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There is no doubt that Tottenham Hotspur have one of the most talented defenses in world football. It all starts with the new captain, Cristian Romero, who is a World Cup and Copa America winner, in addition to being the literal best player at the Europa League tournament that Spurs won last season.

Next to him, Micky van de Ven is another super-athlete and nearly as good, but because the Dutch national team is nowhere near Argentina's - and he gets overshadowed by Virgil van Dijk - he's maddeningly underrated.

And speaking of underrated, third center back Kevin Danso was once viewed as the best player in all of Ligue 1 for Cinderella side Lens, and whenever he's played for Tottenham, he has impressed.

Romero has been tremendous again for Spurs to start the 2025/26 season, and Van de Ven is also having an excellent beginning to Thomas Frank's first campaign at the club. But neither of them have been the best center back on the Tottenham books this season.

Only Federico Dimarco is better among 'defenders'

No, that honor belongs to Hamburg standout Luka Vuskovic, who is on loan from Spurs in order to get regularly playing time every week. Well, Vuskovic is balling so hard that if he were to be a Spurs player right now, he'd be a starter on merit, because, statistically, he has been the best center back in European football thus far.

That's right. Through just four starts, the 18-year-old Vuskovic has been the highest-rated center back by WhoScored this season and the 10th-highest rated player overall, which is absolutely insane when you consider Hamburg are a pretty talent-low team that just came back to the Bundesliga after years of being demoted. Even wilder, the only defender rated higher than Vuskovic is Federico Dimarco of Inter Milan by a margin of 7.77 to 7.72 - and Dimarco isn't really even a defender but rather a wing back.

What Vuskovic is doing at the age of 18 is just jaw-dropping. The Croatian international is averaging 7.3 aerial duels won and 12.3 clearances per game with more than three times as many interceptions per game as dribbles allowed. He barely has to make a tackle, his marking is already so good.

The fact that Vuskovic is lapping the competition at center back as a teenager is wild, and while the Premier League is seen as being more difficult than the Bundesliga, that may not be the case for center backs. There is more ground to cover defensively, and on a bad team like Hamburg, Vuskovic doesn't have other great players to lean on like Romero and Van de Ven can lean on each other.

Mohammed Kudus has easily been one of the best signings of the summer in European football, and Tottenham Hotspur would gladly pay the 55 million pounds it took to bag the Ghanian star from rivals West Ham United over and over again.

Right now, the entire attack is running through Kudus, who has registered one goal and four assists so far in the 2025/26 Premier League season after just seven matchdays. He's also first in the Premier League in take-ons and among the leaders in European football with 4.3 dribbles completed per game.

On Wednesday night, the Ghana national team took on the Central African Republic in a World Cup qualifying match, and the result was, as anyone would expect, one-sided in Ghana's favor. While Kudus did not score a goal, he did provide an assist via a perfectly-placed corner that looped in with the perfect amount of pace and whip into the far portion of the six-yard box.

You can view a clip of the corner here. It is absolutely textbook stuff from the sweet left foot of Mohammed Kudus and a reminder that he has become quite the crosser of the football. He always was great at creating chances from out wide, but Kudus appears to be getting even better as a passer this season under Thomas Frank, particularly with crosses.

Mohammed Kudus is improving his end product

Kudus has not assisted from a corner this season, but he has four key passes from corners in 2025/26 already. From crosses overall, Kudus has two of his four assists, and he's also had 10 total key passes from crosses, in addition to the four from corners.

There's no doubt that the 25-year-old Tottenham forward is a tremendous dribbler who can rip apart any defender in the world one-on-one on his day. But what Tottenham have been trying to do is get more end product out of Kudus than West Ham did, because he could be a bit inconsistent there.

A big part of that is getting Kudus to turn his dribbles into clear-cut chances from crosses, as well as turning him into a set-piece star. Frank thrives off those. Well, the early returns on Kudus are quite strong in that department now that he's joined Frank at Tottenham, and this picture-perfect corner for the Ghana national team to start the October international break is a clear sign that Kudus is continuing to develop his game in the right direction.

