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Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglou didn’t waste much time in revelling in his team’s success on Thursday night, before turning to address the criticism that he has faced at the North London club this season. Spurs beat Norwegian side Bodø/Glimt 2-0 in the second leg of their semi-final clash, winning the tie 5-1 on aggregate to set them up for a tantalising Europa League final against Manchester United. And the Australian manager clearly felt the success was proof that he knows what he’s doing at Tottenham.

"It's going to upset a lot of people isn't it," Postecoglou said after the game in regards to Tottenham and Man Utd reaching the final, despite their dreadful domestic form this season. "The debate's now raging. The latest one is that neither of us will be able to get a trophy if we win, they're just going to take a team photo because we're not worthy. I mean, who cares if we're struggling in the league? It's a separate thing. It's got nothing to do with league form. I couldn't care less who's struggling and who's not. I think both us and Manchester United have earned the right to be there."

Club Comparison

Tottenham Hotspur

Manchester United

Premier League

Premier League

€836.10m

Market Value

€699.25m

First Tier

League Level

First Tier

€175.35m

Expenditures 24/25

€246.30m

Ange Postecoglou

Managers

Ruben Amorim

Full Club Comparison

Indeed, despite sitting 16th in the Premier League table, Tottenham fans will be ecstatic at the thought of the club winning its first piece of European silverware in 41 years, when Spurs beat Anderlecht to win the UEFA Cup. Prior to this coming final, Tottenham’s last trophy came in 2008, when they beat Chelsea to win the English League Cup, which means the North London side have only won one piece of silverware in the last 24 years. As such, Postecoglou has not only gone some way to redeeming his reputation among many Spurs fans, but his team’s form in Europe this season has been somewhat unprecedented from a Tottenham point of view.

Postecoglou’s impressive European form

Although Tottenham have a storied history of challenging for the top four in the Premier League, the club’s record on the continent is far more patchy. As previously noted, the club haven’t reached the final of the Europa League/UEFA Cup since winning it in 1984, and while they did make a startling run to the Champions League final in 2019, that was only the second time that they’ve ever gotten beyond the Last 16 of the competitions. In no uncertain terms, Tottenham’s record in Europe has left a lot to be desired and Postecoglou’s dash towards this season’s final is somewhat unprecedented.

For example, when we take a look at Postecoglou’s record since making the move to Tottenham, we can see just how much of an outlier his team’s form in Europe has been. In the Premier League Tottenham have averaged just 1.42 points per game and in the FA Cup and League Cup Spurs haven’t been much better with just 1.50 points per game. However, when it comes to Europe the Tottenham manager can call upon a very impressive 2.14 points per game. And when we compare that to his predecessors it once again underlines how impressive this season’s run has been.

In the summer of 2023, after 14 years as a player at Tottenham, Harry Kane finally left north London in pursuit of winning his first major trophy to accompany his many individual accolades. Kane won the Premier League golden boot three times while at Spurs. If you want guaranteed trophies, there's not many better teams to sign for than German giants Bayern Munich. In a €95m deal, Kane joined the Bavarian side who had won the last 11 Bundesliga titles back-to-back. Add to that the Champions League in 2020 and it was clear that one of the world's best strikers was joining serial winners. More incoming trophies seemed a foregone conclusion. But misfortune followed Kane to Germany, as he stared down the barrel of the club's first trophy-less season in 13 years. Fast-forward 12 months and the curse is finally broken.

Having scored 360 club career goals whilst playing for top-five league clubs, Kane has finally added a major trophy to his cabinet, after Bayern sealed the Bundesliga title with their 3-2 comeback win against RB Leipzig. The Bavarian lager will be tasting sweeter than ever for the England captain. No player this century was anywhere near his tally of 360 goals without a major trophy, but which star now holds that unwanted accolade? At Transfermarkt, we have listed the top 20 players with the most goals for top-five league clubs since 2000, without ever winning a major trophy. A major trophy has been counted as any top-five league title, any top-five league main domestic cup, the EFL Cup in England, the Champions League, the Europa League, The Europa Conference League, the World Cup and the European Championships.

Most goals in Europe's top-5 leagues since 2000 without a major trophy

Following Kane leaving this unwanted group, the new leader is French striker Wissam Ben Yedder. The forward has scored as many as 259 goals for Monaco, Sevilla and Toulouse but has never won a major trophy with any of those clubs. In second is Italian cult hero Antonio Di Natale, who scored 247 career goals for Udinese and Empoli, but was never able to get over the line and win a trophy. In third spot and rapidly rising up the list is Kane's former teammate Heung-min Son. The South Korean has scored 222 goals for Tottenham, Bayer Leverkusen and Hamburg but never tastes ultimate glory. The closest he came was the 2019 Champions League final, in which Spurs lost 2-0 to Liverpool.

