What we’re going to be looking at is the relegation teams and seeing which players Spurs could potentially be targeting this transfer window. We’ve gone through all three of the relegated teams and we’ve had a think about what kind of deals can we do. There are more players in these three teams than you would usually be looking at from the relegated teams in our opinion.
James Maddison, Leicester City
The first player, and the one that’s on everyone’s lips at the moment, is James Maddison. He’s definitely the one with the most quality of any of the players in the relegated teams, and he’s going to have suitors after him. Newcastle are probably the front runners at the moment, but we’d love to see him at Spurs.
Compared to the midfielders we currently have, he would bring agility, vision in and around the penalty area, and that attacking quality with his goal contributions. He’s really stepped his game up a notch this season, even in a struggling Leicester team. He’s produced a lot and he has set-piece ability. Now at Spurs, we have a few players who can step up to take set-pieces but no real specialists. Maddison is a very versatile player, and it doesn’t seem there are many downsides to bringing him to Spurs, apart from the fact that he’s not the best defensive player which might lead to some runners around him. It might be interesting to see a midfield three of Bissouma and Bentancur with Maddison just ahead of them. This could work really well in a dynamic system.
Now, Maddison has a market value of around 55 million euros, but now that Leicester have been relegated, and he only has a year left on his contract, it might be possible to negotiate a much lower fee. The issue is, there’s likely to be a bidding war for Maddison because of his quality, and with his suitors potentially including Arsenal and Newcastle, we might struggle to attract him. The numbers speak for themselves – 19 goal contributions this season in a team which has been relegated is sensational. Maddison had an unbelievable start to the season, and he’s made the difference for Leicester when he’s been on the pitch, even when they’ve lost games.
Harvey Barnes, Leicester City
Harvey Barnes is a very talented player. He’s a great left winger, he’s fast, and he’s really improved his goal scoring ability, with 13 goals this season. Barnes obviously works really hard, and it helps that he’s an English player, because we need more home-grown players for our quota. He’s got good pace, and he’s improving year on year. Although he’s not a Son-level as a finisher, he does have good finishing ability, and at the age of 25 there’s plenty of room for his ability to grow. Barnes could easily be a top-6 player.
Barnes’ market value is around 32 million euros right now, with two years left on his current deal, you could see other teams willing to pay up to 40 million for him, whereas it’s unclear whether Spurs would be willing to do that. We do think we would have to outbid a few teams if we wanted to go for Barnes, and if a team like Aston Villa were going for him too, they might pip us to the post because they have an open spot on their wing, and they also have European football to look forward to in the coming season. However, Barnes may well see that there is good potential for him here at Spurs – we’ve been top 6 for most of the recent years, and if Son ends up leaving there might be an opening in Barnes’ position, and Barnes could be a worthy long-term replacement. Spurs have excellent facilities and we’re not an unattractive candidate, even though teams like Aston Villa do have the advantage of playing in Europe next season. We’d definitely say yes to Harvey Barnes.
Youri Tielemans, Leicester City
Tielemans is available on a free transfer this year, which makes this even more interesting. When he first came to the Premier League to play for Leicester, he was absolutely brilliant. However, he hasn’t shone quite as much in the last couple of seasons. Having said that, in a new team, with a new structure, and with Tielemans’ ability on the ball, it could definitely be worth taking a gamble. Especially because we do lack creativity and technical ability in our midfield. The worry is, Tielemans can be a relatively slow player, especially when he’s not at his peak fitness level, but we respect his ability on the ball, and a new environment might be just what he needs to start thriving again. But where would he fit into our team, and who would he replace? We have a lot of options in central midfield at the moment, so it really depends on what Postecoglou wants and how he wants to play. If he wants to play in a 4-3-3, there may well be a spot for Tielemans, but if he goes 4-2-3-1, Tielemans might not fit in so well. Another thing we like about Tielemans is his passing ability, and we don’t really have that high-quality passing in midfield at the moment. If Tielemans came into our first team, he would probably be the best passer of the ball, and his ability to shoot from range is probably second to none in the league in terms of a central midfield player, other than De Bruyne. He’s definitely up there when it comes to shooting from outside of the box. We’d definitely take Tielemans on a free transfer.
Romeo Lavia, Southampton.