Tottenham Hotspur quietly have one of the best loan armies in the Premier League, and the forwards have been ripe and scoring goals to start the 2025/26 season, which bodes well for the future since Spurs don't have a long-term solution up top.

But by far and away the two most interesting and promising loan players are winger Mikey Moore over at Rangers and 18-year-old center back sensation Luka Vuskovic. The latter has been mind-blowingly good for Hamburg in the Bundesliga, already drawing rave reviews as a footballer who can dominate for the next decade for both club and country.

Unfortunately, although Moore's move to Rangers started out with high hopes, his transfer hasn't gone nearly as swimmingly. Moore is getting criticized left and right by many Rangers fans, as the club have heaped unrealistic expectations onto the shoulders of a mere 18-year-old prospect without any real help.

Things could turn around for Moore soon, though, as Rangers fired an incompetent manager who was certainly doing Moore and his attacking teammates no favors. As it stands, Moore has started three of five games, logging under 250 Scottish Premier League minutes with no goal contributions and rather paltry averages of 0.2 key passes, 0.8 dribbles completed, and 0.2 fouls drawn per game.

Tottenham have to know he's not ready yet

Even though Rangers just fired their coach, Tottenham are already reportedly thinking about terminating the teenage winger's loan to Scotland and sending him over to the English Championship instead.

Per a report from the Evening Standard's Matt Verri, Tottenham have an option to recall Mikey Moore from his loan and are thinking about doing so. They are not going to take immediate action and end the loan agreement at this time, but it is something on the table.

Tottenham need to monitor Moore's situation closely, and it is rapidly evolving with the changes at Rangers. A move to the Championship would send Moore to a less prestigious club and take the Europa League off the table for him, but it would be a way of Spurs keeping closer tabs on him without too much of a drop in the competition he would face.

Moore was highly promising for Spurs last season, including in the Europa League, but he is still a very raw teenage winger. That rawness is very much on display this season at Rangers, and while a lot of his struggles are down to his situation, they are a reminder that Moore needs more time before he can be a key player for the Tottenham senior team every week.

Tottenham Hotspur only made two permanent sales in the summer 2025 transfer market, sending club legend Son Heung-min off to the Los Angeles sunset and finally shipping off Bryan Gil to Girona and wash away the taste of a decent idea gone horribly wrong. Overall, Spurs struggled to sell and raise more funds, as they could not find a permanent solution for Manor Solomon either, loaning him off to Villarreal instead on transfer deadline day.

Meanwhile, throughout the summer transfer window, the main two players expected to leave Spurs to save money were center midfielder Yves Bissouma and striker Richarlison. Both were even seen as more likely to leave the club than Son, yet they stayed due to an apparent lack of transfer interest after mediocre (at best) 2024/25 seasons.

However, it seems like there was actually more interest in Richarlison than was initially let on. According to a report from ESPN Brasil's Bruno Andrade and Cindy Garcia, Orlando City were actually very interested in signing Richy from Tottenham Hotspur and had even tabled a 40 million euro transfer offer for the Brazilian forward.

It is likely that the main reason for the deal collapsing was Richarlison himself. The 28-year-old rebuffed even bigger offers from Saudi Arabia the previous summer transfer window out of a desire to stay with Tottenham and compete for titles. The move proved wise, as Richarlison and Spurs literally won a major trophy in the form of the Europa League title.

Tottenham could have used the money on a winger

Richarlison is a competitive guy who loves Tottenham despite his poor career at the club thus far, and Thomas Frank saw something in him that also made the new manager want to keep the veteran striker around. While Richarlison shined brightly in the first few games, the light has dimmed significantly since, and, now, Richy isn't any better of an option at striker than Mathys Tel.

Tottenham could have done quite a bit with 40 million euros this summer, potentially parlaying that into a juicier offer for a top Premier League winger with long-term upside like Bournemouth's Antoine Semenyo or Manchester City star Savinho.

Instead, Spurs are stuck with another season of wondering if Richarlison will finally be good for them. As of right now, he seems hard to trust, and it is very likely he will end up being behind both Randal Kolo Muani and Dominic Solanke on the striker depth chart when the duo recover from their own injuries.

