Cartilage Free Captain

Tottenham Hotspur are starting to make waves in the transfer market with just over a week to go, and we should probably expect a bunch of lightly sourced stories connecting Spurs with a bunch of different players.

Like this rumor! Gianluca DiMarzio writes on his website that Spurs have upped their intended offer to €50m (£43.3m) for Como attacking midfielder Nico Paz. This, according to DiMarzio, is an improvement over a previous €40m (£34.5m) bid that was rejected a while ago. It is still not a ton of money, and DiMarzio says there is currently no agreement with Como, nor with the player.

Paz is a good target and would make a lot of sense for Spurs, but his current contract is complicated. His previous club, Real Madrid, own both a buy-back clause of just €9m next summer as well as a 50% sell-on clause in his contract, so any attempt to sign Paz will no doubt involve dealing with Madrid. No idea what that would look like, but I do know that a 50% sell-on clause, which is WILD, will complicate any negotiations significantly. Spurs might need to spend additional money to buy out Madrid’s clauses, if they’re serious about landing him… or alternately agree to something like a reasonable buy-back clause to Madrid in his Tottenham contract. That’s if they can come to an agreement at all. DiMarzio doesn’t give much of the game away (probably because he doesn’t know anything more).

Meanwhile, according to the Daily Mail (lol yes I know) Tottenham are also ramping up their interest in Manchester City’s Savinho, reporting that Spurs held further talks this weekend with City officials to try and get a deal over the line. The report states that Spurs are willing to make a bid of “over £60m” to land Savinho, with the player eager to be a Premier League starter to boost his chances of making the Brazil World Cup team. No agreement yet, but the Savinho deal definitely doesn’t seem as dead as what it did about a week ago.

After failing in bids to land Morgan Gibbs-White and Eberechi Eze (and boy, isn’t that latter one starting to feel like we dodged a Sol Campbell 2.0 bullet right now), Tottenham are still planning to be active in the window. It might go down to the wire, but hey, we’re Tottenham fans — we should be used to that by now.

Death, taxes, Tottenham Hotspur beating Manchester City at the Etihad. One year after dismantling Pep Guardiola’s team in Manchester, Spurs returned with a new manager and a similar result. City looked threatening for much of the first half, but Tottenham got goals from Brennan Johnson and an unlikely rebounded effort from new signing Palhinha, and Spurs escaped Manchester with a 2-0 win. It’s only the second time in Pep’s entire career that he’s suffered successive home defeats to the same opponent. I love this bit, it’s so good. Long may it continue.

It was a dramatic week for Tottenham in the transfer market, but you can’t argue with the results on the pitch. Thomas Frank’s Spurs are now unbeaten and un-scored upon in their first two matches of the new season, and doesn’t THAT feel good?

Here are my match reactions.

Match Reactions

Tottenham Hotspur beating Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City is still the funniest ongoing bit in sports.

Final xG: City 1.51 — 1.02 Spurs, with City having 61% possession. lol…lmao

Gotta say I really expected a back three like what we saw when Spurs played PSG. Frank’s decision to go with a back four means he at least intended to press-and-squish City, mostly bypassing the midfield, but the first half was spent mostly playing out of the back.

This is the first time we’ve seen Sarr ostensibly playing as a 10 with Palhinha and Bentancur behind him. It’s an interesting experiment though I’m not sure how successful it was. Sarr has plenty of industry but had a harder time linking the ball to the offensive players. EDIT: This was my first half bullet on Sarr, but he really played well on balance, again just was everywhere in the second half. Editing my remarks because it really did come off as overly harsh (although I maintain that I don’t like him at the 10).

Credit to Spurs for defending stoutly against what already looks like a fairly polished City offense. Spurs absolutely are a better defending team than last season, and that’s not nothing. It’s not GOALS, but it’s not nothing.

