Once again we find ourselves divided as a fanbase. It’s no surprise given the way the season has gone to date: seven wins, two draws and eight defeats in the league. Swinging from a low point amongst several other low points in Ipswich at home to a swashbuckling win against the reigning champions, to smashing Southampton and beating Manchester United to conceding six at home.

When we’re good, we’re really good. How often has that been? It depends who you ask. When we’re bad, we’re wide open, and sometimes we are creatively stifled. How often has that been? It depends who you ask.

Below is Nathan A Clark’s 5 Game Rolling xG Trendline for The Extra Inch (Spurs Podcast).

This is the third time under Ange Postecoglou that we’ve seen expected goals against rocket up and expected goals for drop at the same time, the two most notable periods being when our centre-backs have been injured. More on that later.

There is a core group of fans that never took to Ange. They sneered at him — an Australian who was best known for winning in Scotland. Double whammy on the football fan snob-o-meter. They were always going to look for the first signs of all not being well and double down. He’s too naive. He doesn’t have the experience of managing a club at this level. He’s not used to facing credible opposition every week.

I think there’s also the opposite — those that will absolve Ange of any and all responsibility when things don’t go well because 1. they like him (boy is he likeable), 2. it’s a ‘project’ (more on that later too), 3. look what happened when Mikel Arteta was given time. How can Ange possibly have been expected to do more given the squad he has been given, the injuries he’s had to deal with, and the total rebuild required?

And I land somewhere in the middle right now. I expected — I think quite reasonably — more progress in year two.

I think the summer transfer window dealt him a pretty rough hand — not enough players for now, not even close to all squad depth being solved, and especially no 1v1 wide specialist, instead a renewal of Timo Werner’s loan. I said all this at the time, for the record, and you’ve likely seen my articles about addressing squad needs. But this has also been a season of unforced error after unforced error from Ange.

In my opinion that has included a style of rotation that doesn’t really work for anyone (what I refer to as ‘Team A’ and ‘Team B’ style – meaning youngsters play with other youngsters and ‘squad players’ rather than the rest of the ‘first XI’), to repeatedly bringing back players early from injury only for them to re-injure themselves, to a, let’s say, ‘restrained’ use of substitutions and some extremely poor in-game management.

My view on rotation is that the dream scenario is to have a squad where each player can be rotated out in a way that allows them to be suitably rested (particularly when your club is involved in European competition), and that the incoming player(s) won’t create a significant drop-off when part of a greater collective. That means that in every game you can be rotating one, two, maybe even three players. Liverpool have done this for years. City do it. Yes, I appreciate they have deeper squads. Our rotation this season largely sees us make six or more changes for the competitions which seemingly are less important to us, meaning that the incoming players never really get to experience being part of an otherwise full-strength team. It means that they are then not trusted to be a part of that team until the injury crisis means there’s no other choice — hence Djed Spence, Lucas Bergvall, Archie Gray only now getting regular Premier League minutes. It has created a situation where we only have eleven, twelve, maybe thirteen players that are genuinely considered ‘first team’. The players who have played the most minutes (Pedro Porro 1,888, Dejan Kulusevski 1,784, Dominic Solanke 1,747 and Destiny Udogie 1,685) are the players that visibly appear the most tired and whose tiredness also seems to impact us. In the games where Solanke has been less intense, our press has suffered. When Kulusevski is tired, he wins fewer duels. When Udogie and Porro are tired, it’s noticeable how much our ball progression from deep drops off.

We clearly lack depth in some positions (centre-back and passy number ten being the obvious two) but we have some areas of the pitch where I think constant, regular rotation would have worked — Gray and Spence at full-back, plenty of midfield options (albeit not a decent number six rotation, though that appears to be through choice), plenty of wide options. The impact of not readying players to step in is that when the injuries have come, we’ve suffered. And those injuries have really come.

The recent case of both Cristian Romero and Micky Van de Ven returning from injury early and exacerbating their injury issues immediately is in addition to Wilson Odobert and Richarlsion having done the same. The argument goes that Ange ‘cannot be blamed’ for Romero re-injuring himself since it was a different injury. It feels to me too curious a coincidence that he returned extremely quickly — acknowledged by Ange — having not had the additional training sessions (and, therefore, strength and conditioning sessions) to build up his sharpness and resilience, only to go down with a muscular injury, like so many others. I can’t really get my head around how this has been allowed to happen. Players should not simply be able to dictate their returns, nor should injury crises impact on an individual player’s readiness to play after injury. But our injury situation more broadly is just as concerning. Ange has accepted that injuries are just sort of baked into the style of football and intensity of training, saying:

The nature of the way we train and play is always going to be on the edge, it’s kind of by design which means you can have some attrition but the ones we’ve had this year for the most part like Richy and Wilson are just a consequence of the way we train and play and players just not being ready for it.