In fourth place is former Spanish striker Aritz Aduriz, who scored 219 goals for various LaLiga clubs with no major trophies to his name. Fifth goes to former Bayer Leverkusen striker Stefan Kießling, who scored 177 goals with an empty trophy cabinet. In sixth is Vedad Ibisevic with 156 goals. He is followed in seventh by Andrej Kramaric with 147 goals. Eighth goes to former Germany striker Kevin Kuranyi with 144 goals. In ninth place is Marseille and West Ham legend Dimitri Payet with 142 goals, whilst former French striker Anthony Modeste completes the top 10 with 135 goals.

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Liverpool fans would struggle to pick faults in their team so soon after winning the Premier League title, but luckily for them the club itself are already working hard on preparations for next season. That, naturally, involves signing new players to provide upgrades on some stars that have perhaps passed their peak or to simply bolster positions that looked a little understocked throughout this season. And if reports are to be believed, the Anfield club are ready to splash the cash to add additional firepower to Arne Slot’s side.

Market Value

H. Ekitiké Centre-Forward

€55.00m

According to the Daily Mail, Liverpool have identified no less than three players that they’ll make priority signings in the summer. Two are defensive stars at Bournemouth in the form of Dean Huijsen and Milos Kerkez, but the third is none other than Eintracht Frankfurt’s star striker Hugo Ekitiké. According to the English publication, Liverpool expect to sell Darwin Núñez in the summer and the Bundesliga talisman has been earmarked as the perfect replacement. So how good is Ekitiké and could he be the answer to Liverpool’s problems in attack next season?

From Ligue 1 flop to Bundesliga talisman

Ekitiké began his career in France for Ligue 1 side Stade Reims. At the French club, the young striker burst onto the scene in his debut season in the first team bagging no less than 11 goals and five assists in 27 games. That quickly led to a €28.5 million move to Paris Saint-Germain in 2023, but after just eight goals and assists in 33 games for the Parisian giants he was then sent out on loan to Frankfurt in January of last year. After an impressive six months at the club, he then joined the Bundesliga side permanently last summer for just €16.5m and has been one of the bargains of the season ever since.

With a return to regular game time has also come a consistent stream of goals and assists that has quickly projected Ekitiké back into the list of top talents in European football under the age of 23. As we can see in the table above, only two players in the Frankfurt striker’s age group - Barcelona star Lamine Yamal and PSG winger Bradley Barcola - have bagged more goals and assists than Ekitiké this season in all competitions. Which certainly goes some way to explaining why the player is reportedly on Liverpool’s shopping list but has also been heavily linked with a move to Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur in recent months too.

Stats

H. Ekitiké Centre-Forward

Stade Reims

Career stats–

All competitions

Games

Goals

Assists

As a result of his rebound at Frankfurt, Ekitiké’s market value has unsurprisingly shot through the roof over the course of the last 18 months. Prior to leaving PSG, the young forward’s market value had fallen to just €15m but since swapping Paris for Frankfurt, Ekitiké’s market value has risen by a remarkable €40m where it now stands at €55m. This makes the young forward the most valuable player at Frankfurt and the eighth most valuable in the Bundesliga, as well as the 14th most valuable centre forward in the world. But that will likely change in the coming years.

Rumour H. Ekitiké Centre-Forward

E. Frankfurt 30 % Liverpool Bundesliga Premier League

Rumour H. Ekitiké Centre-Forward

E. Frankfurt 48 % Tottenham Bundesliga Premier League

Rumour H. Ekitiké Centre-Forward

E. Frankfurt ? Arsenal Bundesliga Premier League

The perfect striker partner for Salah?

While Ekitiké’s goals and assists certainly speak for themselves and would have most Liverpool fans salivating at the prospect of him playing for the Anfield club next season, there is also an additional bonus to him potentially making the move to the club: he may be the perfect striker partner to play alongside Mohamed Salah. While Núñez has struggled to fit into Slot’s tactics, which clearly prioritises passes out right to Salah’s feet, Ekitiké has plenty of experience of playing alongside wide players that are the main contributors of goals and assists in their team. After all, he played alongside Kylian Mbappé at PSG, but what will intrigue Slot and his backroom staff is the partnership Ekitiké struck with Omar Marmoush at Frankfurt this season.

