is sent off for a second bookable offence after he slides in on Stevenage’s Jake Taylor.; a harsh end to a largely impressive evening from the 19-year-old.

The full-time whistle is blown and Tottenham continue to be winless so far in the 2022/23 campaign but this performance wasn’t without positives as Yago Alonso showed promising signs and trickery up front, Malachi Fagan-Walcott put in an impressive defensive display and Nile John was probably Tottenham’s most dangerous player despite his late dismissal.

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The most notable injuries so far in the Antonio Conte era would have to be Romero, who had a hamstring injury that occurred in November of 2021 and therefore missed 16 games due to the issue (TransferMarkt).

Matthew Doherty was also another notable miss as he was ruled out for the season with a ‘medical collateral ligament injury’ (Sky Sports) an injury that has even bled into this season.

Antonio Conte explained that ‘Matthew that had serious injury and I said in the past he is struggling a bit to come back as the player I knew last season’ (Talk Sport), suggesting a possible explanation to why Brazilian Emerson Royal has started every league game this season ahead of Doherty.

The injury at the time seemed to be a huge blow to Tottenham’s top four hopes as Doherty was playing well as he was put back in his ideal position of a right-wing back and had 2 goals and 4 assists (Premier League) before his unfortunate injury against Aston Villa which saw Emerson Royal called upon.

However, it may not be the actual injuries that had the biggest effect on Tottenham last season, it was the absence of injury to Harry Kane that had the biggest effect. It was Kane’s first ‘injury-free’ season since the 2015/2016 season.

However, Tottenham are now well-underway with the 2022/2023 season and reliance on certain players has shifted with Antonio Conte starting the season in charge it means that certain players may start to become more and more vital to his system.

With this in mind here are my five Tottenham players that would cause the team’s performances the biggest damage if they were to pick up an injury, and how they could fix the problems these injuries would open up.

5 – Hojbjerg

Hojbjerg may be a player that seems to divide opinion amongst Tottenham fans, but especially at the moment, if Hojbjerg was to get injured the Tottenham team would lack his presence.

Since the arrival of Rodrigo Bentancur, he and the Dane have started the majority of the games as the midfield two.

The fact that Hojbjerg has almost been an ever-present in the Spurs team isn’t the only reason that he’s on this list, there are also numbers to suggest that should Hojbjerg become unavailable for Spurs they would lose an attacking edge in the middle of the park.

Manager Antonio Conte has explicitly stated how he believes Bissouma is currently ‘a step behind Bentancur and Hojbjerg’ and that he ‘needs to work, go totally into the idea of football’ (Football.London).

Suggesting that perhaps why Bissouma has only started one Premier League game so far (due to Bentancur picking up a knock against Nottingham Forest).

Hojbjerg’s creative ability perhaps goes under the radar amongst fans as he has averaged 1.3 key passes per game this season, which is double Bentancur’s average (SofaScore).

The stats suggest that despite Bentancur being a little more secure on the ball and better at driving it forward, Hojbjerg fulfils a special role in Conte’s set up of being the player in midfield to link defence to attack.

You could perhaps make-up for Hojbjerg’s creativity if he became injured by switching to a 3-5-2 and playing three midfielders, perhaps Bentancur, Bissouma and Skipp so that the passing duties are spread out amongst the three; however, it would be a big risk for Conte to take and a lot of change for the squad to adapt to.

4 – Dier

It’s fair to say that two years ago fans would have groaned at a team sheet when they saw that Jose Mourinho had named Dier in his eleven. But fast forward a year and Dier had started impressively in a very poor Tottenham team under Nuno, his impressive start to the season continued with Conte at the reigns as Dier became almost un-droppable.

He performed very well in the middle of a back three as it felt like Dier had the security of two other centre-backs for him to defend strongly whilst it also allows him to play a long ball forward, something that perhaps derives from his days as a defensive midfielder.

For these reasons I’ve put Dier as fifth on this list; there’s also proof that Tottenham miss Dier in the heart of the defence as Tottenham lost to Wolves (2-0) and Southampton (3-2) at home last season when he was out with a ‘thigh issue’ (The Athletic).

It’s also hard to imagine how Dier would be replaced as a central centre-back in this Tottenham team with his ideal replacement, Joe Rodon, being currently out on loan.

It’s difficult to imagine Lenglet stepping into the centre of this back three when he’s only just got his foot in the left-sided centre back position. Romero seems too rash and dangerous, with the same applicable for Davinson Sanchez it only leaves Japhet Tanganga who is surely too inexperienced and unproven for such a huge role in Antonio Conte’s team.

3 – Romero

Cristian Romero instantly impressed at Tottenham since he joined, initially on a loan deal, last season and has continued to be impressive ever since with his crunching challenges and imposing physicality improving Tottenham’s defence last season, when he was fit.

Romero hasn’t been fit as frequently as everyone surrounding Tottenham may have liked, the Argentine defender has missed 25 games across the past two seasons (TransferMarkt), with Davinson Sanchez often being the man coming into to deputy for him.

Although Sanchez put in some impressive displays, especially towards the end of last season when Tottenham had their sprint finish left for the top four, but most Spurs fans are more than aware of Davinson’s tendencies of switching off or pulling the rest of the team into a moment of danger.

What do Tottenham miss most though when Romero isn’t available? Well, Romero is a lot more pro-active without the ball and aggressive in possession than Davinson Sanchez, Romero may only average 0.1 progressive passes per 90 more than Sanchez but it’s his work off the ball that stands out.

Romero averages 14.84 pressures per 90 (FBRef), whereas Sanchez only averages 10.18 (FBRef), this shows that Romero likes to press his opponent and win back the ball early rather than holding his position, giving his opposing player time.

When Romero’s successfully executes this press it results in a turnover in possession and often a counterattack, something which Conte’s Tottenham team have become reliant on and are lethal at doing.

It’s hard to compensate for Romero when he is injured as his game is so specific and can’t really be matched by anyone else, but if you were to try and make up for Romero’s aggressive defending and pressing ability then maybe you would give Djed Spence a chance a wing-back as he could try and utilise his pace when winning the ball to cause a counterattack.

2 – Lloris

Tottenham’s captain is my number two on the list, the Frenchman has been an incredible servant for the club and puts in great goalkeeping performances every week.

Despite the Frenchman not being the most modern goalkeeper due to his slight discomfort on the ball and lack of accurate distribution with his feet it’s undeniable that Hugo is still one of the best shot-stoppers around.

His presence in the Tottenham net is also an undervalued aspect of his game, the 35-year-old has plenty of experience and is even a World Cup winner. Therefore, it’s no surprise that Tottenham fans will be having sleepless nights about Lloris’ fitness ahead of their busy upcoming fixture list.

Although Tottenham did buy a new back-up goalkeeper this season in Fraser Forster it’s still a big drop-off from Lloris’ level.

These reasons aren’t the only points that make Lloris number two on this list, it’s also the fact that changing goalkeepers can be such a risk, even if it’s for the short term.

Lloris has had the benefit of rhythm and consistency for most the time that he’s been at Tottenham, which is why we rarely see the Frenchman look unsettled or make a comedy of errors.

An array of big clubs have tried to toy around with their goalkeepers over the years: for example, Chelsea paid a world-record fee of £72 million for Kepa Arrizabalaga (Mirror), all for the Spaniard to be ultimately underwhelming and find himself dropped within a couple of seasons. Liverpool struggled with Karius and even Man City struggled with Claudio Bravo before landing upon Ederson.

As you can see changing keepers, especially for big clubs with lots of pressure, is a big deal and often can end miserably; therefore, Spurs will be hoping that Lloris continues to defy his age and stay a constant fixture in this Tottenham team.

1 – Kane

Who else? Harry Kane is now, as he always has been, vital to this Tottenham team. It’s crazy to think that a little over a year ago Kane was trying to push his way into getting a move to Man City, now there are talks of a new contract for the striker (Football.London) and he seems to be happier than ever at N17.

Kane’s way of playing has kept evolving throughout the years, in 2020-2021 Kane was dropping extremely deep to link up play under Jose Mourinho, allowing him to grab the Golden Playmaker award as well as the Golden Boot that season.

Kane is still dropping deep and using his passing ability to its full capabilities for Spurs but is now seemingly not as deep and is making sure he can be on the end of Tottenham’s attacks, not just creating them.

Kane already has seven goals and assists to his name this Premier League season (Premier League) and is proving that under Conte he can be a real threat.

Kane obviously is far from being an injury-free player and in the past has struggled often with ankle injuries, suffering with five of the kind across 3 years (Evening Standard).

However, more recently Kane has seemed to be coping better with the number of games he’s played and hasn’t sustained an injury since April of last year, likely due to the ‘new personal physiotherapist’ that the England captain has hired to help his injury worries (Evening Standard).

Due to Kane’s unique style of play it makes it very hard to replace him in this Tottenham side, even though Spurs forked out £50 million for Richarlison (The Guardian) he is still a drop in quality from Kane and would undoubtedly cause a shift in the way that Tottenham play.

An honourable mention:

Heung-Min Son: If the South Korean had started the season at the same incredible levels to which he ended last season with then he would undoubtedly find himself on this list.

Nevertheless, Son has started the season slowly, barring his mesmerising hat-trick against Leicester, and it’s still yet to be seen how long it will take Son to fully get back to his best across a 90-minute period.

