One year into the Ange Postecoglou era and back in Europe, Tottenham head into the new season desperate to finally end their trophy drought. There were indications last term that they are heading in the right direction, so what will 2024-25 bring?
Can Spurs Shore Up the Defence Without Drastic Changes in Personnel?
Everyone is pretty much universally agreed that manager Ange Postecoglou should be happy with last season’s back four and goalkeeper.
In Cristian Romero, they have one of the world’s best centre-backs and one of the squad’s leaders, and Pedro Porro has excelled since his switch to right-back under Postecoglou. Goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario, left-back Destiny Udogie, and centre-back Micky van de Ven were excellent in their debut season at Spurs, and it wouldn’t be unreasonable to suggest they should all improve further with time at the club.
Radu Dragusin and Archie Gray will both put pressure on the starting players, but nobody is expecting either to nail down a regular starting spot. Without splashing huge money, it’s likely that Spurs play next season with exactly the same back five as last.
But while both manager and fans seem to be content with those players, Spurs’ defensive performances last season left a lot to be desired. There’s no doubt that the team needs to be much more defensively sound if they are to achieve their lofty goals under the Australian.
Spurs conceded 61 goals in 38 games, putting them in mid-table in the Premier League, with the same record as 13th-placed Fulham and three goals worse than eight-placed Manchester United and 10th-placed Crystal Palace (58 goals conceded).
But they also had the seventh-worst record in the league for expected goals conceded (64.6), ahead only of the three relegated sides, West Ham, Man Utd and Wolves, suggesting they were too open and allowed their opponents far too many chances.
On top of that, Spurs also allowed their opponents high-quality chances, with the average xG value of each shot they faced the second-highest of all Premier League teams at 0.13 xG per shot.
There needs to be a big improvement next season, and there are a few key areas that the players need to work on if there is to be no change in personnel. No team conceded more shots following an individual error in the Premier League last season than Spurs (24), while they also conceded eight goals from penalties, many of which seemed highly avoidable.
Only Newcastle (45), Luton (42) and Man Utd (41) conceded more shots from counter-attacks than them (39), and set-pieces were also an issue (more on them to follow), with only three teams conceding a higher proportion of their goals from set-piece situations than Tottenham (26%).
This isn’t a problem only for the defenders – the central midfielders need to protect the defence better, the forwards need to press more effectively to help prevent quick transitions, and everyone needs to take more care to avoid mistakes – but there are clearly some obvious areas for the first-choice defenders to focus on. If they don’t show some real improvement early on next season, it may be that Postecoglou has to reconsider his starting lineup.
Can Solanke Replace Kane?
Short answer: no.
There’s no replacing Harry Kane. There’s no player on the planet – particularly one Spurs could afford – who could do what Kane did in north London.
But this version of Spurs aren’t looking for a direct replacement for their record goalscorer. Postecoglou doesn’t ask his centre-forward to drop deep and link play as much as peak Kane did for Tottenham. So the fact that record signing Dominic Solanke can’t do everything Kane does isn’t a massive problem.
What Spurs do need from their new striker, though, is goals.
Last season, only captain and star forward Son Heung-min scored consistently, and he didn’t post Kane-replacing numbers, racking up 17 Premier League goals. Richarlison was their second-highest scorer, but nine of his 11 goals came in an eight-game purple patch from December through to early February.
Given the 27-year-old Brazilian has never scored more than 13 league goals in a campaign and outside of that hot streak last season, has just three goals in 47 Premier League appearances for Spurs, there isn’t a great deal of hope that he can ever be the centre-forward Tottenham need. Hence the signing of Solanke.
On the evidence of last season, Solanke is a more reliable goalscorer – or at least he has the potential to be – and that will take a bit of the burden off Son. He is also an excellent and efficient presser, which makes him even more suited to playing Postecoglou’s football, leading the Premier League in 2023-24 for pressures (1,242), pressures in the final third (703) and pressures in the final third resulting in a turnover (142).
Spurs got used to having two consistent goal threats in their team while Kane and Son were at the club and they could do with having two next season.
Can Others Chip in With a Few More Goals?
Spurs didn’t struggle for goals last season, with their total of 74 their second-highest in any Premier League season (after the 86 they scored in 2016-17). They shared the goals around the team, with 16 different players scoring; only Newcastle (20), Brentford (18), Man Utd, (17), Fulham (17) had more different goalscorers.
But many of their scorers will probably feel they could have contributed a few more.
Dejan Kulusevski was their third-highest scorer after Son and Richarlison, scoring eight goals, but he had an inconsistent season, and it is also worth noting that three of his goals were scored against one of the worst teams in Premier League history in Sheffield United. After that, next in Spurs’ scorers list, level on five goals with Brennan Johnson, was centre-back Romero. Postecoglou will want a bigger contribution across the board.
