Spurs won’t stop, but will they evolve?

The model and strategy at Spurs will continue to reap rewards this season. But will it be continuity or evolution?

“Everyone was saying everywhere that I absolutely wanted to leave Tottenham … that’s not true … I had to battle to get my place back.” Taken at face value, this insight from Toby Aldeweireld appears nothing more than a soccer player respecting the terms of his contract — a rare and refreshing occurrence in a new age of inflated player power. But placed within a wider context, the Belgian’s words allude to a broader, and more encouraging, reality for Tottenham.

Put it this way — if one of Europe’s top central defenders, now approaching the age of 30, had never lifted a trophy at their current club and earned the equivalent of a rival club’s benchwarmer — would he be on the search for pastures anew? At almost any other club than Spurs, the answer would be an unequivocal and resounding yes. In fact, a swift and forceful transfer request would be neither surprising nor unjustified.

Yet it’s exactly this mentality, expertly nurtured by Mauricio Pochettino, that makes Spurs such a fascinating anomaly to the typical model of success. It’s also why, for supporters, their most promising era in recent history looks set to plough on.

Jamie Redknapp expressed his concern that Spurs had taken “a step backwards” over the summer, a fair and reasonable critique considering Daniel Levy decided to spend the grand sum of nought pounds sterling. To put that into some perspective, newly-promoted Fulham coughed up over 100 million and Wolves, also fresh from the Championship, saw fit to spend in excess of 60 million.

But to put that into the proper perspective, splurging vast sums of money is justifiably low on Levy’s agenda. The reasoning can, to a large extent, be attributed to a new stadium fast approaching the cost of £1 billion, but it can predominantly be attributed to a carefully devised, and extremely effective strategy that is continuing to grow as opposed to slow.

At most clubs of elite status, conservative market activity risks internal stagnation. But things are done differently at Spurs. Through a lack of expenditure, Tottenham have not only balanced the books, but more pertinently, have exercised a trust in their players. The result is a renewed sense of hunger within the squad.

“A lot has been said about transfers or the lack of them but there is something to be said about keeping the group together. What that does is give the rest of the squad huge belief because it shows he has belief in us,” said Harry Kane following Tottenham’s recent decimation of Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United. “Now we have to repay him and repay the club for that.”

Any observers concerned with this squad’s ability to reset have failed to consider their unique internal culture. If Eric Dier’s recent sentiments are anything to go by, that culture is one the players are unwaveringly invested in. “It is so much more down to working with the players you have got, getting the best out of the players you have got, building something as a team … the culture you create at the training ground, the work you put in … the relationship between the players.”

The conviction with which Dier speaks is telling. But what is also telling is the effortless stability that this structure produces on the pitch — only Manchester City have accumulated more league points than Spurs over the last three seasons. The consistency is impressive.

Within the same time frame, Chelsea have moved from 10th to first, Manchester United have moved from sixth to second and both Liverpool and City have endured their fair share of turbulence too. In an era where Champions League qualification equates almost to a trophy, stability is an increasingly valuable commodity. Chelsea may have won the league in 2017, but Thursday nights in Belarus are an unpleasant price to pay.

Yet the festering anxiety with Spurs, intensifying with each passing season, is that Champions League qualification is not a trophy. Any discussion of progression can, quite rightly, be stampeded by a rather large elephant in the room — namely a trophy cabinet with a greater mass of dust than silverware — that stands as a valid retort to both Kane, Dier and the model they represent.

After all, there is only so far one can admire the strategy of a club devoid of any tangible success since 2007. Yet, if harnessed correctly, it is this very deficiency that has the potential to drive them on this season. There’s a sense of unfinished business. “It’s been about four years now that I’ve been playing at this level and we’re yet to win a trophy, I wake up every morning and that’s what I want to achieve,” said Kane. 

And anyone doubting the importance of failure as a catalyst for success need only look at how Chelsea followed up a disastrous 2015-16 campaign with a title the following year. “We all have something to prove … more motivation because you don’t want to be the same as last season,” reflected Eden Hazard.

For Spurs, having been on the losing end of two title races and two cup semis, there’s certainly no shortage of wrongs to put right. That key players are penning new deals without fuss suggests they’re well aware of, and fully committed to it, too. Whether they can do it, though, is subject to strong and reasonable scrutiny.

But what does seem clear, whether the long-awaited trophy is delivered or not, is that the project at Spurs, characterized by an entrenched, and stable desire to improve, is more likely to move forward, than backward, this season.