Son also seems to be a player that could be compensated for if he did sustain an injury as Richarlison has looked extremely lively when he’s featured as well as Dejan Kulusevski, Tottenham may no longer have an out-and-out reliance on Son to be scoring.

Plus, it seems illogical to include Son in a list of players that Tottenham would miss if they were injured when many fans were calling for Son to be dropped from the starting eleven just a matter of weeks ago.

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It’s been just over two years since Tottenham competed in Europe’s elite competition but it feels like a lifetime, Jose Mourinho was the manager in that game against RB Leipzig and Tottenham fell apart with a 3-0 score line proving how far Tottenham had slumped.

Fast forward to today and things around Spurs have become a lot rosier, Antonio Conte is now at the helm and Spurs have started their Premier League campaign unbeaten and are now all set to face French side Marseille at home in their opening Champions League clash of the 2022-2023 season.

What to expect from Marseille?

Marseille, much like Tottenham, have started their domestic campaign unbeaten. ‘Les Olympiens’ have won five of their opening six games, scoring an impressive 13 goals in those games which puts them joint top with French powerhouses PSG in the Ligue 1 table (Sky Sports).

Marseille are under the guidance of newly appointed manager, Igor Tudor, after a dramatic turn of events saw Jorge Sampaoli resign as Marseille manager following a reported ‘disagreement’ over the clubs’ transfer strategy as he felt the club should have done more to keep Arsenal loanee William Saliba on a permanent deal (METRO).

Marseille usually like to dominate the ball as they have averaged 54.8% of possession this season, for comparison Tottenham have only averaged 50.5% (SofaScore). Marseille are also a little less secure in possession in comparison to Spurs, Tottenham average 122.5 possession losses per game whereas Marseille average 137 possession losses (SofaScore).

It’s also important to factor in who Marseille have faced so far, as they’ve faced 5 teams that placed 9^th or lower in Ligue 1 last season, with the one anomaly being OCG Nice who finished 5^th.

Marseille also, like Tottenham play a 3-4-3 / 3-4-2-1 formation which will certainly be interesting to watch as the teams could go man for man formation wise which is something Tottenham don’t encounter too often domestically due to many English sides opting for four at the back.

Team News

Tottenham: Antonio Conte made five changes for the game at home to Fulham where Tottenham as Romero and Bentancur returned to the side following injuries.

Conte’s squad is likely to be improved a little more for tonight’s Champions League opener as he confirms that ‘Moura is not still available’ (Evening Standard), suggesting that the Brazilian is Tottenham’s only expected absence and winger Bryan Gil should be available.

It’s also worth noting that Oliver Skipp would have had a further few days back training with the squad following his ‘hairline fracture in his heel’ that he unfortunately suffered at the start of the season and therefore they may be hope to see the Tottenham academy graduate return in some form soon.

Marseille: The French club haven’t included Cedric Bakambu and Bamba Dieng in their Champions League squad, expectedly after their ‘deadline deals collapsed’, meaning that neither will be facing Tottenham (Independent).

Another positive for Spurs fans is that former West Ham winger Dimiriti Payet is expected not to be involved due to a ‘calf issue’, in addition to this another former player for a Tottenham rival is also confirmed to not be involved in tonight’s game as ex-Arsenal player Alexis Sanchez is suspended (Evening Standard).

Players to watch:

Tottenham: Richarlison, the new Brazilian recruit has been electric during his cameos off the bench for Spurs and was equally impressive on the weekend against Fulham, if he gets a start against Marseille, which may be likely due to Tottenham’s heavy fixture list, he could cause havoc and offer a bit of dynamism to Spurs’ attack; it will also be interesting to see if manager Antonio Conte chooses to drop Son or keep the same attack that faced Fulham four days ago.

Marseille: Matteo Guendouzi, Tottenham fans will certainly not have forgot this man. The former Gunner isn’t one to back away from feistiness and most Spurs fans will remember the many disputes that the Frenchman caused and became involved in during the few North London derbies in which he played in.

The midfielder picked up 6 assists last season (SofaScore) and was a helping factor in Marseille’s Champions League qualification due to him being in every one of their league games last season.

Match Details:

Kick-Off: 8:00 pm (UK)

Location: Tottenham Hotspur Stadium

Tottenham Form: DWWDW

Marseille Form: DWWWW

Referee: Slavko Vincic

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Last Time Out

Last time these two met was in January of 2022 as Chelsea killed off Tottenham’s hopes of walking away with at least a point as a quickfire double from Ziyech and Thiago Silva secured yet another home victory for Chelsea. The result at the time meant that Chelsea had established an 11-point gap between them and Tottenham, leaving Spurs struggling in 7^th place (Premier League), a gap that was shortened to just three points and one league position come the end of the season (Premier League).

Memorable Meeting

As always is the case with derby days, there’s a possibility of a game becoming a classic, and this derby has made plenty. The ‘Battle of The Bridge’ springs to mind, even though the result left a bitter taste in Spurs fans’ mouths as it buried any remaining title chances the game is an undeniable classic due to its fights and drama. Another close contender would be the ending of the ‘Stamford Bridge curse’ that lingered above Tottenham for 28 years; Pochettino’s side came back from an early goal by Alvaro Morata to beat the blues with Dele Alli being the star of the show on a memorable April afternoon (Sky Sports).

However, above all the most joyous win game against Chelsea for Spurs fans has to be the ‘Carling Cup’ final at Wembley where Spurs were victorious over Chelsea with their reward being silverware, the disappointing fact is that this trophy would be the most recent taste of success Tottenham fans have experienced, still, 14 years on.

What’s at stake?

With the fixture being very early in the Premier League schedule it’s hard to understand at this stage how crucial three points over a team like Chelsea could be come the end of the season, especially with Chelsea being under new ownership and weeks of the transfer window left, but if history is to tell us anything its highly likely that the Blues will be very much in around the top four this season, therefore Antonio Conte will be chomping at the bit to make a statement to the league this Sunday.

Beating a team like Chelsea, away from home could outline Tottenham’s intentions this season to fight on all fronts and unlike years gone by Tottenham could start to strike fear into opponents and start to have that aura of inevitability around them with such a venomous attack and an elite manager in Antonio Conte.

A loss would feel a bit like pressing a reset button on the momentum that Tottenham are starting to gather with new signings and a sense of belief around the club, but above all it may feel like a missed opportunity for Conte’s men with Chelsea seemingly in transition and manager Thomas Tuchel clearly unhappy with his squads state at the moment, this could be Tottenham’s best chance to beat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in years.

The State of Play:

With this fixture being placed in the Premier League’s second game week of the 2022/23 season there are not many injuries of note.

However, due to the timing of the game, the transfer window is still open which has caused there to be absences due to players completing moves as Thomas Tuchel confirmed ‘Marcos Alonso is not in training at the moment as he tries to finalise his transfer, so he won’t be in contention for Sunday’ (Metro).

Most Tottenham fans will be delighted to see the back of Marcos Alonso, his record against Spurs’ makes for painful reading as he’s totalled up 5 goal contributions in 10 starts against Tottenham (TransferMarkt).

Despite it being very early in the season there is still injuries that have forced players to miss out on this weekend’s clash in Southwest London.

Chelsea: Thomas Tuchel confirmed in a Friday press conference before the weekend game that ‘Kova [Kovacic] is injured’ as the Croatian apparently ‘has issues with his knee’ that will prevent him from taking part in this weekends tie (Metro), apart from that Chelsea are forecasting no other injury concerns.

Tottenham: Tottenham’s squad availability has somewhat improved since their opening day game against Southampton last Saturday as new signing Richarlison has served his one-match ban. Alongside this we can speculate that Perisic and the other new signings have worked their way towards an Antonio Conte level of fitness.

There is however a new injury concern that Antonio Conte has announced and it’s that there is ‘a little problem with Clement Lenglet’. When asked about the French defenders’ injury Conte explained ‘it’s a little problem of fatigue and he’s a bit tired in his adductor’ he then wen ton to explain that the injury is ‘nothing serious, only a precaution but its not good to take a stupid risk for one game’ (Football.London).

What to expect:

As with most derbies, the game is likely to be feisty but with two elite managers in Thomas Tuchel and Antonio Conte, you can also expect the game to be a tactical battle.

When these battles occur, the game tends to go either way, it can either be a very high-scoring affair as both teams play at a high tempo, or it could be a slower, more considered tie where both teams are scared to make the first move with a worry of conceding first.

However, whenever Tottenham and Chelsea meet it’s always a great game, at least definitely for the neutral.

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The transition from Turin to Tottenham was almost seamless for the Swede as he grabbed eight assists whilst also netting five goals of his own (TransferMarkt).

Kulusevski’s impact was as important as it was impressive as he helped Tottenham get a memorable win away to Manchester City with his early opener before assisting Harry Kane’s winner.

The winger also ensured Tottenham would finish above their rivals, Arsenal, come the end of the season with a brace that contributed to Tottenham’s thrashing of Premier League backmarkers, Norwich.

Due to the maturity with which Kulusevski has entered the English top flight, you would be forgiven if you thought the forward was an older, more experienced winger; but he’s not.

The Swedish international is still only twenty-two years of age and is enjoying his first consistent run in a team since his days at Parma Calcio back in 2019/20.

