Tottenham are struggling. The eye test says so, and so do the stats. Spurs have a paltry expected goals differential of +0.7, good for 9th in the league. This means that over the course of the season so far, we’ve created roughly half a goal’s worth of chances more than we have allowed. This number should be in the double digits by now for any team looking to seriously challenge for the top four, but we are clearly a ways off that. Tottenham are managing only 12 shots per game, which is 11th in the league, while allowing opponents to take 13.7 shots per game, 15th in the league. A simple tenant of soccer statistics is that the more shots you take, the better, and that you should take more shots than you allow. Tottenham are failing to do so, and are failing to generate many shots per match, which is a huge indictment of their quality of play over the first half of the season.
Things have been improving since Mourinho took over. The new-manager bump helped, and all those statistics above have been generally trending in the right direction since his appointment. But at the end of the day this is a roster with deep flaws. And this isn’t groundbreaking information. These flaws are the same ones that most fans were aware of in the summer, and in the winter transfer period before that, and even the summer before that, before the 2018-19 season began. Spur’s statistical profile had been in sharp decline since the end of the 2017-18 season and they barely produced enough results to ignore those underlying numbers. Until they didn’t.
The fact that these problems have been festering unfixed for so long has only allowed them to worsen and grow in severity. In some cases, the players filling in the gaps for the problem are stretched too thin and injure themselves (Harry Kane). In other cases, entropy and natural decay over time are the reason the problem grows (Jan Vertonghen, and to a lesser extent Toby Alderweireld). And in other cases, our transfer policy creates a problem where there was none (selling Kyle Walker, then Kieran Trippier, leaving Serge Aurier and Kyle Walker-Peters as the only senior right backs). Let’s review the squad position-by-position and see how the outlook for the future is. Each position will receive a letter grade based on the players available for the next few years.
Lloris has been a top-class keeper for years, but it’s impossible to say if he will be at that level when he returns from his current elbow injury. Even if hadn’t suffered a serious injury this season, he is 33 years old and the club should be thinking about a long-term replacement. Gazzaniga has shown that he’s a serviceable backup, but not the quality of keeper that should be starting for a top four side.
As mentioned above, age is starting to catch up to Alderweireld and Vertonghen, who have both been world-class center backs for a past few seasons. Vertonghen in particular has looked like a ghost of his former self, while Alderweireld looks like he still has a year or two left in the tank. I’m very high on Davinson Sánchez in general, but he still needs to improve his decision making and one on one defending skills. And regarding Juan Foyth, as much as I want him to succeed, he is still way too mistake-prone for this level. He has a bright future, but needs a few years playing consistent football at a slightly lower level to get more experience. In Sanchez and Alderweireld, Spurs have two top-quality CBs for the next couple seasons but need another option on the bench if Vertonghen doesn’t sign a new contract.
I hate writing negative things about players, especially if they play for Tottenham Hotspur. At the end of the day, they are professional athletes, they work incredibly hard and put their bodies through hell multiple times a week for our entertainment. The problem is that at a professional level the margins are so thin that a tiny percentage difference in ability, or the slightest mistake, is magnified to the extreme. With that in mind, I’ll try to be gentle here. it’s painful to say that Kyle Walker-Peters isn’t good enough for Spurs, especially after rooting for him to get more playtime the past few seasons. He finally got his chance, and showed he wasn’t good enough. Meanwhile Serge Aurier is the same deeply flawed player he has always been. Hyper athletic and talented on the ball, can dribble past a player and send in a good cross on occasion. But also someone who turns off on defense, makes rash tackles, and doesn’t quite know how to take a throw in. Tottenham don’t have a good answer at right back and desperately need some new blood here.
Left back, on the other hand, is not in bad shape. Yes, Danny Rose, the presumptive #1 left back at the club for the past few seasons, is clearly past it physically. However, Spurs have a good number of players who can fill in at left back, especially as the position has a more defensive focus in Mourinho’s system. Ben Davies is the prototypical player you would want for this role. He has experience playing both as a left back and as left-sided center back in a back three for Wales. This could be his chance to show the world that he is the Welsh (and thus better) version of Dave Azpilicueta. Ryan Sessegnon can play here too, and already has a few times. He still has plenty of room to grow as a defender and may end up playing higher up the field as a winger, but he has tons of potential as a left back. Finally, Vertonghen has been doing okay here but isn’t an option for the future. With Davies and Sessegnon providing different options, left back is not a problem area that Spurs need to worry about.
Tottenham need a new defensive midfielder, the situation here is even more perilous than at right back. Of the two traditional defensive mids in the roster, Eric Dier and Victor Wanyama, Wanyama literally has no knees anymore (Have you actually seen his legs bend in the past year?), and Dier has unfortunately struggled with chronic illness and injuries stemming from appendicitis. Dier still could come good if he can get back to full health, lose a few pounds, and improve his acceleration. Harry Winks and Tanguy Ndombele have both been used as the defensive anchor in a midfield pairing on separate occasions, but that doesn’t get the best out of either of them and isn’t an actual solution. Barring a miracle with Dier’s fitness, Tottenham need to sign a Defensive midfielder.
While our central midfield has looked dreadful this season, I posit that most of that struggle is due to our lack of a defensive midfield presence. If you were to pair Ndombele or even Winks with a proper defensive anchor, they would absolutely shine. Ndombele has already shown his skill this season in flashes but has struggled with injury issues. Winks has had a terrible season, but he’s a player that is acutely limited in certain areas and needs the right midfield system around him to truly shine. Moussa Sissoko is also a good depth option here but shouldn’t be starting games. Down the road, Oliver Skipp could play a part as well, but isn’t yet ready for the prime time.
Even if Christian Eriksen leaves, as is expected either this month or in the summer, Spurs are in good shape here. Dele can be a world class player, and he will show that talent more if the rest of the team starts to click again. Gio Lo Celso has that same potential but is taking time to gel and contribute to the team. That’s okay - Son, Lucas and others have all gone through that slow learning curve before excelling. Eric Lamela can’t stay healthy, but when is on the pitch shows why he is still around. When Eriksen leaves, Tottenham will lack depth here, but still have plenty of talent in this position.
Heung-Min Son is one of the best attacking players in the world and would fit into any team in the world. He is Spur’s best player. I’m not too worried or bothered about his recent flair for red cards- he’s had a few dumb moments, but those are something that he can learn from, and the mental side of his game will only improve. Lucas is another player that is tactically limited, but can absolutely shine when in the right situation, as his Champions League heroics have shown. He can’t play wide left, doesn’t stay wide when played wide right, and struggles when played as the furthest forward. That’s okay though. He may not like it, but he’s most effective coming off the bench.
Harry Kane isn’t a world class striker right now. I know it sounds like blasphemy, but both analytics and attentive Spurs fans have been saying this for a while. Since his ankle injury in 2018 before the World Cup, Kane hasn’t been the player he was before. He is still a world class finisher and shooter of the ball, but he doesn’t run as much as before, he can’t jump and fight for headers like he used to, and he can’t consistently create his own shot anymore. He’s dropping deeper and deeper to get involved in the buildup but can’t get back into dangerous positions after doing so. It’s terrible that he tore his hamstring and it comes at a bad time for Tottenham, but hopefully he doesn’t rush back from this injury and can regain the form that he’s lost. Troy Parrott is a very exciting youth option but shouldn’t be our only proper striker backup. Tottenham needed to sign a backup striker even before Kane got injured, and now even more so.