Tottenham’s goal really was the Brennan Johnson Experience™ - does virtually nothing for the majority of the half, frequently lazy getting back from offside positions, and then makes an amazing run to one touch a goal in transition. No pass, no dribble, only shoot. The Lionel Messi of Nacer Chadlis. (Subsequent discussion in Slack also mentioned baseball’s Adam Dunn)

I have no idea how the ref didn’t call a foul and DOGSO on James Trafford for the incident against Kudus near the end of the first half. That was one billion percent a foul, even if it happened outside the box.

Palhinha is exactly who I thought he is: a really good tackler and defender but my word that guy just cannot pass the ball. Spurs were trying to play out from the back and Palhinha was like a black hole of possession. If we’re going to play him, and we will, my god do we need a midfield passer in this squad.

BUTTTTTTTTTT what if he can just score goals? Like that one?

I have to appreciate Tottenham’s low-key attempts to take the air out of the ball in the second half. At one point Mohammed Kudus wasted 35 seconds before taking a standard free kick. Dark Arts.

The match official was garbage today — blew several calls including an obvious foul on James Trafford that could’ve been a DOGSO — but at least he was consistently garbage on both sides of the ball after failing to call a Micky van de Ven foul in Spurs’ box.

Kudus continues to impress. That guy’s motor is just unreal, and he had quite a few nice moments in possession. I was wrong, he’s worth every penny Spurs spent on him.

Wilson Odobert had a nice little shift today, looking bright on the left and getting free for a few half chances despite my attempts to loan him to Roma this week. He seems to be ahead of Tel at the moment.

Outstanding defensive performance today. Both central defenders were well up for this match, and Guglielmo Vicario made some wonderful saves.

Next two matches feel very winnable — home to Bournemouth, away to West Ham. Feeling pretty good today, fam.

Eberechi Eze — who needs him?

If you are the kind of person who is optimistic that things will turn out for the best, then this might be a story for you. There has been a bunch of background muttering about Tottenham Hotspur’s bid to purchase Savinho from Manchester City maybe not being as dead as what it seemed like last week, and now Fabrizio Romano is in to confirm it.

Do the math and €70m comes out to just shy of £61m. That’s a lot for a 20-year-old who hasn’t broken out in the Premier League, but less than what Spurs were willing to pay for Morgan Gibbs-White or Eberechi Eze, and if I’m honest less than what I thought it might take to actually pry him out of Manchester.

Savinho is good. Like, I think potentially transformational good, especially if he continues to improve the way he has. If €70m is City’s asking price, then Spurs should pay it. If the asking price is actually higher than that, then Spurs should pay whatever that asking price really is. What I’m saying is: I like Savinho, Spurs should make him a priority signing, and then we figure out the 10 spot afterwards.

There’s that pesky matter of the City executive who has put a veto on the idea of Savio leaving, but everyone likes money and so my informed opinion is that Spurs should spend some money and bring in Savio. Because he’s cool and fun and I want to see him play in a Tottenham shirt for Thomas Frank this season.

That’s it. That’s the post.

One down, 37 to go. Obviously a home victory against a newly promoted side is not exactly a guarantee of future dominance, but given how difficult everything was for Tottenham Hotspur last season, the opening weekend was refreshingly convincing. I suppose not everything was a loss for Spurs domestically in 2024/25, as one (hilarious) tradition continued on.

That is, of course, the club’s inexplicable success against Manchester City. Despite Pep Guardiola’s ridiculous squad, Spurs are 6-2-4 against them in the past six league seasons. Form seems to matter very little when these sides meet, though City was arguably the most impressive club to kick off the year, thoroughly dismantling Wolves. It might be another new Tottenham manager, but Thomas Frank must carry on the torch.

Match Details

Date: Saturday, August 23

Time: 7:30 am ET, 12:30 pm UK

Location: Etihad Stadium, Manchester

TV: USA Network (US), TNT Sports 1 (UK)

Table: City (t-1st, 3 pts), Tottenham (t-1st, 3 pts)

So yes, there are plenty of fun moments to choose from. Relevant to Saturday, three of the last four trips to the Etihad have been ones to remember. In 2021/22 it was Harry Kane putting on one of the greatest Premier League performances ever. Two years later, Dejan Kulusevski equalized in the 90th minute to cap off an amazing back-and-forth. Meanwhile, last season’s fixture was arguably Spurs best domestically, a 4-0 drubbing behind a James Maddison first-half brace.