Player Comparison

Omar Marmoush

Mohamed Salah

Manchester City

Liverpool FC

€75.00m

Market Value

€55.00m

Age

Centre-Forward

Position

Right Winger

Jun 30, 2029

Contract until

Jun 30, 2027

Full Player Comparison

Like Salah, Marmoush was a pacey winger who loved to cut inside from the wing to score or create goals in the box. Alongside Ekitiké as his traditional No.9, Marmoush bagged a remarkable 20 goals and 14 assists in just 26 games for Frankfurt, before moving to Manchester City in the January transfer window for €75m. And to Ekitiké’s credit, while he certainly thrived alongside Marmoush, he’s been just as impressive for Frankfurt without the Egyptian forward and in many ways stepped into a leading role to help guide the Eagles to a top-four finish in the Bundesliga.

As we can see in the graphic above, while Marmoush was at the club this season Ekitiké averaged 0.85 goals and assists per 90 minutes in all competitions for the club. While that figure certainly dropped after the Egyptian departed for the Premier League, it only fell slightly to 0.79 goals and assists per 90. Which not only suggests that Ekitiké adapted to life without his strike partner, but that he’s perfectly adaptable at either playing in a front two or as the lone striker in a 4-3-3 formation. And that should be music to Slot and Liverpool’s ears, should they make a serious move for the striker this summer.

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The Europa League has a habit of offering up unexpected away days for football fans, as clubs travel to all corners of Europe to compete for the continental competition. As such, die-hard fans are expected to rack up the air miles, but when it comes to Tottenham Hotspurs’s opponents on Thursday, they’ll be used to the long flights. To make the trip to North London for the first leg of their Europa League semi-final clash against Spurs, Bodø/Glimt and their most loyal fans will need to depart the Arctic Circle and travel 1,926 miles southwest. And for every single one of them, it’ll be a trip worth making.

With Athletic Bilbao and Manchester United locking horns in the other Europa League tie, Bodø/Glimt are unquestionably the only minnows left in this season’s European competition. However, after finishing ninth in the initial group table, only to then beat FC Twente, Olympiacos and then Lazio in truly dramatic fashion on penalties, the Norwegian side have certainly made a habit of upsetting the odds in Europe. Not bad for a club that only returned to the top flight of Norwegian football in 2018 and are based in a village with a smaller population than most Spurs home games. So how did Bodø/Glimt go from irrelevance in the Tippeligaen to giant killers in the Europa League?

Club Comparison

Tottenham Hotspur

FK Bodø/Glimt

Premier League

Eliteserien

€836.10m

Market Value

€43.15m

First Tier

League Level

First Tier

€175.35m

Expenditures 24/25

€6.99m

Ange Postecoglou

Managers

Kjetil Knutsen

Full Club Comparison

The Kjetil Knutsen factor

The one man that has been a constant throughout Bodø/Glimt rise up the ranks domestically and on the continent is manager Kjetil Knutsen. Hired half-way through their first season back in the top-flight, Knutsen has guided the club to four of the last five league championships in the Eliteserien. And alongside the domestic success, the club have also made waves in Europe, reaching the quarter finals of the Conference League against Roma in 2022. However, this season’s run in the Europa League is undoubtedly uncharted waters for the Nordic club. “I hope we are an example for all other teams. If we can do it, so can others,” said the 56-year-old tactician after their win over Lazio. “We showed ourselves on the international arena, and more people will come to play here. It will be a milestone for Norwegian football.”

To no great surprise, Knutsen has dominated Norwegian football since establishing himself at Bodø/Glimt in 2018, averaging an impressive 2.02 points per league game and picking up no less than 432 points over the course of 214 matches in Eliteserien. As we can see in the table above, no other manager in Norwegian football can come close to the Bodø/Glimt boss in that time, with the second best head coach being Molde boss Erling Moe, who has only picked up 371 points in that period of time. Albeit with 34 fewer games in the Norwegian top-flight.

Despite their minnows status, Knutsen demands that his teams play on the front foot. Typically playing a 4-3-3 formation, his teams play with a high press, try to make the most of quick transitions, and look to counter attack with impressive, attacking football. As such, they should prove to be an interesting test for Tottenham, who also play a similar style of football under Ange Postecoglou. Whether Spurs can stop them or if they’ll simply be the next giant slain by the Norwegian raiders remains to be seen. But either way, it should be an exciting game and one that the Norwegian club will give their all in.