Ange Postecoglou explains what he told Cristian Romero after Tottenham and Argentina injury problem – Football.London

With the thinness of our squad and number of games, surely we needed to factor this in to training and intensity of play and build up more slowly? If Ange has seen this happen at previous clubs, I wonder why he has not adapted and, instead, just powered through with an insistence that players will either adapt and become mainstays, or saunter off to new clubs, their bodies somewhat broken and inadequate. This, to me, feels at odds with an otherwise modern and progressive style.

This ties in to what I perceive as a prioritisation of physical prowess over technical mastery. Our squad really lacks technical excellence, pretty much all over the pitch. We have a subset of players who I would say display plus-level technical skillsets over and above the competition in their positions across the league: Pedro Porro, Cristian Romero, James Maddison, Micky Van de Ven and Dejan Kulusevski (the final two both in terms of ball mastery and comfort in possession rather than passing). The lack of genuine passing ability elsewhere in the squad means that when we don’t have the likes of Romero and Maddison in the team, we really lack the ability to progress the ball and find creative passes, meaning we rely heavily on chance creation from winning the ball back with our pressing. Which works really well when teams come out to play against us — boy have we seen us punish some of those — but less so when teams sit deep and allow us to have the ball.

I think the signing of Radu Drăgușin needs to be viewed through this lens too. He is undoubtedly a physical phenom with incredible strength and neck muscles and decent recovery pace yet he is, in my view, a totally inadequate profile fit for the style of football we are trying to play. Ryan Gravenberch revealed after the 6-3 home defeat to Liverpool that they targeted Drăgușin — though frankly we needn’t have waited for the confirmation, it was evident through the eye test as it has been several times before.

Yeah we had a really good game plan, we wanted to keep them on the right side and press the right centre-back. Sometimes it went well and sometimes they did it good but by the end, I think we did really well.

Liverpool star reveals attack was focussed on one Tottenham man in brutal 6-3 pasting – Football 365

I appreciate that we needed to sign a centre-back urgently last January, but Ange signing off on Drăgușin to me seems really bizarre. In my opinion, he is going to need replacing within the next two windows and maybe we luck out and that’s Luka Vuskovic (or Ashley Phillips — unlikely in my view from a technical perspective — or Alfie Dorrington — unlikely in my view from a body-being-able-to-cope-with-Angeball perspective).

So my biggest gripe at the moment is that in order to see the fruits of Angeball we seem to require the perfect player in every role. If one is missing, we don’t click. Without a 1v1 winger on one side and a shot-heavy, back-post arriving winger on the other, we don’t maximise our chance conversion. Without a transitional eight we get caught often on the counter. Without a passing midfielder we lack the ability to break down a set defence. Without ball-playing centre-backs and a press-resistant six, our progression suffers. I think this has been heavily impacted by our player recruitment and our style of rotation — had we greater depth and/or more players used to playing with nine or ten of the ‘first XI’, the consequences of inevitably missing players would be felt less keenly. As it is, we suffer a terrible drop-off with a handful of injuries. And given that injuries are seemingly just a part of the process, it’s hamstringing (pun intended) us significantly.

One of my other most common complaints this season is how passive Ange has been in terms of his in-game management. So many times it feels to me that the momentum of a match has switched against us, and we need to change something in order to re-gain it. Fresh legs, a tactical tweak, something. I wait, and I wait, and a goal goes in, and I wait some more and then maybe he’ll make a like-for-like change. That’s how it feels, at least. Some people argue that this is a long-term strategy designed to encourage the players to find solutions on the pitch. I just can’t buy into the theory that a Premier League manager would deliberately risk dropping points for a potential future gain that may or may not materialise, particularly with the knowledge of having a trigger-happy owner standing over him.

It feels as though multiple teams have found multiple ways of stopping us playing and that we have little answer for it. When we have come up against competent tacticians — Thomas Frank, Kieran McKenna, Andoni Iraola — we have lost out. The main method has been to allow our centre-backs to have the ball and block the passing lanes into midfield, thus forcing us into either low percentage or high risk passes.