Johnson is the most obvious player who should hope to do better next season. He underperformed his xG for 2023-24 by 5.6 (five goals from 10.6 xG), the second-worst performance in front of goal of all Premier League players after Dominic Calvert-Lewin (-6.4).
Meanwhile, the central midfielders will need to add a few more goals. James Maddison (4), Pape Sarr (3), Rodrigo Bentancur (1) and Yves Bissouma (0) should all do better on that front next term.
With 15 goals scored by defenders in 2023-24, that’s one part of the team that Postecoglou can’t really ask any more of, at least. Those numbers may prove difficult to replicate next season, which would put even more pressure on the midfielders to score a few more goals.
Will the Europa League be the Highlight of the Season?
Usually, fans of teams like Tottenham deem the Europa League an unwelcome distraction and an unnecessary strain on the squad. Having spent much of the last decade playing Champions League football, some fans think Spurs are above Europe’s second competition.
But last season, Spurs weren’t in Europe at all and got knocked out of both domestic cup competitions early on. It meant they played just 41 matches all season – fewer than every other team in the Premier League. That in turn meant that when injuries and suspensions came along – and there were a fair few of them – or when Postecoglou turned to his bench, he had undercooked options who were lacking match sharpness available to him.
It was supposed to be an advantage that Spurs didn’t have European football to contend with, but there were plenty of fringe players who could have done with more game time under their belts when they were needed in the team.
This season, with so much hope surrounding newly signed teenagers Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall as well as Will Lankshear, Jamie Donley, Alfie Devine and 16-year-old Mikey Moore, the Europa League’s early stages could prove the perfect breeding ground.
Another aspect of having another competition to play in – largely, at least to start with, against lesser opposition – is that the games provide a chance to play players into form. Postecoglou tried to do just that with a few key players last season, but had to use up valuable Premier League game time to give them the chance to gain match fitness. Players returning from injury had to go straight back into top-flight action, too.
Oh, and there’s the fact that this represents a competition that Tottenham could – and really should – be trying to win. Yeah, we said it.
Can Vicario Overcome His Set-Piece Problems?
The sight of Vicario helplessly appealing to the referee for a foul as the opposition run off to celebrate a goal became all too familiar last season.
A weakness at set-pieces was pounced upon by a string of teams to devastating effect, particularly in the second half of the season.
The approach was painfully simple: all teams needed to do was put a player in front of Vicario and cross the ball into the six-yard box. The Italian flapped unconvincingly at so many high balls that just about everyone decided to target him.
Only five teams conceded more corners in Premier League games last season than Spurs (236) – a stat that in itself should be a concern given Spurs spend the majority of their games in possession – but only two teams’ opponents put in more crosses from corners than Tottenham’s (210), and they also faced more inswingers (143) than every other team in the league. Meanwhile, only five teams – last season’s top four and Brighton – faced fewer short corners than them (26). Everyone looked to get the ball in the box from corners when playing Spurs, and they were successful when doing so, too.
No team conceded more goals from shots directly from a crossed corner than Spurs (six), while the shots they faced from the first contact after a corner were worth more expected goals (4.9 xG) than any other team in the league.
It isn’t all on Vicario, of course. Many people watching couldn’t believe that Postecoglou continued to leave the opponent who had been instructed to distract Vicario and get in his way free to do so for a few games before eventually asking a defender to mark them. Plenty more have also questioned the wisdom of Postecoglou’s insistence that he has no need for a dedicated set-piece coach, despite Spurs conceding 14 goals from set-pieces – 26% of their total, the fourth-highest in the league. And their xG against from set-pieces was the third-highest in the league (15.2) behind only Man Utd (16.8) and Burnley (15.4).
As well as better organisation all round, their defenders arguably need to show more nous, too; a nastier and more ruthless side. Ben White caused Vicario all manner of problems at corners in Arsenal’s north London derby victory at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in April, but what he did wasn’t particularly clever or creative. Even so, it is hard to imagine many of the Spurs players doing something like interfering with the fastening on an opposition goalkeeper’s glove at a corner just to put him off.
It’s not as if that was the only difference between the teams, and we’re not suggesting that if White hadn’t done that then Spurs would have got a result, but it wouldn’t hurt if the players were smarter about protecting their goalkeeper.
First and foremost, though, Vicario will have to work on his command of his penalty area and how he deals with crosses when he doesn’t get a free run at the ball. Spurs can’t afford to crumble in key moments at set-pieces next season if they are to challenge for the top four and major honours.
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