da mrbet： According to Mirror Football, Tottenham are looking to offload at least five players during the January transfer window, with Mauricio Pochettino admitting the north London club will need to sell before they can buy this month.
da jogodeouro： It undoubtedly represents a risky strategy; while the five players believed to be on the exit list – Fernando Llorente, Vincent Janssen, Victor Wanyama, Georges-Kevin Nkoudou and Mousa Dembele – have been marginal figures at best this season, it’s certainly unusual for a top team to shift so much deadwood at this time of year, just when the fixture list becomes even more troublesome to navigate.
So, what could the ramifications be of Tottenham’s apparent approach to the January window? Football FanCast consider three potential consequences…
Max Aarons & Jarrod Bowen arrive
Tottenham fans will be looking at Lucas Moura as a key example of the quality that can be found in January if you know where to look. But according to Duncan Castles, Spurs intend to return to their former transfer policy of acquiring young players with high potential at less cost, and that certainly fits with the profile of two targets reportedly on their radar right now.
Hull City attacking midfielder Jarrod Bowen has been strongly linked amid a run of eleven goals in 26 Championship appearances and could cost £20million, while Norwich’s £15million-rated full-back Max Aarons is another mooted acquisition from the second tier.
£35million shouldn’t be beyond Tottenham’s reach this month if they sell all five players – they’d need to bring in an average of just £7million each, which seems more than obtainable in this day and age. What’s clear though, is that Spurs won’t be directly replacing every player via the transfer market.
Oliver Skipp & Troy Parrott get game-time
Oliver Skipp is the latest highly-rated prospect to emerge from Tottenham’s academy ranks, now featuring five times in the Premier League and even picking up a first top flight start against Burnley, and the planned departures of Mousa Dembele and Victor Wanyama suggest he could be in line for a more prominent role in the squad going forward.
The other youngster who could benefit is 16-year-old Troy Parrott. It might seem incredibly early to start involving him in first-team affairs, but he’s amid something of a meteoric rise, already representing Ireland at U19 level and making a name for himself in Tottenham’s youth team with 12 goals and five assists in the U18 Premier League and UEFA Youth League this season.
As Llorente and Janssen are being lined up for exits, and Heung-min Son is currently away at the Asian Cup, it could well be Parrott who plays understudy to Harry Kane – grabbing a few minutes here and there in the Premier League, and maybe even starting in the FA Cup should Spurs face modest opposition.
Another trophy-less season
There’s been talk of Tottenham pushing for the Premier League crown following a fine run of results, but that seems unlikely after Manchester City narrowed the gap behind Liverpool to just four points on Thursday night, seeing the Lilywhites go back down to third.
Indeed, the FA Cup is surely Tottenham’s best chance of silverware this season but squad depth is key to winning the competition if you also intend to comfortably finish inside the top four, and while the five players involved in the planned clear-out haven’t made particularly strong contributions in terms of game-time recent, they all have the experience to be more reliable options than the likes of Bowen, Aarons, Skipp and Parrott who are still very much diamonds in the rough.
That’s all well and good in the long-term, as all four have bright futures and will benefit from first-team exposure at Tottenham’s level, but in the context of this season and the north London club’s trophy hopes, it inevitably represents a step backwards. For Mauricio Pochettino, whose future at the club is by no means certain right now, it will feel like a wasted campaign – one that could well convince him to move on in the summer.
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