And yet, despite all of my complaints, the reason I wouldn’t be thinking about sacking Ange is two-fold. I don’t want us to rush the next appointment — maybe the grass isn’t greener. And, in the meantime, I think the principles that Ange is instilling are and should be the sorts of principles our next coach instils anyway. Playing out from the back. Pressing intensely. Possession-based play. Plus — you know — maybe it will click! Maybe we’ll have the right players available, maybe we’ll be injury-free.

That doesn’t mean to say that I think we should endure unfettered suffering (yes this is hyperbole) because of a ‘project’. Ange is part of a bigger project, not the project itself. The project — as I see it — is transitioning to becoming a team that plays modern, progressive football whilst developing young players, challenging for trophies and qualifying for Europe on a season by season basis. Ange is a means of achieving that (and I think it’s fair to say that he is achieving aspects of it – the principles identified above, certainly). If he were to win a trophy this season, for example, for me that buys him another year. But if the Rolling xG Trendline continues to be objectively bad, that cannot just continue indefinitely. There have to be tangible improvements. Hopefully that will happen when players get back from injury, and hopefully we don’t suffer another injury crisis. Hopefully we’ll strengthen in January. Hopefully we’ll find tactical solutions to the problems we’re struggling with. But I just worry that too many stars need to align for this to pan out well. I really hope I’m wrong.

The development of young players is both club strategy and makes smart business sense. On paper, Ange has objectively done a pretty good job of giving minutes to young prospects this season (Gray 1,137, Bergvall 525, Moore 288, Lankshear 135). I think the first three have become genuine options, but obviously especially Gray. I would add, though, that my earlier point about rotation does impact youth development. For example, Lankshear’s only two starts came in teams alongside Gray, Bergvall, Moore (and Werner) vs Ferencvaros and Gray, Bergvall (and Forster, Drăgușin, Davies) vs Galatasaray. If Lankshear is to be given a platform to succeed and the chance to be fully trusted as a first team squad member (which, remember, is why he was not sent on loan this season) then he would be best used amongst an otherwise ‘full strength’ (or close to) XI in my opinion.

The only reasons for firing Ange at this point, as far as I see it, would be if we were at risk of relegation (at 11 points ahead of the bottom three I’d like to think that wouldn’t be an issue) or a reoccurrence of bringing back a player from injury too soon. I don’t think we should persist with a coach who doesn’t learn lessons and continuously puts our players at risk of injury. Aside from that, I think he should be safe for the rest of the season. And hopefully we will manage to win a trophy!

Many people will be reading this thinking it’s too short-termist, not thinking of the bigger picture, being overly critical of Ange given the squad at his disposal. I know that, because we regularly receive those emails to The Extra Inch inbox. I am definitely sympathetic to these arguments, but I hope I’ve addressed above why I don’t accept them. I think even given the players at his disposal, we should be doing better. I think the bigger picture, the long-term is bigger than Ange.

I’m writing this ahead of the Nottingham Forest game. I’m not feeling confident. A win for them would take them 11 points ahead of us. We’d be unlikely to turn that around, I think. It’s really important that we win this game.

I’ve written quite a bit over the past few months about our squad building: Summer 2024 Squad Planning – Update (July 2024) and More Needed (August 2024). I think we need to update this now that we’ve seen how the squad is shaping up so far this season.

I had already mentioned in both of those pieces the transition of Dejan Kulusevski to a central player. That transition is complete, and he has barely played wide at all. In addition, he has played *with* James Maddison, not as a rotation. And I think that combination is what has led to our attacking output taking a leap. I think that changes our needs fairly significantly.

I talked in the summer piece about the midfield links (Conor Gallagher, Jacob Ramsey, João Gomes). I don’t know whether Kulusevski’s total transition came as a result of having failed to land any of these targets, or whether they were always meant to add depth to the dual eights of Maddison and Kulusevski. I would include Eberechi Eze in this cluster of links and would not be surprised if Spurs were to go back in for him. However, my instinct is for us to sign another right sided player who can also play in-field, like Kulusevski, as opposed to a left-sided player who can also play in-field like Eze. That is because our right-wing cover is Brennan Johnson and no-one if Kulusevski is playing inside. It has been clear so far that Wilson Odobert looks more comfortable on the left, and the same is certainly the case for Mikey Moore — the angles suit him far better — and Werner has really struggled when played out on the right, as was the case for Son Heung-min and Richarlison before.