Although Kulusevski’s age does give promise for the future, there are still many imperfections to his game that he will have to iron out if he intends to remain Antonio Conte’s primary pick on the right side of Tottenham’s three-man attack.

The most significant issue with Kulusevski’s game is his lack of trust in his weaker (right) foot, meaning he is often seen shifting the ball onto his left in shooting positions.

If you watched the first half in particular of Tottenham’s pre-season game against Rangers you would have noticed that a goal-scoring opportunity can pass him by due to this weakness.

So why is this so significant to Conte? Well, we know that Conte likes his teams to attack with pace and often counter-attack against superior oppositions like Liverpool and Manchester City.

Therefore this slowing down of attacks or wasting of chances could be critical for Spurs next season, especially in games where chances may come few and far between.

Take the Burnley game for example towards the closing stages of the 2021/2022 season; Lucas Moura started the game ahead of Kulusevski, which was seemingly forced as the Swede was feeling unwell (Standard).

The match highlighted how Moura’s dynamism was useful in breaking down an opponent like Burnley who set up in a low block with the intention of frustrating Spurs over the course of the 90 minutes. 

The numbers only further strengthen these observations as Kulusevski has scored 100% of his Premier League goals with his stronger (left) foot (Premier League). For comparison, Dejan’s teammate, Harry Kane, scored only 52% of his Premier League goals last season with his predominant right foot (Premier League).

Fellow winger, Heung Min-Son has an incredible record of scoring one more goal with his left foot (12) than he did with his right foot (11) last Premier League season (Premier League).

Son is a shining example for Kulusevski as the South Korean has climbed his way to being one of the top players in the world. One of the key factors that have helped him to reach that stature is his unpredictability due to his equal ability on both feet.

It makes it difficult for defenders to play against him as they aren’t able to force Son to a weaker side due to him not having one. As such, if Son is given just enough time and space he is almost guaranteed to capitalise on the opportunity.

Even if there is a defender that chooses to close down the Korean, he can still shift the ball and create a goal-scoring opportunity for a teammate.

It’s therefore easy to see why it will be crucial that Kulusevski develops his unpredictability over the next season, especially as the Swede will be entering his first full season in England and people will have done their research on him. 

However, this isn’t to say that Kulusevski will definitely struggle next season as it’s easy to forget he’s still young at twenty-two years of age and will only get better and mature with experience.

There may not be that same dramatic high numbers of goal contributions this season but it’s likely that will be due to the introduction of Richarlison, who will give Kulusevski a tough battle for his place.

Despite his game not being complete or at a world-class level yet, Kulusevski will still cause trouble for opponents due to his direct running, quick footwork, drive and determination on the ball. 

Just like any player, there’s always something to improve on and the concern is that Kulusevski may be found out next season if he doesn’t adapt or work to fix his weaker foot.

But if any manager has the incredible ability to improve players and their abilities; it’s Antonio Conte.

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Despite Bale’s departure being announced at the final stages of the window, Tottenham were expecting the Welshman’s move away from the club, along with the lucrative fee that partnered his sale.

As such, Spurs confidently spent big in the summer of 2013 as they looked to recycle the fee from Bale into improving the overall squad.

Tottenham brought seven players in the summer window: Paulinho from Corinthians was the first signing completed on July the 6^th costing a fee of around £17.8 million, next to be announced was former FC Twente player, Nacer Chaldi who cost a further £7.3 million (TransferMarkt).

Heading into August, Spurs started to buy thick and fast with the marquee signing being Roberto Soldado who was signed from Valencia off the back of his impressive 24 goals in La Liga over the course of the 2012/13 season; Roberto cost the club £27 million (TransferMarkt).

Tottenham weren’t satisfied with Paulinho being the only midfield signing of the window as Etienne Capoue was signed for £9.9 million from French side Toulouse (TransferMarkt).

In typical Tottenham style, there were numerous deals left until the closing stages of the window as Erik Lamela was announced as the joint-most-expensive deal out of the seven as Roma charged £27 million for the 21-year-old Argentine winger (TransferMarkt).

The entrance door to Hotspur Way had barely shut as defender Chiriches was signed for £8.6 million along with Spurs’ final signing of their busy window, Christian Eriksen, who was purchased for around £12.7 million from Dutch side Ajax, concluding Tottenham’s summer spending at over £110 million (TransferMarkt).

At the time, all these deals were incredibly exciting for Spurs fans and contributed to a great deal of anticipation to see all seven in action, contrasted by a slight feeling of worry as fans knew that Gareth Bale will no longer be at White Hart Lane.

With hindsight, it’s now easy to realise that the expectations and hope for the majority of these new signings was too high as all seven have now departed the club. Soldado, for example, was infamous for his easy misses and lack of goals scored in Lilywhite colours.

There were two players that stuck with the club for the long-term, however, as Eriksen proved to be the main success from this shopping spree, with the Dane spearheading the midfield under Argentine Mauricio Pochettino.

Erik Lamela never hit the heights expected of him when he joined but the winger did stay for eight years at the club and shone on rare occasions.

Despite Eriksen and Lamela’s success at the club since joining in 2013, it’s widely agreed that the transfer window was one of Tottenham’s worst, with the bulk of the players purchased leaving only a season or two after.

Most also failed to recoup their large fees. All the signings were completed under the watchful eye of Daniel Levy and sporting director, Franco Baldini, who did his best to try and rebuild a squad that had become heavily reliant on a magical Gareth Bale. It’s safe to say that Baldini’s efforts fell short of the mark.

Which brings us onto the topic of this season’s transfer window where Tottenham have similarly spent large amounts in the window, reaching the £100 million mark (TransferMarkt).

And, like in 2013 the deals have mainly been worked on by a director of football, this time it’s Fabio Paratici who aims to reinforce Antonio Conte’s Tottenham squad, rather than rebuild it.

The fact that this summer’s aim is to improve and deepen the squad is what differentiates it from the summer of 2013 which had a heavier reliance on rebuilding the team entirely. Many of the players entering the club nine years ago were expected to adapt instantly to Premier League football and take up a starting role in the side.

It seems that lessons have been learnt from the summer of 2013 as Paratici is, unlike Baldini, shopping in the English market with Premier League-proven players such as Richarlison and Bissouma.

The lack of signings from England is perhaps what put the writing on the wall for Baldini’s signings in 2013 as not one player had ever experienced a minute of Premier League football before their Tottenham debuts.

Just to further add to the culture shock of these players, they had all joined from six different leagues with many speaking different languages too, contributing to an incredibly difficult settling-in period at the club.

Another reason why it may be safe to say that Spurs fans have cause for excitement this summer, and shouldn’t be haunted by the experience of the Gareth Bale window, is that the average age of players that Spurs have purchased (27 years old) is significantly higher than the average age of player brought in 2013 (24 years old).

The mix of experience and youth not only minimises risk but it also means Conte has a higher standard of players to fight in the here-and-now, rather than building for the future.

A player such as Ivan Perisic is a prime example of this. The Croatian is joining as a proven player across Europe, he’s in his prime, and he has the ability to pass on his experience to a younger player such as Ryan Sessegnon who has already admitted this valuable mentoring is taking place between him and Perisic (Daily Mail).

So, why is this summer going to be different to the magnificent seven? This year, frankly, has had a lot more sense and calculation about it compared to the summer we experienced nine years ago which almost felt like a kid in a toy store.

In 2013, Spurs went about buying all these exciting players that looked like attractive options, with very little consideration as to how these players would integrate into a squad to form a functioning team.

This time, Paratici has been helped by the presence of Antonio Conte who is the centrepiece the sporting direction can build his Tottenham jigsaw around.

The two have worked together before and know what works and what doesn’t, which is why they have been able to move so quickly, spending that slight premium on the players they know Conte wants to improve his squad.

It’s about giving Conte the resources to build a team that he wants to build; not going around the world buying different exciting prospects from different leagues and hoping that it all comes together. Because as we know: it doesn’t quite work like that in football.

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It has likely to have become apparent to Spurs fans that despite a large number of arrivals already being confirmed there hasn’t been the usual ‘one in one out’ transfer policy so far this summer; where incomings would usually be completed or announced shortly after the announcement of a departure.

On-loan goalkeeper Pierluigi Gollini, winger Steven Bergwijn, centre-back Cameron Carter-Vickers, and young Jack Clarke has been the only significant first-team departure so far this summer.

Even though there will most definitely be further sales and loans this summer with players like Harry Winks, Giovani Lo Celso, Tanguy Ndombele, and Sergio Reguilon being left out of the pre-season tour in Korea.

The exit door at Spurs certainly won’t be gathering dust, and it signals a change in transfer strategy at the club, embodying the effect the upcoming and unique ‘winter World Cup’ will have on Tottenham’s squad.

It’s crucial when discussing the World Cup in Qatar to understand the change that it has caused with regards to the Premier League season’s schedule.

This World Cup will be the shortest one that has ever run and will have 64 games crammed into only 27 days (from November the 21^st to December the 18^th).

To accommodate for this international tournament being held in the middle of the season, the Premier League will press pause on its campaign in the sixteenth match week meaning that Tottenham’s last game before the break will be at home to Leeds on the 12^th of November, leaving a tight turnaround of just nine days for the players.

The tournament in Qatar will come to a close on the 18^th of December, leaving only eight days for players participating in the final to return to England and play in the Premier League’s traditional boxing day matches: Tottenham will face Brentford away.

