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Former Premier League defender Sebastien Bassong has labelled “top-notch” Tottenham defender Micky van de Ven as the best defender “in the league” as he is the “overall player”.

Van de Ven was a very important asset at the beginning of last season for Spurs. He and fellow new signing James Maddison were both very influential, and that both were injured in the same game, against Chelsea, hampered the north London outfit.

Tottenham had not lost any of their first 10 games in the Premier League, winning eight of them, and keeping four clean sheets. Of the games the defender was sidelined in (and the one he got injured in), Spurs lost six out of 10.

This season, with Van de Ven playing every minute, Tottenham have conceded one goal, and have won and drawn their opening two games.

According to Bassong, the Dutchman is the most complete defender in the league.

“He is top, top-notch. Honestly, from last season, I couldn’t praise him enough,” Bassong said on talkSPORT.

“Sometimes I go to the game or watch the game, people keep asking me ‘one defender in the league’. I say Van de Ven. For me, he is the overall player.

“He’s quick, strong and good on the ball. He takes risks. Sometimes he oversteps. When he is in trouble, he isn’t panicking. And he is so calm on the ball.

“So, you know, even when he is in a one-v-one situation, he is going to do the job. He is the perfect player.”

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It’s high praise for a defender at just the start of his second season to be placed in such high esteem, ahead of Virgil van Dijk, who is frequently seen as the league’s best centre-back, as a result of his quality and longevity for Liverpool.

Van Dijk could leave Anfield at the end of the summer, with his contract up then, and Van de Ven could potentially then keep the crown for some time.

Tottenham could make as many as “two more signings” before the transfer deadline on Friday, according to transfer expert Fabrizio Romano.

Spurs have made five transfers so far this summer with Dominic Solanke, Archie Gray, Wilson Odobert, Lucas Bergvall and Min-hyeok Yang all joining Ange Postecoglou’s side this summer.

That is according to Romano, who reckons there is “still the possibility to do one or two more signings” before the deadline on Friday.

Romano told GiveMeSport: “I would not exclude anything from Tottenham. Apart from Solanke, who was always the top target, all other signings they’ve been very good at keeping in the background. I think, for Tottenham, there’s still the possibility to do one or two more signings.

“I’m not sure it’s going to be two, but it could be. I think Tottenham are going to be one of the clubs to follow in the final days.”

And Football Insider insist that Spurs ‘are prioritising a late-window deal for a centre-back’ with just a few days of the transfer window left.

It is understood that Tottenham are ‘also lining up a move for a new central midfielder’ while they have ‘identified centre-back as a key position where more depth is required in the 2024-25 campaign’.

Solanke, who cost Spurs £65m from Bournemouth, has been their marquee signing of the summer and former Premier League midfielder Gordan Strachan reckons Postecoglou has found his man to “apply the finishing touch”.

Strachan told Lord Ping: “I think Solanke is more than just a goal-scorer; he’s a threat all the time, he wants to go in behind.

“Everyone always talks about a striker getting you 20 or 25 goals a season, but I don’t think that many teams play with one striker that is the complete focal point of a team, where all of the other players are there to feed him.

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“I think Ange wants all of his players in the attacking areas to contribute for him. That’s what happened with his Celtic teams – it wasn’t about one man taking on the scoring burden, it was about everyone chipping in.

“He’ll look at it and think, ‘what can my front three give me?’ He’ll be looking at total goals, so he’ll be happy if Solanke gets 15 goals and Son or Kulusevski get 10 each. That’s what he’ll be aiming for.

“If you’re looking for an out-and-out finisher, then you have to watch Manchester City. Everyone always talks about the limited number of touches that Erling Haaland has, but it’s a complete nonsense because he is in the team to finish off the moves and he does it brilliantly. Keep him as far away from the game as possible. Ange played a bit like that at Celtic with Kyogo finishing everything.