Three Big Questions

Will Frank deploy another back three? Frank’s two real matches in charge have featured two disparate lineups, largely due to opposition. Against Burnley, Tottenham used a 4-2-3-1 formation that felt like it could be the squad’s default this season. However, the Super Cup set up in a 5-3-2 to protect against PSG’s lethal attack, and it pretty much did the job (emphasis on pretty much).

Given City’s attackers and Frank’s willingness to be versatile, another back three feels like the direction this Saturday. Kevin Danso is proving to be a reliable centerback, and his inclusion gives Spurs the long-throw option, as well as another body to use in set pieces, which is how they scored against PSG. Seeing how the manager chooses to play against this type of opponent will be very telling for the upcoming Champions League campaign.

Can City overcome its Spurs curse? Wolves are relegation candidates, but City looked fully operational last weekend. Guardiola’s side dominated 4-0, with Erling Haaland starting off the season with a brace and Tijjani Reijnders debuting with a goal and an assist. As always, this is an opponent with no shortage of ways to cause harm, and all logic points to the home side scoring multiple times in this one.

Yet, logic has no role here. Every time these teams meet, it seems like City should run away with it, yet somehow Tottenham finds a way to defy the odds each time. Maybe a pragmatic manager will finally break this fortune, or maybe it will actually be the type of performance where Spurs just go and outplay City at the Etihad. This looks to be strength-on-strength and there should be plenty of chances for the visitors’ defense to prove it is capable of hanging with this attack.

Is playing for the counter too obvious? It was time for Heung-Min Son to leave, but this is probably the fixture where his absence will be felt most. Counterattacking is still the best approach against City’s high line, but Spurs will be without their greatest weapon in this regard. There are certainly some speedsters remaining, though none offer the combination of pace and ruthless finishing like prime Son.

This might be the choice that really tests Frank. Should he go with the aforementioned back three, the combination of Mohammed Kudus and Richarlison is not exactly the pinnacle of sprinting on the break. Neither can really be taken out of the lineup, especially given their excellent performance against Burnley, but one has to wonder if Brennan Johnson needs a spot in the starting XI as the classic outlet; otherwise, it will be up to the fullbacks to take advantage on the break.

“Destiny is better and trained with the team twice, full training, just too short to be involved against City. We want him to train tomorrow and get another week. Bissouma is also out. Kulusevski is out for some time and I don’t want to put a time frame on it.”

“I don’t speak about specific players unless they are at our fantastic club. There have been a lot of rumors including players linked when I think that’s interesting because there’s nothing in it. There have been a lot of links and lot of links in the future.

“In general, talking generally, I don’t want any players that don’t want to come to this club and wear this fantastic badge. We don’t want them here and I’m sure the fans feel the same.”

“Of course we need to do everything we can. We have six good front players that is very competitive. Kulusevski will come back this season, probably longer term with Maddison, I am also confident we will sign a player before the end of the window.”

“Right now, he is my starting nine. He scored two fantastic goals. He had two top games, he’s Brazilian number nine. He’s a very good player, I’m very happy with him. Richy wants to stay, I want to keep him, there have been no talks about anything else.”

“Rodri and Phil, last game they were out, but for just the reason why was lack of training and rhythym. They were not ready for 90 minutes against Wolves but they are ready for tomorrow. Kovacic, Josko and Savio are the ones who are out.”

This is a transfer news story about Tottenham Hotspur winger Wilson Odobert. But it’s actually MORE a transfer news story about Manchester City’s Savinho… kind of. We know Spurs are interested in bringing in the 20-year-old Brazilian winger from City, we know that Savinho is open to the move to get first team minutes ahead of the World Cup, and we know that Pep Guardiola is okay with the idea of the club selling him to Spurs despite only buying him last summer.