With Tottenham being in four competitions this season, the games will be coming thick and fast for the players, likely causing them to feel more strain on their bodies than ever before.

So expect plenty of frustrating injuries to occur; especially when you consider that all eleven players who played in Spurs’ closing fixture against Norwich are all in contention to be playing in the World Cup.

Therefore, to compete on all fronts, Spurs’ squad will have to be deeper than ever and will have to contain multiple high-quality players in each position to allow Antonio Conte to start giving players rests without feeling that the team’s performance would heavily suffer as a result of doing so.

This was something the Italian didn’t have the ability to do last season as four academy players were named on the bench for the closing games of the season as a result of a few injuries amongst the squad, a level of depth which would just not be acceptable to have next season.

In tandem with the idea of squad depth being more vital than ever is the new rules being implemented for next season, one of which is that teams will now be granted five substitutions per match that they can make within three occasions (BBC).

The rule will give the bigger clubs and larger, higher-quality squads an advantage as they will have the ability to bring on fresh, top-quality players from their bench in order to either see a game out, salvage a point or go for a win.

As it’s widely known, small margins over a season often surmount into big rewards; examples of that can be found in last season’s campaign as Liverpool fell short of the title by a single point and Tottenham themselves clinched top four by only two points.

Already we are seeing signs of intent on the transfer market from Tottenham in the form of signing Everton forward, Richarlison, who is a player that Tottenham wouldn’t usually go for as the team are already very strong up front.

This signing shows the awareness from Spurs that they will have to boast immense strength and depth if they wish to achieve their capabilities under Antonio Conte.

So, Spurs are clearly going for strength in depth in this transfer window and that’s why they are expected to spend ‘the bulk of the £150m cash injection they received from majority shareholders ENIC Sports Inc about a month ago (Alasdair Gold).

Although Spurs would ideally go for the targets they desire and secure the signings quickly, it’s never that easy; especially when so many players in question will be conscious of their spot for the Qatar World Cup.

The effect that the World Cup will have on the transfer window is going to be significant, but it can be positive as much as it can be negative.

For example, current Tottenham midfielder Harry Winks may have been reluctant to leave N17 as he’s been at the club for many years now; but the 26-year-old will now be attracted by the prospect of earning his space back in the England squad.

Therefore it may help for a move to occur more smoothly and at a faster pace as all parties work towards the completion of a deal.

The idea of a player wanting to leave a club for better chances of a spot on their national team’s plane to Qatar could help Tottenham in their purchases as well as their departures.

For example, a player may see regular minutes at Tottenham in the Premier League as a great chance to showcase their skills at the highest level – this staking a claim for a World Cup starting berth. Look at Richarlison, who will now get to play in the Champions League for the first time or Lenglet who has a chance to recover from a woeful year at Barca.

The World Cup is and always will be an exciting prospect for football fans and, now more than ever, the tournament will have an effect on the wider footballing world throughout the course of the summer and in the weeks following the tournament.

The good news for Tottenham is that this will be an opportunity for them – an opportunity that must be clinched over the summer, or face dire consequences.

Either way, one thing is for sure: this summer and next season should be one hell of a ride for fans of the Lilywhites.

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When you look at multiple underdog stories over the years, you’ll be able to find a common denominator, their unbreakable togetherness and unity as a team, the key teams that come to mind are Burnley, year upon year defying the odds to stay in England’s top flight despite being on a tiny budget and funds that aren’t even comparable to the teams around them.

Another example is Ajax and their incredible run to the Champions League semi-final where they defeated European powerhouses Juventus alongside defeating the holders of the competition, Real Madrid in the round of 16 despite being a young and unproven side Erik Ten Hag led his army through the tournament’s twists and turns; however, all Spurs fans will be very familiar with how the Dutch champions European run ended in the most dramatic fashion…

A less positive memory for Spurs fans will be Claudio Ranieri’s Leicester who completed a fairy-tale story and won the Premier League title, just twelve months after narrowly surviving relegation from the division.

This pack mentality that can carry teams so far happens in all leagues, Nathan Jones at Luton is a clear modern example as the Hatters, much like Leicester, have usually been focused on surviving the drop but this season have carried themselves to a serious play-off push and even went toe-to-toe with European champions Chelsea in the FA Cup this season.

The point of these examples is that mentality and togetherness of a team can change a squad from relegation candidates to promotion or league challengers; and this is a key element that Antonio Conte and his squad are lacking at Spurs.

If there is any manager that can galvanize and inspire a squad of players, it’s Antonio Conte. The Italian is known for his passion and burning desire to win and work hard for that victory which may suggest why he shipped out Tanguy Ndombele and Giovani Lo Celso in the January transfer window. They were clearly two players that were talented but lacked mental strength and work ethic which saw them fall in and out of favour with previous Tottenham managers, and that lack of work ethic and mental strength is undoubtedly what would have driven Antonio Conte to expel the two midfielders from the Tottenham squad.

Despite clearing out a few of the players he doesn’t trust it still seems that Conte lacks the confidence not only in his first eleven but the bench also. This lack of confidence is portrayed through the Tottenham head coaches’ lack of substitutions in games and the fact of his squad being so thin that young players like Harvey White, Dane Scarlett, Matthew Craig and Marcel Lavinier; not to say that these players don’t deserve the opportunity and experience on the bench but if Tottenham are seriously looking to challenge to the league and finish comfortably in the top four then they can’t be having three youth team players making up their bench.

This lack of trust between Conte and some of his squad is what can block this all-important pack mentality and prevent the whole squad from collectively being prepared to ‘run through walls’ for their manager.

So how can it change? It will be crucial for the entire club that they qualify for the Champions League this season, an obvious reason will be the ability to attract a higher calibre of players into joining the club and often with a higher calibre of players comes an elite level of mentality, if the right personality judgements are made by Tottenham’s recruitment.

Tottenham’s elite players are leading their team now; you can identify Lloris, Kane, Son and Romero as elite players and equally as impressive leaders in the team. However, there is only five or six leaders throughout the team when ideally you would want 7, 8 or even 9; when you look at this incredible Liverpool team you could easily name at least eight leaders within their line up and even more throughout their squad. This lack of leadership is perhaps what has caused players to shy away from challenges and bury their head in the sand at any moment of adversity, rather than be strong and valiantly battle on and fight for the game passionately.

The absence of leadership within the Spurs squad may also explain why they have tended to trip up in seemingly easy games or drop valuable points against teams they really should be beating, such as the recent games against Brighton and Brentford where the lilywhites dropped 5 incredibly important points.

Therefore, if Tottenham do qualify for the pinnacle of European football and keep manager Antonio Conte then they should perhaps not instantly fall into the trap of signing the players who will sell shirts and bring attention, but instead, focus on bringing in players who have a perfect mix of both quality and character as that is what Tottenham will require to reach the next step of challenging in all competitions.

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This comes despite the Tottenham striker only ever scoring one goal from a freekick scenario at the beginning of his career against Aston Villa when Tottenham’s number 10 struck the ball off the wall and it was deflected goalwards to secure a late win.

Kane’s opportunities of taking a freekick in the seasons following that successful attempt against Villa were very few and far between due to set-piece-specialist, Christian Eriksen, still being at the club.

Tottenham have lacked any sort of set-piece prowess since the Danish midfielder departed the club in January of 2020, where he left to join current Tottenham coach, Antonio Conte at Inter Milan.

Gareth Bale is obviously the only other player who has joined Spurs since who is known to have had great freekick abilities but with the Welshman’s tenure at the club being so brief it meant that he only took a very small amount of freekicks.

Of course, this didn’t stop him from causing a goal from one as he struck one from long-range against the crossbar in the Europa League as the ball landed into fellow loanee, Carlos Vinicius’ path allowing the Brazilian to strike the ball home.

Heung Min Son whipped in a deep freekick against Watford back in August of 2021 when the ball managed to find its way in after it wrong-footed the Watford ‘keeper, Bachmann, and is currently Tottenham’s only Premier League freekick goal of the last two seasons.

Barring that cross/shot of a freekick by Son, Tottenham’s last goal from a freekick was by Christian Eriksen, weeks before he left the club, as he fired a shot into the top left against Norwich, drawing the game back level for Spurs.

Recently, the free-kick responsibilities have been taken up by Harry Kane and Eric Dier, the Spurs centre back has only notched up one free-kick goal and that was for his nation, England in EURO 2016.

Dier hit a rocket against Russia in the Three Lions’ opening group game, however, Eric is still yet to convert any of his many attempts for Tottenham.

Although his most recent shot against Newcastle last Sunday was wide of the mark, it was still a lot closer than Kane’s latest efforts; most of which have been struck against the wall leaving Spurs fans frustrated and groaning at yet another missed opportunity.

It leaves fans pondering over the squad trying to analyse who is their best freekick taker. Currently, it appears that Dier is the most threatening from free-kicks but there are players such as Heung Min Son who haven’t even been given the opportunity.

The South Korean could be an interesting set-piece taker option due to his ability to clinically finish with either foot or his tendency to whip the ball into the corner; however, as we have seen with Kane hitting the ball from a still scenario can be a whole different game to striking it when it’s in play.