With Harry Kane long gone to Bayern Munich and now Son Heung-min lighting up the United States, Tottenham Hotspur need new stars to light the way. New captain Cristian Romero is obviously one tailor-made star, and Spurs hope that the likes of Mathys Tel, Lucas Bergvall, and Archie Gray can also develop into world-class superstars.

Furthermore, Tottenham signed two attacking players with that level of potential this summer transfer window in Mohammed Kudus and Xavi Simons, and while Simons is still understandably getting settled into a full-time role as Thomas Frank's new No. 10, Kudus is already playing at an unbelievable level.

In fact, he is the only Tottenham player in WhoScored's Team of the Season so far for the Premier League in 2025/26, as he is pacing all players in the English top flight in take-ons completed, as well as tying another standout new signing, Jack Grealish of Everton, in assists.

Mohammed Kudus is an obvious Team of the Season choice

Kudus is an obvious Premier League Team of the Season pick, though you'd have to imagine that another new signing, defensive midfielder Joao Palhinha, isn't far behind the pack either. But the crazy thing is, neither of them have been the best Tottenham player so far this campaign, as that honor belongs to someone who made the European Team of the Season from WhoScored.

Luka Vuskovic is one of the starting center backs of WhoScored's 2025/26 Team of the Season so far for all of Europe's top five leagues, as he is absolutely destroying the Bundesliga and is literally their fourth-highest rated player behind only Bayern Munich's attacking trio of Michael Olise, Luis Diaz, and Mr. Harry Kane himself.

Next to Vuskovic is another Bundesliga standout in Jeff Chabot, who is one of the most underrated center backs in European football. Although Vuskovic is still technically underrated for now, the Bundesliga Rookie of the Month certainly won't be underrated for long, and both Hamburg and Tottenham fans understand that the 18-year-old defensive gem is someone with the capacity to become an all-timer.

Yes, it's too early to anoint a player with four senior caps in the Bundesliga as a Sergio Ramos regen, but Vuskovic passes the eye test with flying colors and has the numbers to be one of the best players in all of European football already. Tottenham are building a fearsome roster for the future, and while Kudus deserves a ton of praise for what he is continuing to do in the Premier League, Vuskovic can't get lost in the shuffle either. He's been outrageous.

Tottenham Hotspur’s partnership with the NFL is turning out to be one of the smartest investments in English football. Aside from the glamour of American football, it’s about cold hard cash.Â

TBR Football reports that the NFL pays the Spurs approximately £2 million every time they use Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. This was part of a 10-year contract which was originally signed before the opening of the new stadium. Then extended in 2023, it ensures that the relationship will continue for at least another 7 years until 2030.

This agreement also means that Tottenham is not just renting their stadium from the NFL, but makes it the NFL’s official home in the UK. The league provided nearly £10 million of funding for the stadium’s development to ensure it was up to standard for their needs, which ultimately consisted of everything from locker rooms to a retractable pitch to fit in with sports taking the place of each other the same weekend.

Catering cash and stadium profits

The £2 million fee is only the beginning. Tottenham receives all catering and hospitality proceeds from each NFL game - food, drinks, merchandise, VIP experiences, etc.Â

With more than 62,000 fans in attendance, many paying top prices, those sales can quickly add up. Reports indicate the club’s net profit runs into seven figures per game after covering operating expenses.

Hosting NFL games has become a huge part of Tottenham’s business model. The club made around £55 million from non-football events in the 2023–24 season, mainly concerts, boxing nights, and NFL games.Â

They also received approval from the local council to host up to 30 major events a year, instead of the 16 that were good to. That revenue is only going one way, up.

The last NFL game at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was played on October 5, 2025, when the Minnesota Vikings held off the Cleveland Browns 21–17 in front of over 62,000 fans. The next game will be played on October 12, 2025, between the New York Jets and the Denver Broncos.

These two games are a week apart, more evidence of the increasing significance Tottenham holds for the NFL in the UK, and also how important this partnership has become for the club.

The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is hosting NFL games every year as part of the league's continued efforts to branch out in international markets. These London games have become a mainstay of the NFL in the 2020s, with the most recent matchup between the Cleveland Browns and Minnesota Vikings captivating fans in attendance.