Forward thinking on and off the pitch

Although Bodø/Glimt have spent more money than any other Norwegian club since the start of the 2018 season, their total expenditure on transfer fees stands at just €5.3m more than domestic rivals Molde. But when it comes to income made from player sales in that same period of time, Bodø/Glimt have profited to the tune of €77.3m - which stands at almost twice that of Molde’s (€45.2m) income from selling stars to bigger clubs in Europe. And that’s because the club are experts at identifying and developing young players in Norwegian football. Whether it be Jens Petter Hauge, Victor Boniface or Albert Grønbæk, who left the club last summer to join Stade Rennais for €15m, the Norwegian club have outsmarted their domestic rivals off the pitch just as well as they’ve outplayed them on it. Which goes some way to explaining why the club can lay claim to no less than four of the Eliteserien’s 10 biggest sales of all time.

When it comes to the current crop of future stars in the Bodø/Glimt team, Tottenham fans will want to be wary of 21-year-old right-back Fredrik Sjøvold, who has started all but one of the club’s Europa League games to date. Alongside him in defence will most likely be 20-year-old central defender Villads Nielsen, who joined the club from Nordsjaelland’s youth team and has already broken into Knutsen’s first team with his excellent, defensive performances. But the player that Postecoglou will be warning his team about the most will be star striker Kasper Høgh, who has bagged no fewer than 14 goals and four assists in 22 games for the club this season, including no less than three goals in the two legs against Olympiacos.

Whether or not Knutsen’s impressive tactics and the club’s smart recruitment will be enough to overcome Tottenham remains to be seen. At the end of the day, the Premier League giants are facing a club with a combined market value of just €43.1m - less than one Brennan Johnson. But, as Knutsen pointed out after the Lazio game, Bodø/Glimt have already done Norwegian football proud in Europe this season. And remain an impressive example for clubs all over Europe to follow.

Tottenham announced on Tuesday that young midfielder star Lucas Bergvall had signed a new deal with the club that will keep the 19-year-old talent at the club until the summer of 2031. The new contract, which will reflect the player’s growing stature in Ange Postecoglou’s side, is a two-year extension on the deal Bergvall signed last summer, when he made the move to Spurs from Djurgården for €10 million.

Although the central midfielder was initially signed as a prospect who could potentially earn some game time off the bench in his first season at the club, an unprecedented number of injuries thrust Bergvall into the team’s first-team plans. Since mid-December, the Swedish star has been a regular for Postecoglou’s side in the Premier League. To date, he has one goal and four assists in 45 games across all competitions and has now started no fewer than 32 percent of Tottenham’s league games this season. As such, a new deal for the young star to better reflect his role in the team makes perfect sense.

Bergvall’s adaptability has made him a vitally important player to Tottenham this season. Played out left, as a defensive midfielder or even as an attacking playmaker, the young Swede seems to be perfectly content doing a job in just about any position in Postecoglou’s team. When asked about the player’s talent in January, the Spurs boss said: “Usually, midfielders will tend to be one or the other, but he seems to cover the defensive side of the game, have the technical ability to dictate tempos but also have the running capacity to break lines.”

As a rare source of hope in a deeply troubled season, Spurs fans have enjoyed watching Bergvall go from strength to strength for the club this season. So much so that Bergvall has already overtaken Yves Bissouma in Postecoglou’s midfield pecking order and will likely supplant Pape Matar Sarr too as a first-choice starter for the club’s midfield next season. Along the way, the midfielder’s market value has more than doubled from €12m to €25m during his first season in North London, making Bergvall the third most valuable midfielder aged 19 or younger in world football.

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Tottenham have endured another miserable Premier League season with the North London club languishing in 14th position, but the Europa League could provide a silver lining. Ange Postecoglou is under significant pressure but winning their first silverware since the League Cup in 2008 would ultimately represent a successful season. But after edging past AZ Alkmaar in the last round, Tottenham face Bundesliga high-flyers Eintracht Frankfurt in the quarter-finals.

Club Comparison

Tottenham Hotspur

Eintracht Frankfurt

Premier League

Bundesliga

€836.10m

Market Value

€323.05m

First Tier

League Level

First Tier

€175.35m

Expenditures 24/25

€76.85m

Ange Postecoglou

Managers

Dino Toppmöller

Full Club Comparison

Frankfurt famously won the competition in 2022, beating Rangers in the final and they’ll be confident of progressing past Spurs. Despite losing star play Omar Marmoush to Manchester City in January, Frankfurt currently sit third in the Bundesliga and are battling to secure Champions League football next season. So what can Tottenham expect from their quarter-final opponents? We’ve received the lowdown from Transfermarkt’s Bundesliga expert, Tobias Picker.