“He’ll get all of his players to play around Solanke and to create opportunities for him, but Solanke may have to make a few adjustments to his game and resist the urge to drop off, because we know he’s got the ability to do that.

“Tottenham definitely needed a player to apply the finishing touch. Hopefully, Ange has found that man in Dom Solanke.”

Barcelona are reportedly eyeing a cut-price deal for Tottenham left-back Sergio Reguilon, who the club are reportedly ‘keen to cash in on’ with his contract ticking down.

Reguilon has never played north of 27 Premier League games in a season at Tottenham. While he was signed in 2020, he only played at Spurs – sparsely – in 2020/21 and 2021/22.

He has since been sent out on loans to Atletico Madrid, Manchester United and Brentford. Two of those loans were in one season, Ange Postecoglou’s first as Spurs manager, and he did not include the left-back in the squad for the first game of this season.

According to Football Insider, the club would be ‘keen to cash in’ on Reguilon now, given his contract with them is up in a year’s time.

And they have got a perfect opportunity to make some money off him, as the report states Barcelona are looking for a cut-price deal for the Spaniard.

With Reguilon ‘almost certain to leave’ amid his club’s stance, it is no surprise that Barca think they can get him on the cheap. What price that would be remains to be seen, but Tottenham will be open to offers.

The La Liga giants are not the only Spanish side who are interested in snaring Reguilon this summer, though.

The report states other La Liga sides are ‘keeping a close eye on his progress’ and have been ‘put on alert’ by his availability late in the summer.

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With Barca having seen Marcos Alonso leave on a free transfer earlier this summer, they want to provide cover for Alejandro Balde at left-back, and feel Reguilon would be useful given he is from Spain and may be willing to ‘play a squad role’.

It has previously been suggested that his future lies in England, with interest from a couple of sides, so it remains to be seen if he’d be open to returning to his native Spain.

If the option is that or sitting on the bench at Tottenham, or even watching from home – if he is indeed given a choice – the former would surely be the best plan for him.

After the giddy optimism and excitement of pre-season comes the second and much more fun staging post of a football season.

The widespread mass jerking of the knee. In some cases, this involves doubling down on the optimism. That’s fine, but also quite boring really. Happy people are enormously dull, and happy football fans the absolute worst of them. Their only use is as an investment, because while they may be annoying now you know that for 90% of them the bum’s rush is coming and you’ll get to watch the show.

But in the first instance the far more enjoyable jerks are those that lurch the other way. Where hope is instantly replaced by despair. Where optimism gives way instantly to the familiar dark clouds.

And lads, it’s Tottenham.

There was so very much to enjoy about their season opener for a committed knee-jerker. What was particularly exciting was the way they managed to package up the entire narrative arc of Angeball season one into a single bitesize, 90-minute chunk.

A hugely exciting and encouraging start that suggests something really quite special might be about to happen, eye-catching early success for the unorthodox attacking methods at the heart of the strategy, then one defensive setback causes the entire house of cards to dramatically collapse in a flurry of panic and bad decisions, meaning in the end nothing of any great tangible value can be achieved and questions must be asked about the entire strategy.

At the very, very least, Spurs have this season saved us all a lot of time.

But while that more macro knee-jerk is fine – and hard to argue with the ‘don’t qualify for Europe’ shout that made it into our official list of matchday one jerkings – we found ourselves with a more specific one.

Even we’re not going to judge Dominic Solanke too harshly for missing a few chances on debut, even though it only served to heighten the nagging doubts gnawing at us, nor Brennan Johnson for his continued refusal to quite be the finished product when it comes to decision-making in promising areas.

With both those lads, there is at least reason to believe or at least hope their career trajectory remains upwards.

It was the other starter in Tottenham’s front three who alarmed us most; Son Heung-min’s career is not on an upward trajectory.

He has been a sensational player for Tottenham, quite obviously, but it’s starting to feel like that past tense might be necessary.

The club captain can no longer be considered undroppable.