As the Spurs squad does seem to be lacking in a set-piece specialist maybe they could turn to the transfer market in the summer and perhaps hit two birds with one stone by improving the squad whilst also adding a whole different aspect to Conte’s team.

The value of freekicks can be the difference between a title, Champions League and even a team’s place in the league.

The most glaring example of this would be Southampton’s midfield ace, James Ward-Prowse, who is deadly from free kicks with his goals from a dead ball scenario winning the Saints two extra points from the free-kicks he’s fired home.

If Spurs had Ward-Prowse’s freekick abilities winning them points it would be incredibly valuable to them, especially in this season with the race for top four being so nail-bitingly close.

I’m not saying Spurs should go out and purchase Ward-Prowse this summer but there is someone else who Spurs fans are more than familiar with who could be a great signing and a prolific freekick taker.

That man is former Spur Christian Eriksen, who following his cardiac arrest at EURO 2020 has joined fellow London club Brentford on a contract for the remainder of the season.

Tottenham are reportedly keeping a close eye on their former player (Daily Mail) and with Christian previously working with new Tottenham manager Antonio Conte it could spell for a perfect reunion at Hotspur Way come next season.

Eriksen has somewhat of a free-kick pedigree as he has scored eight direct free-kick goals in his time in the Premier League, making him one of the most prolific takers during his time there (Premier League).

Obviously, Eriksen offers other aspects such as his unfathomable passing range and creativity but his dangerous freekicks would be another strong string to his bow and could earn Tottenham crucial points in what will be no doubt another highly competitive Premier League season.

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The stage was stolen by a familiar figure, Cristiano Ronaldo, who scored the 59^th hat trick of his career. The Portuguese grabbed a dejected United side by the scruff of the neck and dragged them through the game to win his side a vital three points.

Having the ability to practically win his team the game has become a routine for Ronaldo. His spectacular ability and frequency of scoring important goals is a key aspect of what makes him such an incredible player and one of, if not the world’s best-ever footballer.

Harry Kane did get his name on the score-sheet, but he didn’t have the same effect upon his team and the game, and it’s possibly one of the only things that currently separates the England captain from the world’s best.

It’s often been a criticism of Kane that he struggles to be the difference in the most important games, the striker hasn’t been short of opportunities too as he failed to contribute in two League Cup finals and a Champions League final.

He has however scored in a FA Cup semi-final, despite Spurs losing the game 4-2 at Wembley and he did score the winning goal in the EURO’s Semi-Finals, although the goal was from a rebound of a penalty he had saved.

Clearly, Kane has shown glimpses of being the hero in certain important fixtures, but he hasn’t done it on Ronaldo’s level of fixtures and frequency.

The legendary Portuguese striker has scored extremely important goals for United this season, in the Champions League especially, as ‘CR7’ scored two late winners and a late equaliser in the group stages of the European competition to keep the Red Devils European dreams alive.

Kane’s most glaring example of playing on Ronaldo’s robotic level has been against United’s rivals, Manchester City.

Kane dragged Tottenham through the game in Ronaldo style, with his level of performance at the focal point of the team setting the tone for the other players throughout the side.

His incredible performance was made meaningful due to him also scoring two important goals in the game, with his second being a late winner, making it more prominent in the memory of the media and watchers of the game, as well as raising morale and belief in the squad through his own individual performance.

These incredible performances Kane has been putting in are slowly becoming more frequent now, with the latest edition being Harry Kane’s star performance against London rivals West Ham, the game perfectly epitomizes the incredible ability and mind-boggling potential of Kane.

The Tottenham number 10 dictated play and was at the heart of all three of Tottenham’s goals, forcing Zouma to bundle the ball into his own net for the opener and then routinely linking up with teammate Heung Min Son for the last two goals.

Kane’s passing ability is currently beyond belief as he breaks the mould of the ‘traditional’ striker, with Harry often being the man to kickstart Tottenham’s attacking moves and even being Spurs’ most creative player.

Kane showcased this in the game against the Hammers, however, it showed how the England striker still has space for improvement to become one of, if not, the best player in the world.

The example came at the 79^th minute, the ball dropped to Kane on the penalty spot; giving him the chance to put the game beyond doubt but Kane unusually failed to convert, and it left West Ham with room to get back into the game.

Although, poetically, Kane reminded everyone of his talent by flicking on a header in the last moments of normal time, setting up Son who buried his chance and put the game to bed and ensured Tottenham would be the team walking away with an important three points.

It meant that Son was the one to steal the headlines and the hero of the game; despite Kane pulling the strings and being crucial to Tottenham’s win, he wasn’t receiving the plaudits or recognition as he wasn’t scoring the vital goals like Ronaldo did against Spurs.

It also saw Heung Min Son be the big moment player for Tottenham again, such as he was against Manchester City in the Champions League in 2019, in both legs of the tie.

That is ultimately the difference right now between Kane and the world’s best. Every manager who has worked with the striker seems to adore him and his ability to help the team, with his impact on Tottenham going from strength to strength.

This is especially the case this season and the last, with Kane’s tendency to drop deeper and utilise his incredible passing abilities to set up Tottenham’s goals, as well as finishing them off.

Kane just needs to start being the man for Tottenham, especially with the top four race coming to the final stages. Kane will have chances to make himself the player of the moment in crunch games against Arsenal and Liverpool.

If he scores the important goals in important moments, emulating Ronaldo’s ability to do so, then it will perhaps see the Tottenham forward rise higher than 23^rd in the Ballon d’Or rankings (VAVEL), where he finished in 2021, despite earning the Premier League Golden boot and Golden Playmaker award.

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It’s fair to say the latter is the case for this international break, especially as Conte’s team have just broken their painful habit of winning then losing.

However, this article should offer Spurs fans opportunities to watch players from their club in action, despite the lack of action at Hotspur Way, and there is certain to be plenty of drama with crucial international play-off matches to play and places at World tournaments at stake.

Thursday is the first round of crucial qualifiers for various spurs players. The UEFA, CONMEBOL and AFC qualifying rounds for the world cup kick-off.

The UEFA method of qualifying certainly sets itself up for the most drama with there being four rounds of semi-finals, with the winners of each one being put into a final play-off where the winner takes a spot in the 2022 Qatar World Cup.

CONMEBOL and AFC’s qualifiers are more basic with CONMEBOL consisting of one group of 10 international teams where four teams automatically qualify for the World Cup, with the fifth-placed team going through to the next stage of Qualifying.

AFC’s (Asian Footballing teams) qualifying consists of various groups of six teams where the top two will go straight through to the World Cup draw, with the third-placed team entering the next stage of qualification.

With the qualification methods explained it leaves me to rank the top five international teams that you should be tuning into as they battle in their international friendlies or for a place in the world’s biggest competition of football.

1. Wales

The Wales team start their World Cup bid on Thursday the 24^th of March as they face Austria at the Cardiff City Stadium for a 19:45 pm kick-off. But why should you be watching the Dragons?

Well, two-time former Spur and club legend Gareth Bale will be trying to captain his national side to their first world cup since 1958; Bale has admitted that this is likely to be his last shot at his dream of having his country in a World Cup with the winger now at the age of 32.

There is obviously also current Spurs players Joe Rodon and Ben Davies who will also be playing as their team fight for World Cup qualification, with three Tottenham linked players highly likely to start this is the ultimate international game to watch for Tottenham fans to watch.

If Wales defeat Austria on Thursday they will face the winner of Scotland / Ukraine on the 29^th of March, however that game is plunged in doubt due to the obviously devastating events happening in Ukraine delaying their game against Scotland.

2. Sweden

Dejan Kulusevski is another Spurs player taking part in the UEFA World Cup Qualifiers as him and Sweden try to get past the Czech Republic and earn themselves a place in the final qualifier against Poland.

Sweden will also kick off at 19:45 pm and will be playing at home against the Czech Republic, making it twice in the space of a few days that Kulusevski will play against West Ham player Tomas Soucek as the Blagult try to earn a spot for the tournament in Qatar.

3. Colombia

Davinson Sanchez will be looking to get some minutes under his belt with his national team side Colombia after slowly falling out of favour with manager Antonio Conte, resorting to being a late substitution most games and starting very sporadically.

Sanchez however will be starting for Colombia as they try to make up ground between them and the qualification spots as they currently sit 7^th and four points away from any type of qualification. Colombia are in need of a win to have any sort of chance of getting to those qualification spots as they face Bolivia, who sit in 8^th, on Thursday at an 11:30 pm kick-off.

It could all come down to their final game against Venezuela on the 30^th of March should results go their way, it could all come down to an intriguing finish amongst the South American teams in their battle for qualification.

4. Uruguay

Rodrigo Bentancur has been extremely impressive at Tottenham since his late January transfer, as he adds composure and creativity into Tottenham’s midfield; his absence highlighted his impact on Tottenham as Spurs struggled in midfield when Winks took his space due to the Uruguayan’s short injury.

Therefore, many Spurs fans will take any excuse to watch the 24-year-old in action, and that’s why Uruguay can be a great team to watch for Spurs fans.

The South American team are currently taking up the last space in the top four of the COMNEBOL table and therefore the last space of automatic qualification as they head into the final two games.

Bentancur will be looking to create a bit more of the magic he made against Venezuela as he hit a sweet strike from far out in the opening minutes.