The other option is to roll with the midfield options – assume that Pape Matar Sarr, Lucas Bergvall and Archie Gray can cover those roles between them (and pray Maddison and Kulusevski stay fit) and sign a right-winger. There are good options out there — my favourite is Brian Mbeumo (who can also play up-front), my second favourite is Antoine Semenyo (who can also play on the left). There are strong arguments for and against each of these options, and really it comes down to who Ange trusts and how much business we are willing to do. Think about how we would cope without Maddison or Kulusevski, and think about how we would cope without Johnson — which feels the easiest to power through? I think we need some cover for Maddison’s vision and passing ability whichever way we decide to go.

I think we also need to prioritise a left-sided centre-back, but whereas before I ideally wanted us to target one who can also play some left-back, I actually feel really quite happy with the options of Djed Spence and Archie Gray for full-back cover on both sides. I still think someone like Rayan Aït-Nouri would elevate us, but I think we can cope with what we have at full-back, at least for this season. But were we to lose Micky van de Ven for any length of time I would be hugely concerned. I have been quite up-front that I don’t think Radu Drăgușin is there with his in-possession game, albeit he’s a really strong box defender. But that weakness is exacerbated when he’s on the left.

Our build-up game is the best in the league and arguably the main reason why we function. Much is made of centre-backs being able to play a bit of football these days. In Ange-ball it goes beyond that — it’s a fundamental part of the role. Just as being able to mark, knowing when to challenge and when to drop-off, holding an off-side line, etc, are key facets of being a centre-back, in our system so is being comfortable receiving the ball and having the technical quality and problem-solving ability to play out when pressed. We don’t need another Cristian Romero level creative passer — if that player even exists — but we need someone with high levels of composure and comfort with the ball at their feet.

The other positions of need over the next two windows are: goalkeeper and number six. Both may have to wait until an obvious candidate becomes available.

Managing squads is hard, folks! Fortunately, our Academy might have some additional solutions for us over the next couple of years.

The window has been okay but I think we need more before it closes in order to challenge for trophies.

Broadly I am happy with our recruitment and I like the players that have come in. It was always going to be challenging to sell as many players as we needed to *and* fill the squad holes which have been dogging us since Ange Postecoglou’s arrival. The errors of previous windows have taken some serious work to undo. It’s been a valiant attempt, but to my mind four significant holes still exist: back-up goalkeeper, left centre-back, left back and number six. I also think our wide options could have been enhanced differently.

I think Wilson Odobert is a really promising player. My reading of the situation is that we tried to sign some more ‘first team ready’ wingers (including Pedro Neto) before moving down the list and landing on him. I really, really like him as a player and think between him and Mikey Moore, we’re pretty well future-proofed. But I do think his signing makes the early loan of Timo Werner questionable. What we really need in the squad is players that specialise in one-vs-ones in wide areas. Werner is arguably closer in profile to Brennan Johnson and Son Heung-min. Replace Werner with, say, Brajan Gruda (who Brighton signed for £25m) and suddenly the squad seems more well-rounded in its skillset.

I like Werner, but I think we rushed into that one and it is probably not the best use of a squad space.

What if we sign more?

As it stands, we’re probably not naming Fraser Forster in our Europa League squad. Any more signings and we need to pick another player to miss out. I think that could be Ben Davies.

Gray’s flexibility

People like to throw around the idea of Archie Gray playing as a number six to solve that particular problem and I think that’s pretty reasonable since that was a position he was used in in pre-season, and he did play a handful of matches at six for Leeds last season (albeit in a double pivot, not a single pivot). But I think (currently at least), it’s a poor profile fit for him. And I’d also like to point out that it is largely a position that is new to him.

Perhaps the club see him as a six in the long-term, but I think if they do it’s either hopium — because the six market is bad — or just banking on his versatility. Which, you know, he’s hella versatile so may not be the worst thing.

I think Gray is an exceptional young player and will do a good job there if asked. Against teams we’ve got camped he’ll be absolutely fine. For example, had he played against Leicester, I’ve no doubt that his passing would have been more crisp and ambitious that Rodrigo Bentancur’s; he’s naturally more keen to play forward and to slide the ball through gaps to more advanced teammates.