Son started 34 of Spurs’ Premier League games last season. He missed three games on Asia Cup duty, and then came off the bench in his first game back on club duty.

Apart from that, he was the first name on the team sheet. Of those 34 starts, the only time he played less than an hour was when withdrawn on 58 minutes at Newcastle with the game already demonstrably up.

No other attacking player came particularly close to his level of involvement. Son played 2948 minutes of Premier League football last season, with Dejan Kulusevski 200 minutes behind and a distant third on that list James Maddison despite missing a large chunk of it through injury.

That’s what needs to change. Son remains a perfectly viable option for Spurs’ multi-faceted attack, but that’s how he should now be seen. Another option among many. He no longer merits a starting spot in all conditions against all opposition, no questions asked.

And in truth while this is in part a lashing-out response to one night of disappointment for Spurs, it’s not entirely that. We’ve already this summer included Son on a hot-take list of players each club should be selling.

That’s maybe a touch far – but only a touch. Son did score 17 Premier League goals last season, but nearly half of those came in that giddy and illusory 10-game opening run when all things seemed possible. He scored only five goals in 15 games after the Asian Cup, and Monday night’s blank makes it two goals and two assists in his last 10 Premier League games.

It already feels like a significant early test of Angeball Mk II. Does the boss have the big Aussie balls to make a statement and leave his captain out of the starting XI over the next couple of weeks?

There’s a compelling argument for doing so based purely on Son’s own form, but another exists in the identity of their next opponents.

Spurs face Everton in their first home game of the season, an Everton side reeling from a 3-0 spanking from Brighton in their own opening game and who, thanks to an injury crisis and Ashley Young’s wonky decision-making, find themselves without a single recognised first-team right-back for their trip to London.

It could therefore be just the game for Son to rediscover his form. But more tantalisingly, could it not be a game for unleashing your shiny new quick, tricky, dribbly winger to give whichever poor sod is asked to fill in some twisted blood?

Football moves fast and ‘Spurs should leave out Son Heung-min and pick Wilson Odobert instead’ is a sentence that even a week ago would make you sound like a mad man. But one jerk of the knee later and you can’t deny it makes perfect sense. Go on. Admit it.

Premier League club Tottenham are ‘ready to offer’ around £26million for AS Monaco right-back Vanderson, according to reports.

Vanderson signed a four-year contract extension in February but has been strongly linked with a move to Tottenham this summer.

The 23-year-old assisted the only goal of the game as Monaco beat newly promoted Saint-Etienne in their Ligue 1 opener.

He joined the French side from Gremio for a reported 11 million euros in January 2022 and has played 85 times for them, scoring six and providing 10 assists.

Monaco reportedly want around 40 million euros for Vanderson and Tottenham appear to be reluctant to pay that fee.

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Despite Vanderson’s quality, Spurs’ interest is surprising given Pedro Porro’s presence at the club, though they are in the market for a new right-back following Emerson Royal’s move to AC Milan.

Ange Postecoglou does also have Djed Spence at his disposal, however, the 24-year-old’s future in north London is uncertain and has been since the day he joined the club, to be honest.

Tottenham ‘ready’ offer for right-back but club want ‘substantial’ money

With that in mind, reports from France claim that Spurs are ‘ready to offer’ for Vanderson.

Monaco recently signed Dutch defender Jordan Teze from PSV Eindhoven but it is believed he is not a replacement for the two-cap Brazilian international.

This does not mean he is unavailable this summer, with the Ligue 1 side willing to sell for the right price.

Spurs have not met their £34m valuation but are preparing an offer worth £25.6m, it is claimed.

This is expected to be rejected as Monaco seek ‘substantial’ money and it is unclear if the Londoners are willing to bid any higher for a player in a position they do not need to spend big money on.

‘Every season, it is always the same thing – they always come up short’

Meanwhile, William Gallas insists Spurs are unlikely to finish higher than fourth in the Premier League this season.