The gap between Uruguay and fifth-placed Peru is only one point meaning it’s all to play for and Bentancur will have to be on the top of his game against Peru on Thursday as well as against Chile on Wednesday the 30^th of March.

5. Argentina

Argentina is a nation that Tottenham seem to have a love-hate relationship with as they seem to churn out Spurs players such as Lamela, Lo Celso, Ossie Ardiles, Ricky Villa and most recently Cristian Romero; added to that list is of course former Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino.

However, there is always a sense of dread when a Spurs player is now named amongst the Argentina squad with Lo Celso often becoming injured on international duty with the side, and now also Cristian Romero.

Romero has been called to international duty with Argentina despite his current two-match international ban for bizarrely entering a country for match against Brazil despite not following the COVID-19 protocols in place (Daily Mail).

Obviously, technically, current Spurs player Giovanni Lo Celso is playing for Argentina, and it will be worth observing how Romero’s situation unfolds and crossing every body part in hope that the defender, who is so vital to Tottenham’s top-four charge, stays injury-free and prepared for the rest of the season.

Argentina sit four points behind CONMEBOL table leaders Brazil and have two games left to play: Venezuela on Thursday at 11:30 pm and Ecuador on Wednesday at 00:30 am.

Honourable mentions:

England

Harry Kane is in top form once again for Tottenham; scoring, assisting and being a focal point in Spurs’ side over the past weeks meaning that it would be a joy to watch the England captain in action against Switzerland on Saturday at 17:30 pm and Ivory Coast on the 29^th of March at 19:45 pm at Wembley.

It should also be a good moment for former Tottenham full-back Kyle Walker-Peters who was recently called up to the squad due to withdrawals.

It’s also always good to check in on Kane to make sure he is staying fit and healthy for Spurs’ closing stages of the season.

South Korea

At the time of writing Tottenham winger Heung Min Son has just scored a long-range strike for his national side, South Korea, in a 2-0 win that helped them leapfrog their opponents, Iran, in the table; putting Son’s team up to the top of the AFC World Cup qualifying group.

South Korea and Son close off their qualifying campaign against the UAE on Tuesday the 29^th of March against UAE.

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The term is usually dismissed and resisted by Spurs fans who may believe it is used lazily, however, most supporters will be in unanimous agreement that losing to a then 19^th placed Burnley days after defeating the Premier League champions, is definitely ‘spursy’.

Conte has started to engrave his methods into Tottenham, a clear example being Tottenham’s opening goal at Elland Road as one wing-back teed up the other with Matt Doherty being on the receiving end of a fast, whipped ball that was driven in by left wing-back Ryan Sessegnon.

The latter has been a player that Antonio Conte has recently been speaking highly of after games with caused rumours to then follow that Sessegnon may even receive a new contract as a reward for his recent impressive performances (Telegraph).

Sessegnon was given Conte’s vote of confidence and his backing during his press conference prior to Tottenham’s visit to Burnley; stating his delight at the 21-year-old’s levels of late.

The Italian claimed: “Sess in my vision has all the possibility to become an important player” (Football London). This public signal of confidence is something reminiscent of former manager Spurs Mauricio Pochettino emulating his ‘arm around the shoulder’ style of management.

Conte clearly isn’t always that type of manager but his ability to single out players that he can ‘trust’ will be important for Tottenham as they try to navigate a rebuild as it boosts the players’ confidence and allows Conte to be ruthless in shipping out the players whom he doesn’t have ‘trust’ in.

We witnessed a glimmer of this in January as four players were sent out of the club in the short space of a month.

Conte’s press conferences have been the subject of large discussions as the Italian renowned for not holding back and speaking his mind. He even seemingly teased the idea of him leaving Spurs after the defeat to Burnley, saying how at Tottenham “coaches change, the players stay the same, and the results don’t change” (Marca).

Tottenham’s squad is also very young, with an average age of 25.5 (Transfermarkt), which has been helped by Paratici’s tendency to buy younger players, as the average age of his N17 transfers is just 22.4 years old.

The issue with younger and inexperienced players is that they can often lack consistency or confidence, both things have become a common issue for Conte’s side as of late.

On the 2^nd of March, Spurs crashed out the FA Cup to Championship side, Middlesbrough, in another episode of the club’s consistency struggles as they travelled to the Riverside off the back of tearing apart Leeds 4-0.

This makes it seem as though there are two sides to Tottenham, one that’s capable of beating the Premier League champions away from home and the other that loses to the likes of Middlesbrough and Burnley.

The issue of consistency is starting to become a legitimate concern as Tottenham haven’t won back-to-back games since Boxing Day when they defeated Crystal Palace at home.

However, it’s possible to extract positives from the FA Cup defeat to Middlesborough, as it prevents any fixture congestion or possibilities of two-legged ties amongst Premier League games.

Conte has only tasted defeat once with his Tottenham side when he has been given 5 or more days to prepare, winning 6 games out of 8, only dropping points in a 2-2 draw with title challengers Liverpool and away to Manchester United (Sky Sports).

There’s a high possibility that, should Spurs win a few matches in a row, confidence may build and the effects on morale may start to snowball. A squad with confidence, freedom and energy is exactly what Antonio Conte will desire especially if he is to achieve a top-four position.

The Tottenham head coach even stated that finishing in the top four with Spurs would be “like we won the Premier League or Champions League this season” (ESPN).

These words were spoken after Tottenham’s rampant victory over struggling Merseyside club, Everton, which again gave Tottenham fans a glimmer of the possible future of the team with free-flowing attacking football paired with clinical finishing and solid defending.

It’s clear even the man in charge of these players is keen to not get carried away as he stated: “I want an answer from my players in the game against United” (Football.London).

The Italian manager did receive a slight response in the form of a strong performance against the Red Devils, but it wasn’t enough to halt the routine of winning and losing and also gave up three points to a top-four rival.

The aim between now and the end of the season will have to be – start putting together a run of wins and finish the season strong to try and fire the team into the top four which could be the incentive to keep people such as manager Antonio Conte and striker Harry Kane for at least another season.

Hopefully, Conte can then have a whole pre-season to form his squad and tactics, something which he didn’t have this season as he joined the club in November 2021.

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Therefore, I’ll be helping out Tottenham’s recruitment by scanning across Europe’s top five leagues and plucking players out from each league.

However, I won’t be writing in a Tottenham dreamland where money is no barrier and there is no painstakingly slow dealing Daniel Levy who is winding down or holding up deals.

I will be looking from a realistic view on what transfers could be done this summer to help Conte take Tottenham to the next level.

Premier League

After Tottenham failed in their pursuit of former Wolves winger Adama Traore (SkySports), they will likely be looking to still improve in the right-wing back position for the 2022/23 season.

A player who seems to have attracted a lot of interest from Tottenham is Brighton full-back, Tariq Lamptey (Express).

The 21-year-old has been impressive for Brighton for a couple of seasons now, despite having injury problems littered throughout those campaigns, and would be a great player for Tottenham’s young and developing squad.

Emerson Royal hasn’t appeared to be up to the required standard that Tottenham will need should they qualify for European competition and aim to compete at the top end of the table next season, conceding too many defensive errors and not offering enough dangerous deliveries into the box.

Tottenham’s other right-wing back option, Matt Doherty has also failed to impress and truly string together a run of games that he’s started in, making it likely for Spurs to offload one of the Irishman or Brazilian if they were to sign Lamptey.

Lamptey would however come at an inflated price due to him only being 21 years of age and English, but Tottenham will be keen to show their ambition to Antonio Conte and making a signing like Lamptey would certainly be a strong message of intent to the Italian.

Serie A

The Italian topflight is a league that Director of Football, Fabio Paratici, and manager, Antonio Conte, have a fondness and intelligence of. Luckily, Serie A is full of top talents, with many top-class players being plastered with a ‘for sale’ sign.

One of those players is Lazio midfielder Milikovic-Savic, the Serbian would be a top-quality option for Conte’s midfield, and with the current Lazio player falling out with manager Maurizio Sarri (Marco Conterio) the Rome based club may be keen to offload the player.

However, it is likely that a deal would still be very expensive regardless of whether Milinkovic-Savic is keen to leave.

That’s why I have chosen AC Milan midfielder Franck Kessie. Kessie has been linked to Tottenham for a while now (SkySports), especially with the Ivorian’s contract ticking away as he enters the final 6 months of his deal.

Kessie could slot straight into Tottenham’s team alongside a player such as Oliver Skipp, or the recently arrived, also from Seria A, Rodrigo Bentancur; perhaps replacing Hojbjerg in the Tottenham midfield.

Kessie offers a lot more going forward than Hojbjerg, creating 0.9 key passes per game, on average (WhoScored) from defensive midfield this season in the Serie A, 0.3 more than Tottenham’s current anchor-man in the Premier League (WhoScored).

Kessie is also more secure with driving the ball forward as he succeeds in 83% of his dribbles (FotMob), whereas Hojbjerg only succeeds in 62% of his (FotMob), leaving Tottenham susceptible to a counterattack.

Kessie could join on the first day of the summer window on a pre-contract agreement if Spurs can beat clubs such as Barcelona to his signature (EuroSport).

The Ivorian is likely to have a large signing-on fee and wages attached to him, but it would still be considerably cheaper than other options of Kessie’s quality, Paratici also has a tendency to seal free transfers.

