Having lived in the US for over 3 years now it is fair to say that finding fellow Premier League fans is not always easy, less still when it comes to finding fellow Tottenham Hotspur fans. During my 6 months in Hartford, CT however I met Michael Giuffrida from Southington, a fellow Spurs fan and not only that, someone who took his support for the club very seriously indeed. We were speaking last week about the side’s progress and I asked Michael if he thought that spurs have shown that not signing players in a transfer window is really the end of the world as many believe?
Look Where We Are
Spurs have had their second best ever start to the Premier League, currently sitting in third position behind Liverpool and Manchester City, they are in the Quarter Finals of the Caribao Cup and they have reached the last 16 of the Champions League. All of the gloom merchants who thought that Spurs should have invested can now look at the performance so far and they can see just how wrong they were.
Obsession
Ever since the transfer windows were created there has been an obsession by clubs to spend money and but players, whether they need them or not. This is the same in many walks of life, if a store were only open for 1 day per week rather than all week round, you would more than likely buy more than you needed, for fear of it being closed for the week. This is how the transfer window operates and clubs now feel the need to panic buy whilst they can. Fans also have an obsession with fresh blood coming into the side and whilst we would all love to unearth some buried treasure, it simply isn’t always the best way to approach things.
Progress
Mauricio Pochettino has been rightly lauded for the way that he uses young players in his teams and how he works on developing the younger players that make the grade. What too many teams do however is fail to have the patience to let a youngster shine through and instead look for instant success with a new signing. Take Manchester United for example, a team desperately in need of better defenders, they splashed out a huge amount on Fred, an attacking midfielder who instantly jumped ahead of youngsters who could do a better job than the big money player. Spurs decided to invest in the players that they already have, to give the likes of Skipp, Winks and Walker-Peters the chance to shine, without the pressure of being replaced by a big money signing.
Long Season
Spurs aren’t in the clear just yet and unless they strengthen the squad ever so slightly in January they may find that they have issues later in the season. Playing on 4 fronts like Spurs are can mean almost 60 games per season, which will leave the stars needing rest, assuming Spurs get lucky with injuries or strengthen in January, not buying anyone in the summer may have been a masterstroke.