How good have Frankfurt been this season?

After finishing an impressive 6th in the Bundesliga last season, Frankfurt have improved this season under the guidance of highly-rated manager Dino Toppmoller. Frankfurt don’t possess the financial resources of Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, RB Leipzig or Bayer Leverkusen but they’ve developed a reputation for nurturing talented attacking talent across the last few years. There’s currently seven German clubs competing for two Champions League places with Frankfurt third on 48 points, but Stuggart in ninth are only eight points behind with six games remaining.

“The current strong third place actually reflects more the inconsistency of their rivals,” Picker said. “Nevertheless, Frankfurt still has a good chance of qualifying for the Champions League — which would be a tremendous success given the circumstances at the start of the season.”

Who is Frankfurt’s most dangerous player?

Marmoush was undoubtedly Frankfurt’s star performer with 15 league goals before Manchester City splashed €75 million to sign the Egyptian in January. Frankfurt, however, still have a squad brimming with talent, including Hugo Ekitiké. The French striker joined permanently for €16.5m in the summer from PSG but his market value increased by +€35m across the campaign to €55m. German football expert Picker, however, has identified a household name as a Frankfurt player that Tottenham will need to be wary of.

“At the moment, Mario Götze is definitely an important factor,” he added, “Not least in the round of 16 against Ajax, he steered the game and, now firmly occupying the number ten role if possible, showcased his class – even apart from his three goals in March. A big problem now appears to be the wings, especially after the injury of Ansgar Knauff that led to Götze having to cover the right wing. Obviously, with him on the right, missing in the central, Frankfurt struggles more.”

What are Frankfurt’s strengths and weaknesses?

“The significant drop in attacking threat - as seen most recently in the 2-0 defeat in Bremen - is still clearly a symptom of Marmoush's departure,” Picker added. “Until his move to Manchester, Frankfurt averaged 2.2 goals per game. Afterwards, that number dropped to just 1.3, along with a fairly average points tally. Frankfurt has also been quite inconsistent this season, although they’ve had to make some fundamental changes in key positions.

Match Centre - Tottenham Hotspur : Southampton FC  Transfermarkt

Yusuf Akçiçek is one of the rising stars of Turkish football and his exploits at Fenerbahçe earned him a monumental market value upgrade in the recent Süper Lig update. The 19-year-old progressed through the academy of Galatasaray before joining their fierce rivals Fenerbahçe in 2019. Akçiçek made his professional debut against Ludogorets in the Europa Conference League in November 2023 but he has truly flourished this season to become a first-team player. The powerful centre-back has been entrusted by José Mourinho and has made 15 appearances in all competitions with his first goal arriving against Anderlecht in the Europa League.

Akçiçek’s performances have caught the attention of major European clubs and Mourinho drew comparisons to Real Madrid legend Raphael Varane after Fenerbahce’s 0-0 draw with Galatasaray. “I don't want to compare him to Rapha Varane because he has won four Champions Leagues, World Cup and won everything,” said Mourinho. “But I had Rapha Varane when he was 18 and I was not wrong. And I am not wrong with this kid. (He has a) big personality and is very confident.”

Yusuf Akçiçek’s soaring market value

Akçiçek earned his first market value of €50k in November 2023 as a 17-year-old and that rose €150k in October 2024. But the Fenerbahce starlet’s valuation skyrocketed by €5.35 million in March’s Super Lig update to €5.5m. It was a reward for Akçiçek standout performances and he’s also on the verge of making his senior Turkiye debut after being called up for the Nations League double header against Hungary. Akçiçek is now the fourth most valuable U21 player in Turkiye and he had the biggest market value upgrade of any Super Lig player during the update.

Lara Karacan, Transfermarkt’s Super Lig expert, said: “Akçiçek is a rising talent of Turkish football, who earned high praise from Mourinho. The injury problems at Fenerbahçe gave Yusuf valuable playing time and he impressed with consistently strong performances in key games. Akçiçek also proved in the heated derby between Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe that he can perform even under immense pressure. His rapid rise has not gone unnoticed by the top clubs - scouts from Manchester United and Tottenham have already watched him live. Historically, his market value has seen a percentage increase that has never been seen before at Fenerbahçe."

Who wants to sign Yusuf Akçiçek?