Ligue 1

My selection from the French League was driven by the idea of securing depth within the centre back position, therefore I have chosen Lille defender Sven Botman.

Botman is still youthful and is currently only 22 years of age, but his impressive performances particularly over the past two seasons have attracted interest from various clubs, including AC Milan and Newcastle United (Chronicle Live).

The ex-Ajax player has already won a French League title as well as the experience of playing Champions League football, accompany thus with the fact Botman has played 100 matches of topflight football (FotMob) he starts to become an attractive centre back option.

Botman’s height only enhances his quality as a centre-back as he stands at six foot and four inches tall, allowing him to be a threat from attacking corners, along with being able to clear away high crosses too.

Botman’s height would make him the tallest out of Tottenham’s usual centre backs by a whole two inches, this statistic however does exclude sporadically used defender Joe Rodon who is the same height.

However having a more consistent starter with aerial ability would help eradicate the issues that Tottenham have been having from crosses recently, notably conceding two goals from crosses against Southampton, costing Tottenham three points.

La Liga

I would have initially implored the Tottenham board to move for Brazilian playmaker Philippe Coutinho, however, Aston Villa flew out of the blocks to complete that deal before any other team could.

If Aston Villa however do decide against signing the Brazilian permanently, he would be a great creative player for Tottenham.

Therefore, I would instead visit Spain with the mission of fixing the lingering problem at Tottenham, a second striker.

It’s always difficult to convince a striker to come to Tottenham, when the player would be fully aware they would be playing second fiddle to England captain Harry Kane.

Therefore, if he could be convinced, I would seek a deal for Sevilla striker Youssef En-Nesyri to try and plug the second striker gap at Spurs.

The Moroccan striker is currently out of favour at Sevilla despite netting 18 times in only 23 starts last season (FotMob).

En-Nesyri appears to be a great fit for Spurs as he is reliable in front of goal, outscoring his xG by 2.00 last season in La Liga (FotMob) and is accustomed to being thrown into the mix off the bench as Youssef was substituted on 15 occasions last season.

The ability to come on and score would be a great attribute for Tottenham when they want to hand Kane a rest or switch to two strikers. The difficulty however would be fending off competition from other teams interested in the striker.

Sevilla’s price tag may also require some tough negotiating to be at an affordable level for a backup striker, Transfermarkt currently value the striker at £36 million but with En-Nesyri being kept out the team by Spanish forward Rafa Mir, it’s possible Sevilla’s price tag may be lower than anticipated.

Bundesliga

My chosen signing from the Bundesliga would be a player Tottenham have previously been linked with due to his inevitable departure from RB Salzburg (Football London). The player is Hungarian midfielder, Dominik Szoboszlai.

The RB Leipzig midfielder has only recently joined the German side from their Hungarian affiliate team and fellow Red Bull club, RB Salzburg, which is why it may be difficult to lure over Dominik to North London.

There is the possibility that Szoboszlai’s contract entails a release clause which tends to be the case with many players contracted to the Red Bull clubs around the world.

An obvious example being Erling Haaland who moved for a small fee of £18 million (Transfmarkt), only slightly more than Tottenham spent on Jack Clarke, despite the young Norwegian lighting up the Champions League with RB Salzburg.

Dominik would be the ideal signing due to his offensive abilities of being able to create and finish, the midfielder has already scored 4 goals and assisted 5 in only 12 Bundesliga starts this season (FotMob), almost matching his statistics in the Austrian Bundesliga last season.

With the German league being more challenging it suggests the 21-year-old is only getting better.

Szoboszlai can play on the left and the right, but primarily likes to play through the middle in an attacking midfielder role.

A creative midfielder with some offensive threat could be exactly what this Tottenham side needs, especially following Dele Alli, Lo Celso and Ndombele’s departure in January.

And at 21 years old Dominik Szoboszlai would be a perfect option with a high ceiling of growth, and if there is a manager to help you achieve your very best it would be Antonio Conte.

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Fast-forward four and a half years, Liverpool have a Club World Cup, Super Cup, Premier League and UEFA Champions League all stored up in their trophy cabinet, whilst Tottenham have experienced more managers than the number of trophies Liverpool have won.

Luiz Diaz transferred to Liverpool on the penultimate day of the January transfer window after hijacking Tottenham’s move for the winger (The Sun).

The Colombian reportedly opted for the Merseyside club due to their long-term interest and Tottenham hesitating in negotiations (Bluradio via Liverpool Echo).

Diaz intensified the long list of Tottenham failed transfers, including a whole host of big names over the past five years. It always seems like Tottenham fail at the last hurdle or back out of that special move that can take the squad to the next level.

Diaz had scored 14 times and assisted 4 times in just 18 starts for FC Porto (FotMob) to attract Tottenham and Liverpool’s interest. Those eye-watering numbers would have seen Spurs pushing to engineer a phenomenal attack of Son, Kane, and Diaz.

However, it was Liverpool who were the club to close a deal by swooping in after Tottenham’s leaked bid (Telegraph).

This efficient approach to the market and ability to attract players is a clear measure of success and progress for Tottenham over the past years.

As mentioned previously, Tottenham beat Liverpool 4-1 in the 2017/18 season, at that point, Liverpool had just signed Egyptian winger Mohammed Salah along with little known Hull City left-back Andrew Robertson.

Klopp’s Liverpool were struggling to match the levels of teams like Tottenham. That changed over the course of the season; however, Liverpool backed Klopp to pull the reds out of their rut, signing Southampton centre-half Virgil van Dijk in the January transfer window for a seemingly extortionate price, although, with hindsight the effect that Van Dijk had on the Liverpool team was priceless.

Both Liverpool and Tottenham fell one short of glory that season as Spurs lost out on the Premier League title to London rivals Chelsea, and former Tottenham winger Gareth Bale fired Real Madrid to European glory at Liverpool’s expense.

The season after, Tottenham didn’t spend a penny in the market, actively imposing a two-window transfer ban on themselves, undoubtedly, to help finances after them being stretched with the construction of a new stadium.

Liverpool, however, took further action towards strengthening their promising side, they spent a total of £164 million on transfer in the summer of 2018. Alisson arrived for a substantial £56 million along with Keita, Fabinho and Shaqiri (TransferMarkt).

The new men in Merseyside helped form a rebuild of the club, clearing out deadwood and bringing in fresh new players had proved a valuable move as Liverpool finished second in the Premier League.

A season on from Tottenham’s thrashing of Liverpool at Wembley the two clubs met at the Metropolitano Stadium for the Champions League final.

Tottenham’s squad had become tired but managed to achieve a 4^th place finish in the league and with Lucas Moura’s heroics the club had made the Champions League final with the absence of star striker, Harry Kane.

Kane was in a race against time to reach the final, a situation that possibly may not have occurred had the club spent money in the summer for a backup striker to lighten the load for Kane.

However, Kane had won that race against time and started the final, controversially causing Lucas Moura to be omitted from the starting line-up despite his magic in the previous round.

Tottenham fell short at the last hurdle, a familiar story for Tottenham fans. Liverpool scored early and late on to secure the title of European champions; Pochettino and his squad were left heartbroken and exhausted after the rollercoaster of a season.

The exhaustion of the squad was clear for all, especially manager Mauricio Pochettino, who stated he felt there needed to be a ‘painful rebuild’ at Tottenham.

The rebuild had already started that January as long term-servant of the club and midfield powerhouse, Mousa Dembele departed for the Chinese Super League.

Tottenham were looking to replace Trippier and Eriksen as well as Dembele in the summer. The rebuild started with Tanguy Ndombele joining for a club-record fee, while later in the window Giovanni Lo Celso and Ryan Sessegnon also joined for considerable prices.

Tottenham had spent for the first time in a season, and they had spent a large amount. It seemed to be looking like Tottenham could try and reach the next level following their Champions League heartbreak, with dreams of emulating Liverpool’s road to winning the Champions League; losing in the final the year before winning it.

However, everything didn’t go to plan at Tottenham, Pochettino found himself in a sticky patch that he struggled to pull out of, new signings failed to make an instant impact and Pochettino’s side just couldn’t win on the road.

After an emotional journey over many years, Levy decided to sack the Argentine manager, allowing Mourinho to take over as Tottenham’s new manager.

There was a time of turbulence in Mourinho’s first few months in the job as he managed to pull Tottenham up the table to a 6^th place finish; however, Tottenham’s UCL final opponents last season, Liverpool, had only improved and clinched their first Premier League title; leaving Tottenham as the only ‘big six’ team left to not have been crowned the champions of England since 1992.

The start of the new season began to look promising for Tottenham as they had finally seemed to have found the funds to invest in the squad, bringing in six new players over the summer: the headline signing being bringing back Gareth Bale.

The optimism and hopes started to come into fruition in the first few months of the season as Spurs thrashed Southampton 5-2 away from home, then on October 3^rd Spurs continued their free-scoring habits as they smashed Manchester United 6-1 away from home, on that very same day Liverpool were humiliated by Aston Villa as they lost 7-2 at the Villian’s home ground.

However, Liverpool managed to charge on and by December Tottenham found themselves parallel with the Reds once again, however this time it felt like it was going to be a turning point for either clubs’ season.

Spurs were top of the Premier League table by the 15^th of December, ahead of Liverpool on goal difference, but the two sides were set to meet at Anfield on December the 16^th; almost certainly deciding who would top the table by Christmas.