Lavia is 19 years of age, and we love watching him play. He’s such a strong talent in the middle of the park. He’s building his physique in the way he handles himself on the pitch, and he’s played for Southampton really confidently. He can charge into space and is confident in taking on opposition players, but he’s still got a lot of room to grow, too. It might even be worth signing Lavia and then loaning him out, potentially even back to Southampton for a season. He’s definitely a Premier League-quality player, but we have Saar, hopefully Skipp, Bentancur when he’s back from injury and Hojbjerg, so it’s unclear where he would fit into the team. We’ve only seen a sample of Saar so far, but if we had to choose between Lavia and Skipp, it would be very difficult, because in some ways they are polar opposites. Skipp may be a more mature player but he doesn’t play with the confidence that Lavia does, and Lavia might just have the edge in terms of quality, but we’d probably trust Skipp more in a Premier League game at the moment.
Armel Bella-Kotchap, Southampton
We’ve been very impressed with Bella-Kotchap this season. Although Southampton have conceded quite a few goals, this player seems to be a centre-back that could definitely find himself in the starting line up, when we look at our current defensive players. It would be great to see us sign some even higher-calibre defenders, but Bella-Kotchap may well be one for the future. He’s still a very young player, and it’s been a tough season for him, spending most of his time partnered with an inexperienced backline. He’s composed and impressive on the ball, but when it comes to his defensive ability he does still have a lot of development ahead of him. Again, depending on the asking price, we’d probably be looking at signing him and then loaning him out for his own development, so he could come back in a year’s time and start playing in the cups for us. He could potentially have more talent than Tanganga, Sanchez, Davies and Lenglet, so he could definitely work as a back-up centre-back for this season if we didn’t loan him out. It all depends on the kind of budget we’re looking at, especially if we were looking at signing a high quality defender who could go straight into the starting line-up as well. Bella-Kotchap could, however, prove to be good value if we can bring him in for 25 or 30 million euros.
James Ward-Prowse, Southampton
Ward-Prowse obviously has supreme set-piece-taking ability, but does he have enough quality to get into our team? We would be paying a lot of money for a player who isn’t really much of an upgrade on what we currently have. He could have a bit more quality than Hojbjerg on the ball, and he’s probably better than Bentancur in terms of passing and shooting, but off the ball, his ability to dictate games, his pace, and his positioning are all a bit questionable. If we’d be looking at paying a bit of a premium on account of Ward-Prowse being home-grown, we could potentially find a player who is better value for money. Ward-Prowse is unquestionably a good player, and he might be better than some of the midfielders we currently have, but he might not be enough of an upgrade to justify his likely price tag, especially at the age of 28. We don’t think he would get into the team at the moment, and although he could be a good short-term upgrade, looking at his all-round ability, it’s probably better to look at a player that we can grow and develop.
Carlos Alcaraz, Southampton
We’ve been impressed by Alcaraz, he’s a speedy player and he knows where the goal is. Although he only scored 4 goals and assisted 2, he only played in 18 games since joining Saints in January. He’s a young player, only 20 years of age, and he’s come into the Premier League to play in a side fighting relegation. Alcaraz’s natural position is an attacking midfielder, but he can and has been playing as a striker. He’s definitely shown his ability despite not starting many games, but he’s also shown that he might have a bit of a mean streak – he’s made a lot of fouls and there have been a few altercations. That could be a bad thing, or it could be a good thing that he has a bit of fire in him! However, we haven’t really seen consistent enough performances from Alcaraz, just flashes of really strong ability, so we’re not sure whether it would be worth spending money on putting him into the first team without seeing a little bit more from him. There’s definitely something there in terms of his future ability, especially if he can show it on a consistent basis. Again, there could be a situation where we buy Alcaraz and then loan him back to Southampton for the remainder of the season, as he’s surely going to be playing every single game in The Championship, where he’ll probably notch up quite a lot of goals.
Gavin Bazunu, Southampton
Bazunu is a 21-year-old Irish goalkeeper, and he’s Ireland’s number 1 ahead of Kelleher. Although we like him, we’re not sure he would be ready to come in as our number 1 goalkeeper straight away, but as a young goalkeeper he has so much potential. Goalkeepers do tend to improve with age, and he’s already doing well to have been playing in the Premier League at the age of 21. If he continues on the trajectory he’s on, he’s definitely going to be one to watch. However, his positioning is still quite weak and his shot-stopping is quite average at the moment, although he is really good on the ball. As with some of the other players mentioned, it could be interesting to buy him and loan him out for a while, to help him to gain some experience. We’re told that Bazunu is really good when he’s playing for Ireland, so we’ll certainly be keeping an eye on him.