Tottenham Hotspur will welcome AZ Alkmaar to North London for the second leg of their Europa League play-off with high hopes of overturning a 1-0 deficit in the first leg and progressing to the next round of the competition. But for manager Ange Postecoglou and his wary squad, the match also stands as their last opportunity of winning silverware this season. And that point wasn’t lost on the Spurs manager ahead of the game.

"They've got the goal advantage but playing at home, if we can play with the intensity and tempo that we did in the weekend then I think we will have an opportunity to progress,” said the Tottenham boss in his pre-match press conference. And when he was asked about the need to win a trophy this season, Postecoglou rejected any notion that his team felt any added weight to this game. "No, no extra pressure,” added the Australian tactician. “We were obviously disappointed with our performance in the first leg. The important thing is we didn't make the tie impossible for us to get back into, it's still very tight.”

Tottenham's returning stars

One major bonus for Tottenham ahead of the game will be the return of a number of key players from injury, including Ben Davies, Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven. Three defensive stalwarts that have often made up three quarters of Postecoglou’s preferred back four. And when we take a look at Tottenham’s record without and without Van de Ven in particular, we can quickly see just how much they’ve missed the towering Dutch defender.

Prior to Van de Ven’s long-term hamstring injury, Tottenham had won four and drawn one of their opening nine games of the season, which had the club sitting in seventh place. However, since then Tottenham have gone from bad to worse in the Premier League, falling as low as fifteenth in the table and now sit in thirteenth place. To no great surprise, Postecoglou’s side have performed far better with Van de Ven in the side, averaging 1.4 points per game when the Dutch defender has featured in a league game this season. In stark contrast, in the 18 league games that the 23-year-old defender has missed Tottenham have managed on average just 1.1 points per game.

In fact, when we consider the points per league game average of every player in the Tottenham squad this season, we can see that only two players that have played at least 10 games in the Premier League this season have a higher average than Van de Ven. At the top of the list is the club’s first-choice goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario, followed by full-back Djed Spence in third place. To his immense credit, young star and relatively new signing Archie Gray has clearly made an instant impression at the club, ranking fifth in the squad when it comes to points per game when he’s on the pitch. Romero, often considered Tottenham's best central defender, ranks seventh in the squad with an average of 1.31.

Tottenham Hotspur will welcome AZ Alkmaar to North London for the second leg of their Europa League play-off with high hopes of overturning a 1-0 deficit in the first leg and progressing to the next round of the competition. But for manager Ange Postecoglou and his wary squad, the match also stands as their last opportunity of winning silverware this season. And that point wasn’t lost on the Spurs manager ahead of the game.

"They've got the goal advantage but playing at home, if we can play with the intensity and tempo that we did in the weekend then I think we will have an opportunity to progress,” said the Tottenham boss in his pre-match press conference. And when he was asked about the need to win a trophy this season, Postecoglou rejected any notion that his team felt any added weight to this game. "No, no extra pressure,” added the Australian tactician. “We were obviously disappointed with our performance in the first leg. The important thing is we didn't make the tie impossible for us to get back into, it's still very tight.”

Tottenham's returning stars

One major bonus for Tottenham ahead of the game will be the return of a number of key players from injury, including Ben Davies, Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven. Three defensive stalwarts that have often made up three quarters of Postecoglou’s preferred back four. And when we take a look at Tottenham’s record without and without Van de Ven in particular, we can quickly see just how much they’ve missed the towering Dutch defender.

Prior to Van de Ven’s long-term hamstring injury, Tottenham had won four and drawn one of their opening nine games of the season, which had the club sitting in seventh place. However, since then Tottenham have gone from bad to worse in the Premier League, falling as low as fifteenth in the table and now sit in thirteenth place. To no great surprise, Postecoglou’s side have performed far better with Van de Ven in the side, averaging 1.4 points per game when the Dutch defender has featured in a league game this season. In stark contrast, in the 18 league games that the 23-year-old defender has missed Tottenham have managed on average just 1.1 points per game.

In fact, when we consider the points per league game average of every player in the Tottenham squad this season, we can see that only two players that have played at least 10 games in the Premier League this season have a higher average than Van de Ven. At the top of the list is the club’s first-choice goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario, followed by full-back Djed Spence in third place. To his immense credit, young star and relatively new signing Archie Gray has clearly made an instant impression at the club, ranking fifth in the squad when it comes to points per game when he’s on the pitch. Romero, often considered Tottenham's best central defender, ranks seventh in the squad with an average of 1.31.