But we also know that the transfer deal is being held up via a veto by someone high up in the City hierarchy, ostensibly because they don’t want a repeat of the Cole Palmer Situation™ whereby City sell a promising youngster to a league rival only for them to turn out to be extremely good. There hasn’t been a whole lot of movement on Savinho over the past couple of days, just a couple of thinly sourced reports that Spurs haven’t given up on the idea and are considering testing City’s resolve with a truly massive bid before the close of the window.

What does this have to do with Wilson Odobert? Well, it’s this — Savinho would likely waltz straight into the starting lineup at Tottenham should he come, Spurs are pretty packed with good players on both flanks at the moment, are looking for additional reinforcements in what’s left of the window, and Odobert is probably the odd man out. So enter the Italian media! Corriere dello Sport writes today that Roma are interested in a move for Odobert, whom Spurs apparently rate at €25m, as an alternative to Manchester United’s Jadon Sancho.

Now — this is the part where I tell you that you should always, ALWAYS be skeptical of the Italian media because the ratio of truth to chaff on the various Italian rumor sites is pretty low. But that said, if Tottenham are able to get Savinho’s transfer from City across the line, this is something that might make a lot of sense for Spurs to consider. It feels as though Thomas Frank has now had a good look at his attacking options and Odobert doesn’t appear to be very high in the hierarchy. To be sure there are plenty of games to come and if he stays Wilson will get playing time either as a substitute or a rotation option in injury and multi-week matches. He’s also only 20 so it feels foolish to give up on him. That said, the signs are pointing towards a reduced role and that’s BEFORE any more potential incoming players like Savinho or Maghnes Akliouche.

Roma apparently would be fine with taking Odobert on loan with a purchase option, but he’s listed in a group along with Monaco’s Breel Embolo (Remembering Some Guys), Chelsea youngster George, and Betis’ Abde Ezzalzouli. So this is probably pretty unlikely already, and even more so if Spurs don’t happen to get Savinho.

In the end this is pretty thin gruel, but that said it’s always good to think of possibilities. It’s also a plausible outcome, if certain dominos fall a certain way. It might even be good for Wilson, assuming he’d come in and compete for first choice minutes at Roma. I’m not saying this is going to happen (it probably won’t) but it’s not the worst idea I’ve heard.

This has been a big week for Morecambe.

For those of you who read the articles here (lol), you’d know that hoddle headquarters has been keeping a close eye on Morecambe as the club teetered towards extinction.

Earlier this week, a Panjab Warriors consortium finally completed its takeover of the club. The Bond Group, which had previously owned the club, confirmed on Sunday that it sold its “majority shareholding” to Panjab Warriors.

The National League’s club compliance and licensing committee said Morecambe’s suspension from the league would no longer be in effect once it had received paperwork of the sale.

It’s been a long time coming for Panjab Warriors, whose takeover of the club was approved by the EFL back in June.

Panjab Warriors had previously accused the club of “being held hostage”, and the Bond Group’s Jason Whittingham had alleged there was a “campaign of social abuse on social media” against him and his family. In the same statement at the time, he also said those people would be investigated “even after the club is sold”. Baffling stuff, really.

So where does that leave Morecambe now?

Well first they’ve got a new manager: Ashvir Singh Johal, whois the first Sikh to manage a professional British club.

They also need to fill out the squad, which they’ve bolstered by signing eight players to the first team.

This all comes ahead of their season opener against Altrincham this weekend. And it’s going to be at home - how exciting! But it’s a quick turnaround, and the Shrimps are asking local supporters for help in tidying up the stadium.

They’ve got this fun looking wheel, too. Look!

It’s way too early to say how this season will end for Morecambe. I think it’s realistic to expect they’ll be relegated again (they hardly even have a team, after all).

But they avoided the absolute worst-case scenario, and that means they can at least continue fighting for survival.