Some background to his youth career. In the PL2, Gray was playing as a central midfielder or attacking midfielder, even occasionally as a winger. At central midfield in the pivot he was alongside Darko Gyabi who you might know from partnering Alfie Devine sometimes at Plymouth Argyle – Gyabi was the six with Archie box-to-box, using his engine and athleticism. At the Under-17 Euros for England he played on the right of a midfield four or as the box-to-box midfielder alongside Manchester City’s Isaiah Dada-Mascoll who is a centre-back cum defensive midfielder. Gray has been mostly unfamiliar with playing in defensive midfield.

To me Gray at this stage of his development is a bit like Pierre-Emile Højbjerg (and Declan Rice as I’ve said previously) in that he’s very good when facing play and not so good at turning with the ball when he’s not facing play. I think that was illustrated really clearly in pre-season against Bayern Munich — Bissouma coming on totally transformed our build-up play. I also think that that is the top most important quality in our six. I’m very open to reviewing this and changing my mind as he develops more in this role, and I think it would be amazing for the club if he could develop into the role, because it’s a rough market.

I do think Gray could add useful depth at both left centre-back (given exceptional pre-season performances there) and even left-back. And, obviously, he’s extremely competent at right-back. From these positions he can see more of the pitch ahead of him and it allows him to use his obvious strengths.

So which positions?

I think, given the lack of quality available in the six market, we have to focus on left-back and left centre-back in the remaining week. There were some suggestions that we might try to cover off both positions through one signing, but as options dwindle that becomes more challenging. So we probably need to pick one. Pick the one that you think Ben Davies does the least effectively, Ange. I really, really like the idea of signing Rayan Aït-Nouri. I think he’s on a level with Destiny Udogie quality-wise, and he also gives us the option of using him as a winger.

And then goalkeeper — I mean, if Guglielmo Vicario gets injured for any length of time I will be extremely concerned.

We keep being linked with players that you’d say would most likely slot into the number eight role in Ange’s midfield – Conor Gallagher, Jacob Ramsey, João Gomes. I think after watching the Leicester City game this made more sense. Upgrading the technical quality in that area of the pitch would allow us to play faster both in terms of seeing the pass and executing it. And I think these players all get about the pitch reasonably well, so there’s clearly a signal that we don’t want to lose that ability in the front-foot press and in defensive transition.

Without additional enforcements now, I think we will lack the depth to challenge on multiple fronts. Of course, we have the January window. But by then we might have fallen too far behind in the league.

---

And, as a little bonus segment…

Analysis of the goal conceded vs Leicester

Bit of a throw-back, huh? I’ve seen a lot of fingers pointed at Cristian Romero. In this secnario, Romero is being Romero, and I think you just have to take the bad with the good. The context of the game at the point of conceding the goal is that we’re coming under severe pressure, the crowd are up and we’re struggling to ‘cope’ with that. Players are looking shattered all around him – Brennan Johnson makes a tired clearance, and then looks knackered when losing a duel when trying to win it back from said clearance. Romero has seen this and also Udogie lose a couple duels in the moments before and (rightly or wrongly) has taken it as his responsibility as a leader to take control of the situation. So he absolutely sprints out to join Pedro Porro wide to try to stop the ball coming at source. Incidentally, notice (clip here) that Pape Matar Sarr sees the danger but doesn’t go back with Bobby De Cordova-Reid, so if the ball comes in accurately he has a tap-in. When the ball does come in, Romero absolutely races back to regroup and he takes his positional cue from Micky van de Ven’s position (again, rightly or wrongly). In my view he probably over-compensates.

Sarr — who had correctly previously dropped in to cover Romero albeit too late — sees Romero coming back and takes that as his cue to move up a line. It’s all zonal play, players taking positional cues from one another. Personally, I think Sarr should stay where he is, goal-side of De Cordova-Reid. I think Romero should stay goal-side of Vardy. I also think Van de Ven is slow move towards Facundo Buonanotte when Udogie goes out to Abdul Fatawu and if the ball was played into Buonanotte and he got a shot away we’d be criticising Van de Ven. If the ball is played into De Cordova-Reid initially and he scores we’d be looking at Sarr. If the ball comes into De Cordova-Reid from the second cross and he scores that, we’re all looking at Sarr again.

That’s not to say Romero’s defending is good, it’s more to say that collectively this is a defensive failure and when you only analyse goals rather than everything you can create disproportionality. In this instance, everyone is furious with Romero – another day his front post movement means he blocks the cross at source and we are praising him (or, frankly, taking the action for granted because it’s what we’ve come to expect).