Mohammad Salisu, Southampton
Salisu is a great player for Southampton – there are some games that he will dominate, even against mammoth teams like Manchester City. He’s shown he has some serious abilities, and he can drive well with the ball. However, he has shown himself to be rash at times. He used to pick up a lot of yellow cards, and would fly into challenges a lot of the time. He even got a red card when he played against us last season. His performances may well have suffered because he’s had to hold back on his aggression, which seemed to give him a bit of an edge. The problem is, at the age of 24, Salisu should be ready to be starting games or at least competing to, and we’re not sure that he’s there yet. He’s a great centre-back, and could be a good back-up left centre-back, but we think Bella-Kotchap probably has more long-term potential if we had to choose. However, it could be the case for Salisu that when he’s around a team of higher-calibre players, his own game will improve. He’s put in really dominating displays before, and we can imagine him in a back 4 with Romero and Udogie.
Kamaldeen Sulemana, Southampton
Sulemana is a very exciting player. He’s very raw, very rash, and has a lot of learning to do, but at the age of 21 it could be worth taking a punt. He’s a player who will get you out of your seat, but will frustrate you in the same moment. He has unbelievable speed and he’s a great dribbler, but if he’s not finding the options then he can be really frustrating. He’s clearly got ability – those 2 goals against Liverpool were very impressive finishes – but they were his only 2 goals of the entire season. He was dropped for a lot of games, so we have to wonder whether he does have the ability that we would need if he wasn’t getting into that Southampton side, or whether there was another reason. He was only signed in January, so Southampton are likely to want a mark-up on his transfer fee. Although he’s exciting, he might be too risky for us this season, especially compared with players like Harvey Barnes and Heung-Min Son.
Wilfred Gnonto, Leeds United
We really believe in Gnonto. He’s only 19, and already has 10 caps for Italy – he’s clearly valued there in the Italian camp, and he’s got 2 goals, 4 assists and 2 goals in the FA cup, which isn’t bad for a player of his age. This player could be a real talent. When he burst onto the scene for Leeds, he was putting in really impressive displays and taking people on, showing his confidence, but then he seemed to cool off – maybe because of the managerial change? He seems like an old-school winger, playing on the left-hand side, going onto the outside and putting crosses in. He’s also quite aggressive, and makes a lot of fouls during games, so we definitely like his mentality, and he scored an absolute wonder goal against Cardiff in the FA Cup with a volley, so clearly he has some quality about him. At the age of 19, he’s only going to get better, and he could be a really good investment for the future. We would probably take a punt on Gnonto, and we’d prefer him over Suleimana.
Louis Sinisterra, Leeds United
Sinisterra has better stats than Gnonto this year – 5 goals (no assists) in 19 games. The biggest thing with Sinisterra was getting him on the pitch, because he seems to have been quite injury-prone. Every time he would play, he would have a few good games and then he’d get injured again. Do we really need another player like that? He’s got great qualities, and his style is quite the opposite to Gnonto – he’s very creative and tries to get goal contributions, and he was a really good player for Feyenoord before he went to Leeds. However, we’d like to see a lot more from Sinisterra, including seeing him finish a full season, before we could think about taking a punt on him. He’s fairly good on both the left and the right, and is bursting onto the international scene having played 7 games and scoring 3 goals for Colombia, but we just don’t trust his injury record.
Crescencio Summerville, Leeds United
This one is really interesting, because when Somerville burst onto the scene this year, he looked amazing. He went on a run of scoring a lot of goals and achieving a lot of assists, but then he got injured and never seemed to find that form again. He came to Leeds from the Feyenoord academy, and he’s 21 now. It’s sometimes difficult to judge youth players in terms of how good they actually are, especially because when they first come in, they’re usually very motivated so they can often make a really good start with a lot of goals because they want to take chances and prove themselves. We haven’t seen anything to make us think this player will be a Premier League star, but he could definitely be a good Premier League player, especially when you think about how young he is and the potential he could have if he was training with a team of high-quality players, with facilities like Spurs have. At the end of the day, though, if we were to sign players like this, we’d be sacrificing our own academy players, and we probably wouldn’t say that’s worth doing for this player.
Jack Harrison, Leeds United
Harrison played 36 games this season and got 5 goals, and 7 assists. He’s 26 years of age, and his market value has been dipping, but he has a long contract (he’s signed until 2028), so we’d have to pay well over his market value to bring him in now. We could be looking at 30 to 35 million euros for Jack Harrison, which probably doesn’t represent good value for money, especially when he’s already 26 and has never really had an amazing season. He’s a good winger, and he’s probably good enough for the Premier League, but we don’t think he would make it into the Spurs first team.
Verdict:
Ben: Maddison, Barnes, Tielemans, Alcaraz, Bazunu, Lavia, Gnonto
Sim: Bella-Kotchap, Maddison, Tielemans OR Barnes (not both!)
