Hi. In the last part, we took a look at the general squad depth of Tottenham’s squad and at the need to actually sign some players. Now we’ll go a bit deeper and bring age in the mix.
Some of the players on this have already left (Carroll, Lesniak and Walker) but most importantly it shows that the Tottenham squad is in a very good spot age wise. Players who played a lot of the minutes in 16/17 are generally either below the average peak age (the grey area) or right in it.
You can also see that the only outfield Player to play 90% or more of the minutes is Eriksen and that is because he doesn’t have a real backup like we established in the first part. Kyle Walker also has 80% of the minutes despite allegations that he can’t handle 180 minutes per week. The only depth Player who has been important to the Team and has contributed a lot is Son. He played about 60% of the minutes and in pure terms of goals and asssists it was his best season yet.
There is a big risk involved with only having a squad of 14-16 players on the same level, especially with all the Cup games and Champions League games a Team has to play in England. Last season, Spurs mainly relied on a core of 13 outfield players with little trust in anyone else. The only two outfield players outside of the first XI to get game time in important games were Son and in Kieran Trippier (especially in the Champions League). This makes finishing second on more than 80 points even more impressive, especially considering all the injuries.
Chelsea got through last season with a similar Approach. They almost never changed their first XI after switching to the 3-4-3 and when they did, the changes usually just impacted one player. For some weird reason they seem to go with the same strategy again and it’s questionable if that can work again with Champions League football now being added to their schedule.
The Areas where Spurs needed to strengthen were obvious prior to this summer and in a sense Spurs got a bit lucky with who got injured last season because there was never a real Eriksen backup and there are workarounds for Kane or Alderweireld getting injured.
Apart from the right back issue, the current Spurs squad is one of the best in the league if you just consider the first XI. But similar to last season, things get shaky if you look beyond the Eriksens and Allis. Considering that this and maybe the next season are probably the best timeframe for this squad to win the Premier League, it is disappointing to see that the club has not done anything yet to support these players with adequate competition or backup.
I can see why the club would wait on someone like Meyer who has only one year left on his Schalke deal but why wait on a right back when that was a pressing issue after the decision to sell Walker was made? Why wait on Ross Barkley if you gonna sign him anyway?
Dictate The Tempo 