This is essentially a second draft of my Summer 2024 Squad Planning blog, with information from pre-season as well as some deeper reflections on last season factored in.

It goes back to my assessment in November 2023 of the players we needed to add to the squad in order to compete on two fronts.

I think Spurs are eight depth players (nine if PEH leaves) away from competing for the PL (and in Europe).

GK
RB
LB
RCB
LCB
(DM)
AM
LW
FW

Caveat: some of these might emerge from the squad/academy because we have an elite coach.

I’ll revisit this as we tick them off.

— Chris I’Anson-Miller (@WindyCOYS) November 1, 2023

Since then we’ve ticked off the right centre-back (Radu Drăgușin) and we have also added Lucas Bergvall and Archie Gray to the squad. Here’s where I think we are on the remaining places.

Goalkeeper

It appears to me that Brandon Austin is now our second choice goalkeeper. He signed a new contract, and has had solid involved in pre-season in Fraser Forster’s absence. He is a much better team style fit than Forster, albeit he is almost completely untested in men’s football, aside from a couple of short loans several years ago.

My view is that Josh Keeley and Luca Gunter are the serious goalkeeping talents at the club, but with Keeley not being ‘Home Grown’ qualified (since he turned 21 at the end of last season, only his second at the club), I wonder whether that might work against him. He will presumably get another loan this season anyway.

Goalkeeper does concern me. If Vicario were to get injured, I think we’d have a pretty significant problem. How can you rely on Austin when (and this is not his fault) he is totally untested? Forster is a poor squad fit, not strong with his feet and not good at sweeping. Ideally I think we should be looking to sign a short-term, profile fit goalkeeper who can rotate in Europa League matches if required. But maybe we just don’t know how good Austin is, because how could we know?

Right back

With the re-emergence of Djed Spence, and the signing of Archie Gray, I feel satisfied that we’ve now got suitable right-back rotation. Spence’s renaissance is such a good news story. He is a huge talent, and is coming back from Genoa with renewed focus and a fresh perspective is just fantastic news for him, for Ange and for the club. His dynamic, front-footed ball carrying is a nightmare for defenders – he commits them early and often beats them with his purposeful stride length and excellent acceleration. He also dribbles inside really effectively, with good close control and spatial awareness.

Gray played a lot of right-back for Leeds last season, though it’s worth noting that the expectations of the inverted role at Spurs are significantly different. I think Gray is a phenomenal talent but my main question mark over him at the moment is his ability to consistently receive the ball with his back to play. I think this is what makes him less of an Ange six and more of a Ange eight, and obviously with the full-backs drifting in-field to become the ‘3’ ahead of the ‘2’ in build-up, it is a requirement of the role to receive back to play. So it’s worth keeping an eye on his development in this area. His ability when facing play is seriously impressive.

Left back

Last time I wrote I included this:

Ben Davies is not an ideal fit for the inverted full-back role and, in my view, should only be considered for the left centre-back role going into next season. However, given that Radu Drăgușin has played in that role with Micky van de Ven out injured, it implies to me that Davies is now down the pecking order. He has just gained coaching qualifications, and I’m sure Spurs would welcome him as a coach with open arms. However, he still has plenty of football left in him at a decent level, so he has a decision to make. Assuming Swansea City stay up, perhaps he does a couple of years there before coming back to us in a coaching capacity.

Summer 2024 Squad Planning

I think this still rings true, but given there’s been little to no speculation about Davies leaving, I think we can probably assume he’s with us until January at least. I do think there will be very few matches there for him, though, and personally I’d prefer to see Spence or Gray used at left-back as rotation for Destiny Udogie.

For me, finding a specialist left-back rotation is still quite important. I’m a huge fan of Rayan Aït-Nouri and I like the way he carries and comes in-field. But with Spence profiling closer to Udogie than Porro, perhaps we need to find a creative passer as our rotation left-back to help in build-up. On a totally unrelated note, creative passer Jamie Donley had an outstanding performance there against Vissel Kobe.

Left centre-back

Left-sided centre-back was a really high priority for me, but I must admit that Archie Gray’s performances and profile do have me a fair bit less concerned. If the right player is available, I still think it would be a smart piece of squad-building, but given Gray’s impressive vision, execution of pass, and reading of the game, I think we could manage until January and then re-assess.

