A number of Premier League clubs are in Champions League and Europa League action this week, but Spurs are not among them and that’s not necessarily a bad thing according to Ange Postecoglou
Tottenham Hotspur splashed out around £200million on new arrivals in the summer – financed largely from the sale of Harry Kane (Image: Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)
Ange Postecoglou has admitted that Tottenham’s squad would not have been big enough to play in the Champions League this season. Spurs finished eighth last year, after having three different managers at the helm, missing out on European football altogether.
It is the first time since the 2009/10 season that the Lilywhites have been missing from European competition. And while it is hugely disappointing to see other clubs preparing for Champions League and Europa League fixtures this week, a season out of it, to concentrate on the Premier League under a new head coach, may not be the worst thing.
Postecoglou took the reins in the summer and has already overseen an overhaul in players and the playing style at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Gone is the pragmatic approach seen under Antonio Conte and gone are a number of players, while new signings have brightened the dressing room.
Harry Kane was the big-name departure, leaving Spurs for Bayern Munich in a £100million. He was the one player who left that Postecoglou would have liked to have kept. It has been revealed that Spurs do indeed have a buyback clause on Kane’s Bayern Munich contract, however, exciting fans about a potential return of the club’s all-time top scorer in the coming years.
Nine players in total left the club, either on permanent or loan deals, with seven new players coming in. Dejan Kulusevski and Pedro Porro’s loan moves were also made permanent, as expected.
Spurs did name a 25-man squad for the Premier League season last week, with the likes of Ashley Phillips, Pape Matar Sarr, Destiny Udogie and Alejo Veliz on the U21 list. Although four of the players in the 25 were goalkeepers.
And Postecoglou has sent something of a transfer message to chairman Daniel Levy about the upcoming January transfer window and even the summer window at the end of the 2023/24 season. The squad, according to the Australian, is not big enough.
Speaking at a fans’ forum, Postecoglou said: “We are at the beginning of what we are trying to build, we’ve had a positive transfer window and we need to keep building the squad. It was never going to happen in one window.
“I had more targets but I made it hard for Daniel as I had few targets. I don’t want any player, I want the right players. I want European football, Champions League. To do that we need a bigger squad, if we had Champions League this week we’d struggle but that’s always been the plan. The plan is to grow the squad.”