Postecoglou’s side kicked off their 2024/25 campaign with a 1-1 draw against Leicester City on Monday night, taking the lead through Pedro Porro before Jamie Vardy’s second-half equaliser.

Interestingly, former Spurs defender Gallas has claimed that he doesn’t want to burst the club’s bubble when saying they won’t challenge for the Premier League title this season, as if fans expect that to happen.

Of course, Postecoglou wants to win every competition his side is in, but a title challenge feels very unrealistic.

Nevertheless, Gallas said: “I don’t want to burst the Tottenham fans’ bubble, but I’m not convinced that it will be a great season for the club. I don’t expect Tottenham to challenge for the Premier League title.

“Every season, it is always the same thing – they always come up short.

“I’m looking at the squad, and, yes, I like the signing of [Dominic] Solanke. They have signed a couple of talented young players, but other than that, it is the same team as last season.

“I haven’t seen anything that makes me think this is a Tottenham team that is ready to fight for the title. Maybe they can finish fourth. Maybe they will finish fifth again.

“I think Tottenham’s season will be determined by how Ange Postecoglou wants to play and how well the squad deals with the rigors of playing every Thursday and Sunday with the Europa League.”

It took ten games for the Tottenham title challenge to end last season, but it lasted just 45 minutes in 2024/2025. Familiar problems endure for Ange Postecoglou.

After £65m man Dominic Solanke nodded one straight at the goalkeeper early on and looked to to be the only incongruous part of a Tottenham team that was clicking impressively, Jamie Vardy – whom we had been told incessantly Had No Pre-Season by the commentary team, perhaps in a bid to explain his almost complete lack of involvement up to that point in the 57th minute – glanced a chance of similar difficulty, his first sniff, past Gugliermo Vicario to give Leicester parity in a game they should have been well out of.

It was lovely to see some life in the old dog, even if our whimsical hopes of a season of prime Vardy were short-lived as the Leicester striker raced through on goal off the last Tottenham man soon after to miss a chance he would have gobbled up in his heyday. He looked utterly exhausted as he shouted into the night sky. But then again, he Had No Pre-Season!

Spurs were dominant in the first half. The full-backs were high and aggressive, the centre-backs quick and comfortable and James Maddison pulled the strings in midfield. It felt very like the start of last season, when after the first ten games Tottenham led the way in the Premier League and were deemed to be in the title race, premature though that felt before their collapse against Chelsea and absurd as it turned out come the end of the campaign

Their goal was Ange Postecoglou’s style in a nutshell: forward pass after forward pass to pin Leicester into their own box before the ball was set back for Maddison to deliver a lovely cross for Pedro Porro – a full-back in a striker’s position – to flick beyond Mads Hermansen.

Spurs had 10 shots and 22 touches in the opposition box to Leicester’s one on both counts in the first 45 minutes. The gulf was massive; so big that it felt like it couldn’t merely be a case of a seasoned group of top flight players putting a team ill-prepared for life in the Premier League to the sword, but a relegation candidate against a side prepared to do something special this season. How wrong we were.

After a half-time ‘lads, it’s Tottenham’ from Steve Cooper, Leicester got in Spurs faces, made the most of space behind the bombing full-backs and could quite easily have won the game in the end. Vicario made that one point-blank save from Vardy and another in injury time after Lucas Bergvall gave the ball away having come on as a substitute to produce a delightfully Spursy cameo featuring a few lovely touches and that one panic-stricken moment that nearly cost his team.

Postecoglou will be hugely frustrated. His team should have been out of sight, and probably would have been had Solanke been in and around the team for even two or three weeks longer. He missed that one big chance but also wasn’t quite on the same wavelength of his teammates throughout the game. Balls were crossed into areas he should have been in while many of the runs he made went unnoticed.