Long-term I really like Alfie Dorrington as a centre-back option for us, but he has played a lot more on the right, and probably needs a loan (or perhaps two) before he can be considered. Unfortunately he has missed pre-season due to injury, else he might have had some first team exposure, with Cristian Romero, Micky van de Ven and Radu Drăgușin all returning late after the summer tournaments.

Of course, if we are serious about competing for the league, it would make sense to invest in a top quality, ball-playing, left-sided (or versatile enough to play left-sided) centre-back.

Defensive midfielder

I think it’s become extremely well known that the market for number sixes is difficult right now to say the least. What Angeball requires of its six makes the role extremely pivotal and also limits the number of players that could tick all boxes. If you’re elite at defensive screening, anticipating, backing up the press, being press resistant and progressing the ball through passes and carries, you’re… well, you’re Rodri. So it comes down to compromise.

A lot of Spurs fans wanted us to sign Amadou Onana, but for me the drop-off in dexterity and press resistance between Yves Bissouma and Onana would have been significant so at that price point we were right to pass. All being well, 2025/26 will be Tyrese Hall szn, but what do we do in the meantime? Well, we have Rodrigo Bentancur and Archie Gray to rotate with Bissouma – neither option is ideal in my opinion. Alfie Devine looked really good at the base of midfield vs QPR but it would be a big ask for him to immediately step up in a largely unfamiliar position. Do we have enough to muddle through? Maybe. Are there any other options on the market that would improve our depth? Ehhhhhhhh. It’s a tough one.

Attacking midfielder

In my previous draft I noted:

As the season has progressed and Dejan Kulusevski has played more as a central player, I think we’ve created a genuine option for ourselves. Between James Maddison, Kulusevski, Lucas Bergvall, and whichever of Alfie Devine and Jamie Donley stays at the club next season, we might just have enough attacking midfield coverage for two competitions. However, I would be in favour of signing a dribbly winger who can also play centrally…

Summer 2024 Squad Planning

I stand by it. And I’d say Kulusevski has cemented himself as an option. But, as above, if we really mean business then someone immediately close to Maddison’s level of creative passing would elevate us in the here and now. I do think there’s an argument that this could be a positionally flexible player who could also cover the wing slot.

Winger

I’d originally had this role pegged down as left winger, but I am no longer certain that that’s the right choice and, besides, I think the squad building leads towards us wanting someone for the right.

My view after watching Son Heung-min play both wide on the left and through the middle in Angeball is that he is significantly better on the left and that I would rather not see him play up front much at all. Watching Kulusevski play through the middle against Vissel Kobe, despite Son being on the pitch, was encouraging to me — perhaps Ange agrees. So with Son on the left, and Timo Werner’s loan renewed for a further season, we seem fairly well set for that side. On the right, we have Brennan Johnson and Kulusevski, but with Kulusevski playing centrally a lot more it certainly leaves the door open for the dribbly boi signing to be a right-sided player. Mikey Moore gives us a dribbly option, and can certainly expect a good number of minutes in the coming season, but it would be unfair and irresponsible to expect him to deliver regularly at just 16.

I think the signing of Werner can only really be assessed at the end of the window.

I like Werner a tonne but I worry that we’re going to ‘do a Solomon’ again & end up with too many non-home grown players that aren’t priorities. Absolutely fine if we completely nail the rest of the window & sell everyone we need to sell, but I fear we could end up regretting it.

— Chris I’Anson-Miller (@WindyCOYS) May 28, 2024

We have today announced the signing of 18-year old South Korean dribbly winger Yang Min-hyeok. I don’t think this changes anything about our winger search.

Forward

I had previously considered the forward role ‘dealt with’, with Son and Richarlison as striker options. But, despite Son’s incredible finishing, I am convinced after last season that he is not a great fit for the central role and I also think him being there somewhat negates his greatest strength: the cut in and shoot. Given Richarlison’s dreadful problems with injury last season, I do think a new forward is now imperative.

Kulusevski has shown that he can play through the middle at a push, and Pape Matar Sarr also did a great job there against Manchester City at the end of last season. But some guaranteed goals would really help ease the burden on others. In Will Lankshear, Alejo Véliz and Dane Scarlett, there is some promise for the future, but none are ready to contribute immediately and there is no need to change their development plans unnecessarily.

There are a fairly limited number of options on the market; if you’re interested in who Nathan likes (or on our squad building issues with regards to Premier League and UEFA regulations), you might want to watch this video.