Fitzie’s track of the day: Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On), by Talking Heads

And now for your links:

Alasdair Gold: “Tottenham’s Eberechi Eze transfer mess and what it means for Daniel Levy and Thomas Frank”

Jay Harris ($$): “Missing out on Eberechi Eze underlines a sense Tottenham have failed to kick on after Europa League win”

BBC: “‘Reeking of desperation?’ - who could Spurs turn to next?”

London Standard: “Deja vu for dithering Tottenham as Arsenal show how big clubs act with Eberechi Eze transfer coup”

David Hytner: “Battle with Arsenal for Eberechi Eze was a fight Spurs feared they wouldn’t win”

We have long since known that Tottenham Hotspur attacking midfielder Dejan Kulusevski is going to be out for a while after sustaining a knee injury last spring. The guesstimates for his return have ranged from sometime in the next month to sometime in 2026. Now, according to David Hytner in the Guardian, we have a more firm timetable: next January.

Hytner writes that Deki is set to miss the first half of the season after he collided with Marc Guehi of Crystal Palace (those guys again?) last May 11 and sustained an injury to his patella that eventually required surgery. This shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to Spurs fans, and this falls pretty close to the median for recovery time for this kind of injury. Of course, the hope was Deki is a fast healer and could’ve come back sooner than that, but you know, we can’t have nice things. That’s been made pretty abundantly clear this summer.

With James Maddison already out for the majority of the season after also having knee surgery sustained in preseason, Tottenham are really in a pickle at the 10 spot. I’m not going to rehash all of the transfer crap that’s happened this summer, but just to put a fine point on the fact that Spurs really really need a 10, or they’ll have to make do with a committee at that position as the Premier League season gets underway.

I suggest going back and looking at those pretty pictures I posted yesterday. They work, honest.

Yesterday was a bad day for Tottenham Hotspur, but while the club failed in its bid to secure Crystal Palace attacking midfielder Eberechi Eze after losing out to an Arsenal gazumping, the club is already briefing that it has other irons in the fire. Reports in both the Independent and the Daily Mail say Spurs are now looking at a variety of players in what’s left in the transfer window, including Como midfielder Nico Paz, Monaco attacker Maghnes Aklioiuche, and Southampton winger Tyler Dibling.

In addition to the above, the Independent’s Miguel Delaney says a hijack approach for Chelsea target Xavi Simons or Leicester midfielder Bilal El Khannous, who recently agreed to move to Crystal Palace. Another approach for past target Conor Gallagher, now at Atletico Madrid, was also mentioned. Tottenham also have seemingly not fully given up on their pursuit of Manchester City’s Savinho.

The fact that two reports have come out at approximately the same time with more or less the same list of targets could be a coincidence or simply logical thinking, but it’s more likely that Spurs are briefing friendly media, trying to get ahead of the embarrassment of yesterday’s Eze failure. Akliouche and especially Paz are seen as the most likely targets, and both are likely going to be expensive. That said, Spurs have already shown a willingness to put down large amounts of money as evident by the pursuit of Eze and Morgan Gibbs-White; the devil, as always, is in the details.

There isn’t a lot of time left in the window and there is an acknowledgement that Tottenham need additional bodies to be as competitive as possible in both the Premier League and the Champions League this season. That said, if Spurs are indeed briefing their targets, at this stage of the window it’s a pretty decent list. Let’s see what emerges in the next few days.

Editor’s note: one good feature of WordPress is that tables should work natively on mobile, yay!

Tottenham Hotspur have been quite active in the transfer market this summer, and by all accounts, plan on being so going forward. There’s just one problem: how are Spurs going to register all of these players?

The short answer? They can’t.

Thanks to some wasteful spending and a lack of strategy from the front office over several years (plus some poorly timed injuries), the Tottenham Hotspur squad is in an uncomfortable state. With both European and English competitions to manage, meeting the requirements of the various football governing bodies in order to maximize the players you can register in these competitions is hugely important.

