Tottenham Hotspur started the offseason on the complete wrong foot, taking ages to come to any sort of a decision on Europa League-winning manager Ange Postecoglou before promptly discarding him after weeks, setting themselves back unnecessarily on the transfer market.
Whlle Spurs have gotten the choice of his successor right, picking Brentford's Thomas Frank to the lead charge, all the ills of the last month have caught up to Frank. Previous targets linked to Tottenham like Johnny Cardoso and Rayan Cherki have already chosen to move to big European clubs, and now even Frank's preferred transfer targets are falling off the map.
Tottenham have effectively given up the chase for what should have been their most obvious priority on the transfer market, Frank's top Brentford pupil Bryan Mbeumo with nearly 30 Premier League goal contributions last season. Mbeumo is almost certainly headed to Manchester United.
To make matters worse, though, Tottenham have now 100 percent lost out on an even easier Frank disciple to sign. And to make matters even worse than that, they have lost this player to their most hated rivals, Arsenal FC.
Arsenal embarrass Tottenham once more
According to Fabrizio Romano, an agreement between Brentford and Arsenal is officially done, and defensive midfielder Christian Norgaard, a key veteran leader in Frank's tactical system over the years, will be headed to Tottenham's chief North London rivals for a meager 11 million euros. Norgaard is now set for a medical after agreeing personal terms with the Gunners.
Tottenham had just started to show concrete interest in Norgaard, but Arsenal saw that and accelerated their interest. What should have been a neck-and-neck race ended very quickly with Arsenal signing the quality Premier League holding midfielder for close to nothing, replacing him with departing free agent Thomas Partey.
While Tottenham are prioritizing younger players, 11 million euros for a captain-level player, an above-average starting defensive midfielder, an upgrade in that role on current players in the squad, and a favorite of the new coach's would have been a very miniscule fee to pay for one veteran player on a very, very young squad.
It's outright shameful for Daniel Levy and Tottenham to miss out on a player with this close ties to Frank - and to Arsenal, no less, who should have had no advantage over Frank and Spurs at signing Norgaard. Tottenham just won the Europa League, yet Levy and Co. remain the archtiects of the continued demise of this brand. All Levy does is prove the old adage right that Tottenham will never support its coaches, no matter who they are or what they win.