But there were other issues. Cristian Romero was attracted to the ball, as is frequently the case, to give Vardy far too much space in the box to score, and Micky van de Ven looks set once again for a workload that may well prove to be too much for one – admittedly very fast – individual, with the flanks in behind Destiny Udogie and Pedro Porro the very obvious areas opposition teams can hurt them consistently.

The difference in composure from the first half to the second was the most alarming aspect of the game though. They very clearly did not like it up’em, and that enduring quirk of Spurs teams that somehow spans generations remains the significant hurdle for Postecoglou’s side to mount a title challenge. Maybe next season.

Leicester City have reportedly agreed terms with Tottenham Hotspur on a deal to take Oliver Skipp off their hands, with the midfielder now set for a medical ahead of a potential move to the King Power Stadium.

The Athletic’s David Ornstein writes that fee worth over £20m has between agreed between the two clubs and that Skipp travelled to the East Midlands for a medical on Sunday.

As chance would have it, Leicester City will host Tottenham Hotspur on Monday evening as the opening weekend of Premier League action comes to a close. Skipp would be ineligible to appear in the fixture, however: his registration would need to have been registered with the Premier League by midday on Friday.

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Earlier reports had suggested that Tottenham wanted to add to their midfield ranks before they would countenance a move away for Skipp, but if that was indeed the case, they now appear content that new arrivals Archie Gray from Leeds United and Lucas Bergvall from Djurgarden are sufficient reinforcements for now.

Should the move go through, Skipp would link back up with fellow Spurs academy graduate Harry Winks, who made the move to Leicester last summer and played a key role in helping them achieve automatic promotion back to the Premier League as Championship winners.

Skipp will also be a familiar face to new manager Steve Cooper, who managed him at youth level for England. Cooper joined Leicester earlier this summer after Enzo Maresca was poached by Chelsea.

Leicester could face an uphill battle to avoid relegation back to the Championship again as they face charges of allegedly breaching the game’s profit and sustainability rules, which can be punished with a points deduction.

Leicester have also been hit by the loss of striker Patson Daka to an ankle injury suffered in a pre-season friendly against Lens last month, with Cooper confirming that he is expected to be out for ‘months’.

Tottenham meanwhile have ambitions of building on last year’s fifth place finish, which saw them finish two points adrift of a Champions League place.

Spurs dropped just four points in the first ten games of last season but were very streaky for the rest of Ange Postecoglou’s first campaign in charge.

Postecogolou reflected ahead of the new season: “Obviously, we changed the football and we had some really good moments and some moments where we had to work really hard to get some results and probably the back end of last season was disappointing for us.

“There’s a lot in there but for us if we can get improvement in that then more consistency gives us an opportunity and a platform to try to achieve something which is what you go into every season trying to do.”

Manor Solomon will reportedly be loaned out by Tottenham this summer, while 17-year-old attacker Mikey Moore is set to stay in the spot that he could have filled.

Solomon was unfortunately ruled out for the rest of last season at the end of September, having played just five Premier League games. He had started two of those, and assisted twice in a 5-2 win over Burnley.

Following on from the good start he had, Solomon could have continued his form throughout the season, had he remained fit.

But that he missed most of the campaign has hurt him, as the Standard reports he ‘is likely to be loaned out’.

The winger has been surpassed by 17-year-old academy talent Moore, who it’s said will be part of Ange Postecoglou’s squad.

The forward turned 17 in August, and operates either as a left-winger – Solomon’s position – or a central striker. Moore was in red-hot form last season in the under-18 Premier League, bagging 14 goals and eight assists.

He also netted two goals and assisted once in the FA Youth Cup, and has been fast-tracked to the first team from the 18s, having only played two Premier League 2 goals last term.

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Moore is believed to have a very high ceiling, and Tottenham have worked hard to keep him at the club, amid interest from a number of Europe’s biggest sides.

Moore scored the winner in the 3-2 pre-season victory over Vissel Kobe during the tour of Japan, showing he is already capable of having an impact at senior level.