These aforementioned regulations are complex, cause confusion (even for the club at times), and mean some tough decisions are going to need to be made if Spurs want to make further signings… and even if they don’t.

This means that it’s time for a refresh of a piece I wrote around this time a year ago to clear up that confusion. I’ll go cross-eyed reading the regulations and translating them into plain English, so you don’t have to!

Premier League regulations

The first level of confusion is generated from the fact that the Premier League (and the other associated competitions run by the English FA) has different rules than UEFA competitions, such as the Champions League. Thankfully, the PL regulations are a fair bit simpler than those for Europe, so let’s break them down:

You can register a squad of up to 25 players.

No more than 17 of those players can be non-“homegrown”, meaning a total of 17 “foreign” players plus as many homegrown players as you want up to a total of 25.

A homegrown player is defined as one registered with an FA (or Welsh FA)-affiliated club for either 3 years or 3 seasons before their 21st birthday (or the end of the season during which he turns 21).

You can have unlimited under-21 players on top of that 25-player limit. An U21 player is defined as one who turns 21 during the same calendar year as the start of that season, or later.

The most complicated part here is homegrown status, for which the wording is just a little bit messy, but the rest is pretty logical, and Spurs are well set up to meet these regulations. Here’s the squad, broken down by the player type:

#

Non-homegrown

Homegrown

U21

Departures

* indicates likely/potential departures, either by loan or sale

In summary: 17/18 non-homegrown, 8/8 homegrown

As you can see, the squad is close to maxed out as it stands. There is one free non-homegrown spot, plus a decent possibility one homegrown slot will be available, with it taken up by academy product Matthew Craig, who has never played above League One level and is surprisingly still with Spurs. Spurs will need more space than that if they want to sign some of their rumored targets, however, so there is a reasonably urgent need to offload players.

The good thing around the U21 rules in the Premier League is that young players are immediately available if they fall into the age bracket. This is in contrast to UEFA rules, which require being registered to a club for a certain amount of time (we’ll get to the soon). Because of this, Spurs are really good value for money in that space, with a number of key contributors included in that category, helping keep the squad size in check while allowing for decent depth.

The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed one little quirk: Kevin Danso. Danso qualifies as homegrown in the Premier League thanks to his time in the MK Dons and Reading academies in his teenage years, before he headed to Germany. Unfortunately, this does not mean he qualifies as homegrown in Europe, as we’ll soon see.

UEFA regulations

Now things get more complicated (cue Avril Lavigne). The Champions League, in which Spurs are competing this season (in case you had forgotten), has a much more complex set of rules as to squad makeup. What makes this even more fun is the rules are written up in the most confusing legalese language possible. I’ve tried to simplify things a little below:

Like the Premier League, there is a 25-player squad limit, known as List A.

Also like the Premier League, you can have unlimited U21 players on top of that, with one additional caveat: they need to have been at the club for two years to qualify. This is known as List B. Importantly, this two-year period can’t include loans. If the player is loaned, it becomes three, rather than two years, and the loan must be to another English club. The clock for List B starts at 15, however, so it is unusual for most players around this age to have been on loan multiple times between the ages of 15 and 18.

The other similarity to the Premier League is a 17-player maximum of non-homegrown (known as “non-locally-trained”) players you can register in List A.

The other 8 spots are reserved for what UEFA call “locally-trained” players, split into “club-trained” players and “association-trained” players.

An association-trained player is basically the same as a homegrown player in the Premier League: three seasons or 36 months between the ages of 15 and 21 at clubs registered to the same FA with which Spurs are affiliated, and doesn’t qualify for List B. No more than four of these players can be named as part of the “locally-trained” set of 8.

A club-trained player is a player who has spent the same three season / 36 month period at that specific club before the age of 21, and doesn’t fall under List B.