Tottenham have largely been seen as the smallest of the Big Six clubs despite playing in London and having arguably the most diehard fanbase within the United Kingdom, and that's largely been because they haven't attracted the level of, cough, bandwagon attention abroad because of Daniel Levy's focus on financial sustainability over actually winning things.

But as the Premier League continues to grow disproportionally to the other European footballing leagues, Tottenham's stock is only growing. They've had success picking up fans abroad, too, with global superstars like Son Heung-min and Harry Kane, and now with Levy out the door and more of a focus on winning and spending, there will be more names like Mohammed Kudus and Xavi Simons who will attract further fans to Spurs.

There are other signs the brand is growing, and the new stadium's hosting NFL games could yield bigger benefits for Tottenham. Sky Sports NFL analyst and former elite NFL defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh recently predicted that within the next five years, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium will host a Super Bowl.

Tottenham are growing commercially

With other big brands in the United States hosting bigger and bigger events abroad, including WWE sending WrestleMania to Saudi Arabia, it only makes sense for the NFL to boldly go forth and give their biggest game of the season to one of the biggest cities in the world, London, at a stadium far more modern and extravagant than most - if not all - in the United States.

The Super Bowl isn't seen by as many people as the Champions League Final, for example, but the NFL's biggest game of the year is an even bigger attraction. Given that the NFL makes more money than even the Premier League, the commercial aspect of the Super Bowl, including the half-time show, honestly makes it a bigger event.

So if Tottenham can continue to build their relationship with the NFL and obtain that Super Bowl soon, that will only mean even more money in the pockets of the club, potentially more fans, and a bigger spotlight. It goes to show how massive Tottenham are, and even though the average fan in America doesn't talk about them as much as the other Big Six clubs, that will likely start changing as the decade proceeds.

Tottenham Hotspur have been enjoying an excellent start to the season in the Premier League, as they currently sit first in the table heading into the October international break with Thomas Frank as the helm.

The new manager has stabilized the team, and Spurs are not losing matches cheaply anymore while they are capable of playing up to the elite teams in European football. Furthermore, the big new signings have all been hits, and even young players who have been criticized like Mathys Tel and Wilson Odobert are showing clear signs of positivity going forward.

But maybe the biggest revelation of the 2025/26 season for Tottenham is a young player who isn't even currently plying his trade at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The 18-year-old center back Luka Vuskovic has been a sensation while at on loan at Hamburg for the last three games, winning the Bundesliga Rookie of the Month award while ranking behind only the Bayern Munich attacking trio in WhoScored rating.

Major praise from the national team

Now, people from all corners are praising Vuskovic, and the young center back recently received a heaping dose of kind words from Croatian national team manager Zlatko Dalic, via Croatia Football:

"A huge talent, he plays excellently in the Bundesliga, and that’s why he got a chance in the senior national team. I think he should be with us to feel the atmosphere and what awaits him. With him, Croatia secures its centre-back for the next 10-15 years."

Nothing about that is an exaggeration. Vuskovic is blowing everyone's minds with his aerial ability, reading of the game, athleticism, ball carrying, and passing accuracy at such a young age. He really might be the second coming of Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero - and then some. What Vuskovic is doing on the pitch with this big opportunity at Hamburg is making those loose comparisons to Sergio Ramos from Spurs fans in the preseason seem a little less outrageous.

So Vuskovic nailing down a starting spot for the Croatian national team for the next two decades is hardly the most grandiose statement one could make about the current Hamburg star. Vuskovic is a truly special player and the biggest defensive talent in world football right now. This loan deal couldn't be going any better for Tottenham Hotspur, as they now know without a shadow of a doubt that the have a real gem on their hands for the next two decades of their own.

Tottenham Hotspur supporters are used to their club and its players getting overlooked by the mainstream despite being a Big Six club, and even though they are off to a hot start this season with the third-most points in the Premier League at the October international break, Spurs continue to be underrated by the masses.

At the start of the season, The Athletic rated Spurs new transfers highly, even ranking Joao Palhinha as the best overall transfer of the summer window, to the surprise of even Spurs supporters.

