Three weeks ago, when FootballFanCast argued Tottenham fans needed a reality check, the north London club’s lack of activity in the transfer market was more than understandable.
The Lilywhites rarely make early signings and this summer in particular, Mauricio Pochettino faces a difficult challenge. With an already highly-talented and finely tuned starting XI, the Argentine is tasked with attracting players to sit on the bench but still add quality to the team. Players who fall into that bracket aren’t easy to come by, let alone convince into spending next season as a substitute first and foremost.
But there’s now just one month of the transfer window remaining, the Premier League’s opening weekend is less than two weeks away, and the situation hasn’t changed. In fact, Tottenham are the only Premier League club yet to make a single signing of any description, despite picking up a cool £50million off divisional rivals Manchester City for selling Kyle Walker. That money, at the very least, must be reinvested into the squad to compensate for what Pep Guardiola has taken away.
Once again, Tottenham are an exceptionally talented and young team, one that has steadily and naturally grown under Pochettino’s watch from top four race also-rans into genuine Premier League title challengers. It’s logical to assume players like Harry Kane, Dele Alli and Christian Eriksen can jump up another gear in the coming season, whilst – much like Heung-Min Son’s two terms at White Hart Lane – Vincent Janssen and Georges Kevin-N’Koudou will likely fare significantly better this time out.
Yet, to think organic improvement within the squad is enough on its own would be naïve. Tottenham showed in the second half of last season how consistently dominant they can be, but they still failed to get past the group stages of the Champions League, to progress in the Europa League and to get to either final of the two domestic cups despite, on paper at least, being the second-best team in England.
That was vindicated by Tottenham’s best final standing in the top flight since 1963, but a runner-up finish in the Premier League will be a tougher ask this season now that Jose Mourinho and Guardiola have taken advantage of a second summer window to truly mould the squad they inherited from predecessors, not to mention Arsenal benefitting from their absence from the Champions League and Everton spending lavishly as well. Forget the title race; the battle for the top four alone will be the most competitive we’ve ever seen.
On top of that, this Tottenham side is beginning to reach a point where a trophy is essential to truly signify the talent it possesses. That’s far more than simply a symbolic notion; if Pochettino can’t obtain silverware soon, heads will inevitably turn towards more successful divisional rivals. Spurs, whether willingly or not, have already lost Walker to City – that could well be the first step in this Spurs side self-deconstructing unless Pochettino can prove to the players that they can achieve their personal ambitions at White Hart Lane. The lack of progress over Toby Alderweireld’s new contract is already concerning.
Perhaps most crucially, however, is Tottenham’s need for a strong start to the season, something made all-the-harder by the temporary move to Wembley. Spurs will only have one pre-season outing at their new home before the Premier League starts up and their record there is famously unexemplary. Accordingly, Tottenham need signings bedded in quickly to hit the ground running. We’re already at the stage of the summer, however, where any acquisitions will have some catching up to do.
Once again, the starting XI largely takes care of itself at Tottenham. There’s no drastic need for Pochettino bring in a £50million player who adds a different dynamic to his first team. But what’s most surprising is that Tottenham haven’t even made their usual low-cost punts this summer, like Janssen and N’Koudou, to bolster the squad and continue the mantra of Pochettino developing young, cheap players with high potential.
A transfer window doesn’t necessarily make a season – Arsenal made just one signing in 2015, Petr Cech, and eventually finished up in second place – but something has to give soon or Tottenham will run the risk of the momentum built over the last three seasons suddenly petering out. And when push comes to shove, it will eventually be Pochettino – not Daniel Levy or the club’s transfer experts – who pays the price for an underwhelming 2017/18. It may not result in his dismissal directly, but it will certainly cast doubts over whether he can take the club further forward.
That’s why it must be the Argentine who, at this point in the summer, makes his voice heard. Whether that’s publicly or privately, with the threat of an ultimatum or simply some well-chosen words that get the message across more subtly, it’s imperative Pochettino himself starts to make a louder and more active push for new signings to Tottenham’s paymasters.
There’s still a month of the transfer window to go and plenty of time to get deals done, but if Tottenham don’t get into gear soon they’ll enter the season under a cloud of concern, the perception being that they’re allowing themselves to be left behind. It says a lot about the hyperbolic psyche in the Premier League that a quiet summer leads to predictions of a mini-implosion, yet the margins in the division are now so fine that any sign of not keeping up with the pace is inevitably seen as a weakness. And as is often the case with negative perceptions, they can quickly become the reality.
Tottenham have unquestionably overachieved over the last two seasons, but reinforcements are vital to sustaining that rise. That’s the message Pochettino, one way or another, must relay to Levy before it’s too late. With less than two weeks to go until the first round of Premier League fixtures, the South American and his club are quickly running out of time.