There are some additional rules, but basically, to max out your 25-player squad, you need four club-trained and four association-trained players. Unfortunately, you can’t just sign young talent and put them on the U21 list either, because List B requires 2 years at the club before this can be done. Let’s break this down like we did with the Premier League Squad:

#

List A Non-homegrown

List A Association-trained

List A Club-trained

List B

Departures

* indicates likely departures, either by loan or sale; “ indicates players who are surplus to requirements on the List A Association-trained category, but qualify - they have been included on List A Non-homegrown, as that’s where they effectively fall

In summary: 22/17 List A Non-homegrown, 6/4 List A Association-trained, 2/4 List A Club-trained

In the Premier League, Spurs are near maxed out; in the Champions League, Spurs have a veritable excess. Several new signings, plus younger players that could become club-trained, but haven’t been at the club long enough yet means that the List A Non-homegrown category is well and truly overflowing.

It’s in that List A Club-trained space where Spurs really do struggle. The neglect of the academy over several years means Spurs have really not produced any decent contributors from that arm of the club in some time, and though Spurs have stepped up their efforts in that space (plus signed a number of young, talented players such as Lucas Bergvall, Luka Vuskovic, and Archie Gray), only one thing can help the squad construction in this area now: time.

Contrary to some of what goes around the media at times, though, Spurs are not really struggling for homegrown talent. The association-trained list is one area where Spurs are at a surplus, with six players falling under that umbrella. Unfortunately, only four players can go on that list, so that doesn’t really help Spurs maximize their squad (though it is good to have redundancy in case of unexpected departures, injuries, or drops in form).

What next for Spurs?

At this stage, the makeup of Spurs’ squad is not especially problematic when it comes to the Premier League, with some clear and obvious (VAR jokes? In this economy?) options to reduce the squad in the form of player sales. This means there isn’t really a level of urgency required when it comes to targeting homegrown players, though if Spurs want to maximize their squad, there is a slot there.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said when it comes to the Champions League. Even if Spurs sold or loaned all the players I denoted with an asterisk, they are well over the limit of players they are able to register. If Spurs went and signed Savinho tomorrow and wanted him to play in the Champions League, some tough decisions would need to be made.

What, then, can Spurs do if they want to make more signings?

The first thing they can do is to move on more players. I have (I think) been reasonably conservative above in terms of who Spurs might loan or sell; but there are some other names to consider here. Firstly, Ben Davies could still head out the door, especially if Spurs sign another defender (as has been rumored). Radu Dragusin, if he recovers in time, is another option (but an unlikely one). Kota Takai could head out on loan, but I would find that surprising, given his age, the fact he has just arrived in a new country, and his injury that he has battled with through preseason.

The other option is someone in the forward line. Spurs are clearly targeting attacking players, and that means somebody is going to end up the odd-man-out. At this stage, it seems like that player could be Wilson Odobert. He’s young, talented, but not that good yet - so a loan to a lower-level Premier League club could aid his development. Or hey, maybe somebody comes in and levies a ridiculous offer for somebody like Brennan Johnson or Richarlison that the club considers… but I think that is pretty unlikely.

The other route Spurs can go down is to not register players for Europe. This is generally seen as a pretty callous approach, but it’s not uncommon; we did see Djed Spence, for example, not included in the Europa League squad for the first part of the 24/25 season. That last part is key: if we don’t register players now, it doesn’t mean we can’t in the future. There is a new registration window in January, meaning if we have a player who we know has a medium-term injury, it may make sense to leave them off the UCL squad list for the first half of the season.

Radu Dragusin and Dejan Kulusevski may therefore be scratchings, depending on how their respective recoveries progress. James Maddison is unlikely to play again this season, so he’s an obvious one to leave off the list. Less obvious players to exclude could include (again) Ben Davies, Kota Takai, or Wilson Odobert. That puts Spurs at 14 List A Non-homegrown players, giving the club room for three more signings.

Of course, that does make for some tough decisions come January, when the likes of Dragusin and Kulusevski are almost certain to be fit; but that’s something that can be thought about in more detail further down the track. It’s a key matter for Johan Lange to manage, and has potentially hampered progress via the transfer window.

Can Spurs get more players through the door this summer, and how will they fit? Time will tell.