Spurs have a number of issues that they need to resolve in the summer transfer market - and signing a new goalkeeper could be one of them.
Sign up to our newsletter for the most distinctive football content delivered direct to your inbox
Sign up
Thank you for signing up!
Did you know with an ad-lite subscription to 3 Added Minutes, you get 70% fewer ads while viewing the news that matters to you.
Submitting...
One would need to have plenty of time on their hands to list all of the issues which Tottenham Hotspur need to deal with this summer – they have an uneven playing squad full of potential holes, for starters, and need to find a permanent manager to take over from Igor Tudor. Assuming they survive relegation, Spurs are likely to be rather busy once the season is over.
Some of their concerns have already attracted plenty of attention. They have a midfield in dire need of a rebuild, for instance, and likely need to find some reinforcements in defence with the futures of Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero up in the air – but one problem which hasn’t been discussed as often as it might have been is the one they have between the goalposts.
Why Spurs may need to find a new goalkeeper in the transfer window
When Guglielmo Vicario first arrived in North London, he looked likely to be a player who would offer a long-term fix between the sticks – but the Italian’s form has declined in the last two seasons, and rumours in Italy are increasingly linking him with a move back to his home country.
Both Inter Milan and Juventus are supposedly interested in signing the 29-year-old, and Vicario himself is allegedly open to a move. That’s both a problem and a potential solution for Spurs, creating an area of need while opening up the opportunity to upgrade in a key position.
Based on the xG model, Vicario has allowed two goals more than he ‘should’ have this season, a record which makes him just the 18th most effective shot stopper in the Premier League by that particular standard – while his save percentage of just 64% is undeniably sub-par. For every fine save he makes, and there are many of them on the highlight reel, he lets one through that he perhaps should not have done.
Throw in a concerning propensity towards mistakes, especially in crowded penalty boxes, and there is a strong case to made in favour of letting Vicario head back to Serie A and finding a replacement. Fortunately for Spurs, this may not be the worst summer in which to go shopping for a new stopper.
The £50m goalkeeper who could offer Spurs a solution
A few names have already cropped up in dispatches as potential targets for Spurs, even if we’re at the stage of the season when most transfer rumours are often gossip rather than solid, carefully-sourced stories.
James Trafford, exiled to the bench at Manchester City by the arrival of Gianluigi Donnarumma, is the gambler’s option, a player of unquestioned potential who remains largely unproven at the highest level. Sunderland’s impressive Robin Roefs is another, although there is likely to be a bidding war if he does become available this summer.
A player who could be both obtainable and proven, however, is Brighton & Hove Albion’s Bart Verbruggen. The Dutchman has been a consistently impressive player since arriving in the Premier League and now, with just two years left on his deal at the Amex Stadium, is reaching a point at which his club must either extend his contract or sell to extract maximum value in the transfer market.
A few reports – again, little more than gossip at this stage – suggest that £50m might be enough to sign him, a steep price for a goalkeeper but not beyond Spurs’ means if they sell Vicario for half of that or more.
His production this season has also been considerably more impressive than Vicario’s. He boasts a respectable 69% save rate so far, bolstered by a fine performance in last weekend’s 2-0 win at Brentford, and is credited with preventing 1.64 goals compared to the xG he has faced, putting him inside the league’s Top 10 – and few of those above him are plausible transfer targets, save perhaps for Robert Sánchez, another goalkeeper whose errors have drawn unwanted attention.
Verbruggen is also comfortable with the ball at his feet and provides a strong base for possession, although his long-range distribution isn’t elite by Premier League standards, so he may not suit a coach who prefers a direct, counter-attacking style, but that aside he represents a player who is likely to be available at fair value for money, who is a proven, reliable performer at the top level, and who was many years left in the tank. There may be other overseas options who catch the eye when the time comes, but Verbruggen should, at least, be somewhere on the shortlist.