He will compete with the likes of Brennan Johnson, Heung-min Son and Richarlison for a place, but will not have to worry about Solomon, in a sign he is now held in higher regard as his development continues.

Fellow academy products Alfie Devine, Ashley Phillips and Jamie Donley will reportedly be loaned out, but Moore has done enough to show he’s worthy of playing in the Tottenham first team.

Alan Hutton believes the sale of Cristian Romero by Tottenham would be an “absolute nightmare” at this stage of the transfer window, though the fee of a potential Real Madrid transfer would be “huge”.

Romero has racked up 98 Tottenham appearances in three seasons with the club. He’s helped the north London outfit to fourth and fifth-placed finishes in two of those seasons.

While his temperament sometimes lets him down, Romero is clearly a vital member of the side, and in the best centre-back pairing, alongside Micky van de Ven.

But there is potential that Romero departs soon, with Real Madrid keen, and a recent report stating he could be leaving. While former Premier League defender Hutton feels Tottenham could raise a big fee from that transfer, he thinks it would tear the side apart at the start of the season.

“I think the fee would be huge,” Hutton told Football Insider.

“If you think about what Crystal Palace want for Marc Guehi, around £70million, I know he’s young and he’s had a brilliant Euros, I really like him as a player.

“I know Romero can be rash at times, that is what it is, but I think for what he does, his recovery tackles, he just suits Tottenham.

“I think they’d be talking about that same mark [£70million] and if they don’t hit that I don’t think they’ll want to sell.

“He’s such an important player for Tottenham next to Van de Ven, I think they complement each other.

“To lose Romero at this stage of the transfer window going into the first game of the season would be an absolute nightmare for the manager.”

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Indeed, Spurs will already be without Yves Bissouma, who was an important asset last season, for the start of the campaign, after he was suspended by the club following a social media video.

They would surely rather not lose Romero as well, with little time to find a proper replacement.

Seeing him leave would derail their season at the worst tame, after a stable pre-season which has allowed the squad to gel together more ahead of the second campaign under Ange Postecoglou.

Ange Postecoglou has told Yves Bissouma he must make “better decisions” after revealing he has been “suspended” by Tottenham following a social media video.

Bissouma played 28 Premier League games for Tottenham last season, as they finished fifth. He only missed games through injury, suspensions for being carded, and national team duty with Mali.

This summer, he has featured regularly for Spurs in pre-season, starting their last game – a 3-2 loss to Harry Kane’s Bayern Munich on August 10.

But the midfielder reportedly posted a video of himself inhaling laughing gas to social media, and Postecoglou has confirmed that has led to a suspension for the first game of the season, against Leicester on August 19.

“Been in the game for a long time, when a situation like this arises, I’ve tried to look at them in a couple of ways. First there’s a person and it’s Biss and he’s made a poor decision,” Postecoglou said, quoted by football.london.

“There are still sanctions involved, and some of those are educational. He is a footballer with responsibilities.

“He won’t be available on Monday. We’ve suspended him from Monday’s game. He needs to build that trust back with both me and the group. The door is open for him and we can help him realise the decisions he makes impact the group.”

Whether or not Bissouma can build up the trust with the club immediately after the first game of the season is unclear, but Postecoglou has told him how to do so.

“Behaviour mate. It’s that simple. It’s about making better decisions. He was very apologetic to me, the club and everyone involved but that’s just part of it,” he said.

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There are positives for Postecoglou, though, largely in the form of new signing Dominic Solanke, who has been bought from Bournemouth for £65million after 19 Premier League goals last season.

“Thankfully, it’s what we expected. He’s a top pro and he’s settled into the dressing room really well. Football-wise, you can see how he’s going to fit in. So far he’s fitted in really well with the group in training,” Postecoglou added.

It’s likely that the new striker will start against Leicester, while Richarlison, who played up top at times last season “has trained well” and “needs minutes” so could well also be given a run out, whether that be from the start or coming off the bench.