Fast forward a month later, and Tottenham have downgraded Palhinha from first to sixteenth, even though the Portuguese international has been playing even better football since then, including netting a last-gasp equalizer about a week ago against Wolves.

Palhinha is rated below Ladislav Krejci, Malick Thiaw, and Kiernan Dewsburry-Hall, among others. Now, there are a few great signings who do deserve to be rated above Palhinha, but it seems like there was an awful lot of bias towards more expensive transfers like Nick Woltemade and Gianluigi Donnarumma. When looking at the cost of the deal to acquire Palhinha on loan, you really have to say 16th is a terrible ranking, especially since The Athletic have no reason to be less high on them than when they ranked him first.

Joao Palhinha's snub is the worst offense

Their logic is highly flawed, too, as they state that Palhinha is downgraded in a "culture war" among Spurs fans. (What on earth does that even mean? Do they even know what a "culture war" is?) Their explanation is that Palhinha doesn't fit with Rodrigo Bentancur, but that's simply not the case. The problem in the Spurs midfield is that Bentancur shouldn't be starting, because the midfield works great when Palhinha is in their with Lucas Bergvall or even Archie Gray.

Palhinha wasn't the only snub, though. While a ranking of fourth seems great on paper for Mohammed Kudus, we are talking about the Premier League's leader in dribbles completed and assists. The fact that he's ranked behind Estevao Willian and Adrien Truffert is a snub. Those two players are amazing, and Willian is a better overall signing since he's been class as a teenager. But for the right here, right now, Kudus has been outperforming both and has been making a bigger impact for Tottenham than Estevao has thus far at Chelsea; this isn't a ranking based on future potential.

Because if it were, Xavi Simons would have no business being rated as low as 46th. Granted, he hasn't been as good as he can be, which The Athletic note as the crux of their low ranking, but rating him that low is blasphemous. Clearly, the people doing this ranking are looking at the box score and not the actual matches, because Simons has made a clear positive impact on Spurs; he's just often being played out of position. Simons is being ranked behind forwards who aren't even starting, which is wild.

In July this year, Tottenham Hotspur signed Mohammed Kudus from West Ham on a six-year contract for a reported fee of 55 million. That was a hefty cheque, but it has already started to bear fruit.

Ever since he moved to the Premier League from Ajax, he’s been on the radar of all the big clubs in England, but in the end, Tottenham secured his signing. At this juncture, even though it seems early on many metrics, it can be said that Tottenham made the right gamble on this Ghanaian beast.

The work rate that Kudus has shown, blended with his simple but supreme technical quality in terms of pressing and creating, puts him in a league of his own. Not many players in his positional bracket are at that level right now.

Out of the seven games played so far, Tottenham have lost only one. They are third in the Premier League table, which I’d call a good start to the season - not the best - but definitely good. And Kudus has played a big role, alongside the manager, in achieving this.

Tottenham's signing of the summer was not Xavi Simons

So far, Kudus has started each game and made a goal contribution in almost all. He now stands at four assists and one goal, level with Jack Grealish as the joint-top assist provider in the Premier League.

Even though his heat map is heavily coloured on the wing, you can hardly tell the difference between the dye in both halves. He runs the most and even contributes defensively when needed. An average of 2.1 tackles per game is a good start.

Beyond the statistics and numbers, the sheer beauty and visibility of his game alone make a solid case for why he could be the signing Tottenham had always been looking for this summer.

What’s most impressive about Kudus is that he is a no-nonsense attacker, the kind that Frank apparently loves to experiment with as he goes. Kudus is given instructions, and he executes them just as told. He is not only disciplined but also doesn’t overthink in transitions and counterattacks. That is the most pleasing quality he brings to this newfound Spurs attack.

Moreover, along with being a creative force, he is the first line of defense and does that job quite decently as well. His take-ons are brilliant, and you can truly see the hunger for the ball in his eyes, even from a bird’s-eye view.

He covers the length and breadth of the field and is always eager to deliver. Complaints are seldom his thing, which is why he is the easiest for Frank to mould. Kudus can play multiple roles in this ever-changing team, and that is admirable.