Salah and Son had been the goal scorers in the first half, creating a tense second half scenario, a tension that proved too much for Mourinho’s Tottenham as Bergwijn squandered great goalscoring opportunities and teed up Firmino to shatter Spurs fans’ dreams via a 90th-minute header.

Tottenham’s form was broken and chances to make this form building blocks for a rebuild were dismantled as Mourinho’s side weathered a troublesome few months; losing to Arsenal 2-1 and being turned over 3-0 by Dynamo Zagreb to be knocked out the Europa League within the space of four days flagged signs that Mourinho’s tenure at Tottenham was coming to an end.

Fast forward just over ten months and Antonio Conte is now at the driving seat of Tottenham, trying to drag the club by the scruff its neck in his traditional ruthless fashion, shipping out deadwood that he doesn’t trust as Dele Alli departed for Everton in January with two big-money signings also heading out the door in the form of Giovanni Lo Celso and Tanguy Ndombele.

But the main headline of the winter window would be how Tottenham fell short of attracting Luis Diaz to Tottenham, a player they had clearly desired and moved for but failed to attract to London as the Colombian chose Liverpool instead.

The Diaz scenario was a representative of Tottenham’s failures over the past years, directly contrasted by Liverpool’s successes.

Pochettino’s ‘painful rebuild’ has started: but not as the Argentine would have envisioned. Conte has seen his side suffer three losses to Chelsea, back-to-back losses against Southampton and Wolves at home and a defeat to Burnley, spelling out to the Italian the magnitude of the job he has on his hands.

But the recent impressive victories over Manchester City and Leeds are a sign of the levels Conte can take this team to, his character and managerial prowess is surely the type that Tottenham would need to drag them out of this slump.

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The Tottenham academy graduate has only been improving since last season where he was a driving force in Norwich City’s promotion to the Premier League.

Following that impressive Championship season under German manager Daniel Farke, Skipp was then trusted with the role of being a second defensive midfielder under Nuno in a 4-2-3-1 formation, being one of the few players who shone and improved under the former Wolves manager’s reign.

The development of Skipp has skyrocketed however under Conte, once again alongside Hojbjerg, but this time in a 3-4-2-1 formation where Skipp has been driving the ball forward from deep, whilst also serving as a ball-winning midfielder.

Skipp’s recently-discovered ability to pick the ball up from deep in midfield and kickstart an attack is what makes him such a valuable asset in the squad, especially with Antonio Conte as the manager.

Skipp missed the start of Tottenham’s match against Liverpool, presumably due to COVID-19, but it would have been a game where Conte would have loved Skipp in the midfield as we looked to counter the Merseyside club with quick passing moves and through balls to any of Kane, Son or Dele Alli.

But why should Conte choose to build a team around a 21-year-old midfielder that has only recently broken through into the starting eleven?

Well, Skipp is a shining example of a hard-working player who has worked his way up through the Tottenham academy and is now shining in the senior team, the midfielder also has been at the club’s youth set up since 2013 and played for Tottenham’s: U18’s, U19’s, U23’s along with the academy team.

Players such as Dane Scarlett and Dilan Markanday should take inspiration from Skipp’s development and start to cause a flourishing cycle for talented players throughout the Spurs youth system.

Skipp’s slightly reserved, calm personality and character only increase the value of his talent. Unlike player’s such as Ravel Morrison or Dele Alli, Skipp doesn’t seem bothered about living the lavish footballer lifestyle.

The young midfielder is also slightly older than most ‘hot prospects’ or ‘young talents’. A possible cause for this may be that Skipp hasn’t had the easiest ride in football, experiencing what it’s like to try and break into a top side as he got glimmers of first-team football between 2018-2019.

However, through injuries and the changing of managers, he then struggled to claw his way back into the team and string together a run of regular football.

The making of Skipp has seemed to be his extremely successful loan spell with Norwich City, as he made 47 appearances in just one season for the Canaries.

He returned to Tottenham with experience and game time that rarely any 21-year-old Premier League midfielder would have. This experience is apparent to the managers who have entrusted him with a regular spot in their team, and the Tottenham fans who took a real shone to him.

Even his former Norwich teammate Grant Hanely expressed how he believes Skipp portrays ‘experience beyond his years’.

Skipp’s loan experiences and reserved personality make it likely that he will retain his focus and playing levels for years to come, following suit of current England captain and Tottenham colleague, Harry Kane.

Consequently, meaning if Conte does start to shape his Tottenham team around the Hertfordshire-born midfielder, then it’s likely the team won’t be forced into reshaping in the years to come due to a downturn in Skipp’s career.

The Tottenham Academy graduate shines in turnovers and progressive actions as shown by this graph here. It shows Skipp next to the likes of Rodri and Kovacic, winners of the Premier League and Champions League last season respectively, showing just how top class Skipp has been this season.

Tactically having Skipp present in most Tottenham starting eleven’s also makes sense, as Skipp has often been utilised in a 3-4-3 with Danish international, Pierre Emile-Hojbjerg, alongside him.

Conte has also developed his squad into playing in a 3-5-2 formation, a formation where Skipp has played in rarely but his qualities of disrupting play and driving the ball forward show that playing Skipp within this system wouldn’t cause a great deal of difficulty.

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Vlahovic plays as a striker and is the main source of goals for both Serbia and Fiorentina. At the young age of 21 years old his dizzying numbers of goals are what has put him on the radar of various elite clubs in Europe.

At six foot three, Vlahovic also has an aerial threat, making him even more appealing as a striker. That combined with his strength, speed, power and shooting ability has made him so frightening for all the teams who have had to try and stop him – most teams have failed.

It’s reflected in his stats in both last and this season in the Seria A, the striker has netted 15 times in 17 games this season, whilst also scoring twenty-one times in thirty-four starts last season.

This goal-scoring record only becomes more impressive the more it’s examined. Vlahovic has outscored his xG (expected goals) in the current and previous season, by 4.22 and 2.14 respectively.

The statistics become even more striking when you take into consideration Vlahovic’s tendencies to shoot on sight.

To take a closer insight into Vlahovic’s ability and playing style, I watched Fiorentina vs Sampdoria on Tuesday the 30^th  of November.

Vlahovic came into the game with fine form after getting 3 goals and one assist in his last two games, this impressive form was echoed by the confidence Vlahovic oozed on the pitch.

As the Serbian carried himself around the pitch his height and body structure alone are enough to force fear into his opponents. Vlahovic was clearly the focal point of this Fiorentina team, each pass seemed to be with the intent to get Dusan on the ball.

The fact Vlahovic receives the ball so much helps the Serbian’s clear intent to start and finish an attacking move, something which is also an attribute of current Tottenham striker Harry Kane.

Vlahovic will often have the ball played into his feet and pass it on to one of Fiorentina’s wingers, the 21-year-old would then make a darting run into the box to tap the goal home, and this typical Vlahovic move was demonstrated in his goal against Sampdoria.

Watching Vlahovic create and finish the move was scarily reminiscent of Harry Kane last season when he would do the same action, with the numbers proving this observation as the Serbian striker has already created 18 chances this season in the Italian topflight.

A difference however between Vlahovic and Kane is how far deep they drop, even though Vlahovic often kickstarts moves he doesn’t drop as deep as Kane does, allowing him to utilise his aerial ability in the box for when the ball is crossed in.

Vlahovic also likes to stay tight to his man when pushing high up against the last line of defence and will try to take the ball in his stride and spin his marker, a move which is usually associated with the likes of Romelu Lukaku.

Like Lukaku this move is made so affective for Vlahovic due to his physicality and power, meaning it’s very tough to shrug the Serbian off the ball, or intercept his turn.

My conclusion after watching Vlahovic in midweek was that he didn’t disappoint. The striker is a great blend for a striker that is still so young, the fact that he is so physical and tall at such a young age reminded me of when Dortmund striker Erling Haaland burst onto the scene.

Obviously, Vlahovic is still untested outside of the Italian league, but his skills and attributes look extremely transferrable to most leagues and clubs that will be chasing him, along with his seemingly unbreakable confidence it should make a recipe for success for Vlahovic, whatever club he joins.

Obviously, the next question circulating Vlahovic will be his future, and what club he will join. His current contract with Fiorentina expires in the summer of 2023, and with so many top clubs circling the striker, Fiorentina have reportedly set their asking price at around £60 million

With Kane struggling to find his form and Vlahovic being such a hot prospect Paratici and Tottenham may be eager to secure the Serbian’s signature in January or the summer before another club gets there or Vlahovic’s scoring record continues to drive his value up.

However, it would start to cause a discussion about whether Vlahovic would be able to play with Kane?

My view is that it would be very tricky, as it would leave Conte with the headache of fitting in Kane, Vlahovic and Son into the same team, making it extremely difficult to find a system that would complement each player well.

However, Paratici may look to replicate the same strategy he formed with signing former Atalanta goalkeeper Gollini whilst Lloris is still at Spurs.

The Italian seems to be looking to gradually filter the new player into the club and compete for a place with the player he will eventually be looking to replace.

Also with Kane’s troubling injury record, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Vlahovic get many games even if he did join whilst Kane was still at the club.

It will be extremely intriguing to see how Vlahovic develops as a young talent and what his next move will be. However, whatever club he elects to move to next; it seems he will almost definitely be destined for success.

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