The Occasional Spurs: All Change at Seven Sisters, Please, All Change

So here we go then, the start of a new season, and refreshing though it is to see something other than the reflexes of a three-toed sloth in a transfer market, the problem with Spurs’ enthusiasm in this particular window is that if anybody asks how they’ll do this season, the most rational thing that you can do in reply is shrug.

But I am not a rational person, so on we go. For reasons too complicated to go into here, I didn’t particularly enjoy the 2025 Europa League final win. You wait 17 years for a trophy, and then it turns up at more or less the worst possible moment, in terms of my own private life.

And the warning that I sounded at the time was that 17th place in the Premier League was not an acceptable position to be in, and that if anything it was a sign of falling standards rather than “a fair price to pay to win a trophy”, as if it’s somehow a zero-sum game. I warned that Spurs had been lucky that the three teams below them were so bad that they barely had to think about relegation, and that they might not get away with it again.

Well, they did, but only by the skin of their teeth. Thomas Frank had been successful as a key cog in a well-oiled machine at Brentford. What part of that was ever going to work at Shamblesham Hotspur? I wanted it to. We all wanted it to. But by the state of November and that insipid 1-0 home defeat against Chelsea, it was clear that it was not going to.

At least this summer, the message seems to have been finally learnt. Money has been spent, and it has been on already established oven-ready players. Roberto De Zerbi has also had a full summer to fine-tune, and pre-season results have been encouraging, including a 2-1 win against Chelsea, which may have been in a match of zero significance whatsoever, but was still a win against Chelsea.

It won’t quite fully sink in how different this Spurs team will be this season until the team-sheets are released for the Brentford match. The defence will be different, the midfield will be different, the attack needs to be different. That’s how we understand Spurs’ position as the new season approaches. The easy thing to do is to start on goal. Gugliemo Vicario has gone to Juventus, meaning that Antonin Kinsky will step up this season with the almost middle-aged Martin Dubravka warming the bench as a nest egg.

Kinsky’s step up to being the first choice goalkeeper - subject to the club not annoying Aston Villa and Newcastle United supporters even more by spending another £90 million on signing David de Gea from Fiorentina or something - for the new season is the ultimate redemption arc.

The goalkeeper could have been knocked completely off-kilter by The Atletico Madrid 15 Minutes, but he recovered, and after the highly dubious Igor Tudor took his clearly inevitable fall and Vicario got injured again, played a full role in keeping them up. That’s considerable strength of character for a 23-year-old to be displaying. He’s earned his position for the new season.

Defensively, the decision to offload Djed Spence was a surprise, to get rid of Cuti Romero the exact opposite. Spence went to Inter for £30 million, and while I generally don’t care about transfer fees - which I will expand upon shortly, likely in excruciating detail - this one raised a quarter of an eyebrow. It’s not the sort of fee which suggests that Spurs were fighting very hard to keep hold of him.

Romero, on the other hand, could be the best defender in the world, but he won’t be because he has it well within him to be a complete liability, as well. It’s in that face. You know the one. The eyes glazed-over, mildly blank expression. It’s not the face of a man who’s strong on thinking. If anything, at that point he looks like he’s at the exact midway point between bursting into tears and falling asleep. Spurs are definitely better off without him.

The new arrivals emphasise that this will be a team cast very much in the mould of the manager. Marcos Senesi and Andy Robertson were both free transfers, are both internationals who were in their respective national team squads for the World Cup this summer, and both are accomplished ball playing defenders.

Jan Paul van Hecke arriving from Brighton at the same time as Luka Vuskovic went in the opposite direction for more or less the same amount of money was a bit odd, but presumably the calculation that Spurs are making is that they need right now players rather than potential. Brighton paying that much for him in and on itself is oddly unsettling. Having signed a new contract, Micky van de Ben is the new captain.

The midfield will also be different looking. Sandro Tonali is an excellent player, though it is to be hoped that he is kept away from the betting shops that dot the High Road and Fore Street, Edmonton. The same goes for Mateus Fernandes. A very good player indeed, although it’s somewhat unsettling that he’s been relegated for the last two consecutive seasons.

These two players are both very expensive, but I’ve never really cared that much about transfer fees, and have found myself caring even less about them as they’ve got higher and higher in recent years. Ultimately, I find it difficult to move past the idea that it’s someone else’s money. I mean, I wouldn’t spend £106 million on Sandro Tonali, but you do you, boo. Clearly someone at Spurs likes Savinho very much indeed. Omar Marmoush is a player that I do like, and he gives extra options up front.

In addition to the new arrivals , James Maddison and his knees made of Twiglets are back, and Mohammed Kudus may be back on the left-wing. Connor Gallagher’s role is unclear, and De Zerbi should prioritise Archie Gray, because he is an absolute peach of a player in the making.

I’m also a big advocate of Mikey Moore, and I’m hoping that he gets a go in the first team, though with him being as young as he is, another year out on loan would be unsurprising. RIP Will “Lankity” Lankshear. Ur wiv da Boro now. I’m starting to consider Dejan Kulusevski “The Lesser Spotted Dejan Kulusevski”, and I’d been starting to doubt whether he’d ever play again, though recent updates on his recovery have been encouraging, while Xavi Simons will also return at some point.

In attack, though, things are still lacking. I love Richarlison, the footballing equivalent to a shoebill, and Dominic Solanke, but Spurs clearly need a more reliable goalscorer. Mathys Tel isn’t the answer, and I’m far from convinced that Cody Gakpo would be, either. Perhaps they should submit a cheeky bid for Harry Kane on transfer deadline day. That would boil some piss.

There’s a tiny part of me that’s looking forward to next season, and that’s more than partly because it’s unlikely to be as terrible as the last one. The club have done what the fans asked them to do. It might not have been all the players that we wanted, but it should be borne in mind that we are idiots, and those that make these decisions clearly want the players that they have got. It’s part of the deal with being a fan, that you just have to take that leap of faith with the players that you have.

If I have to make a prediction, it’s about 7th, in case you were wondering. I think they should be good for a top-half finish this season, though I do worry that so many changes may take a while to gel, that all this confidence is extremely brittle, and that we could start a very familiar cycle all over again should there not be some positivity to take from the first three or four games. After the absurd drama of last season, when it really did feel like they had become a full soap opera at times, a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness would do very nicely, thank you very much.