By Tony Attwood
In terms of the transfer of players into Premier League clubs this summer, and in terms of players by price, Arsenal sit ninth with the transfer of Piero Hincapié from Bayer Leverkusen. He was on loan now he has a five year deal. The fee is said to be £45m.
But what makes this particularly interesting at this time is that three of the big money transfers so far this summer of players into English league clubs… or rather one particular club who we do like to keep an eye on…
* Sandro Tonali from Newcastle United to Tottenham Hotspur for £92.5m
* Mateus Fernandes from West Ham United to Tottenham Hotspur for £85m
* Jan Paul van Hecke from Brighton to Tottenham Hotspur for £52m
Now last summer Tottenhma bought, among others Xavi Simons and Mohammed Kudus each for around £43m and Conor Gallagher for around £35m. So the plan seems to be to buy themselves out of trouble, as before, only more so.
So to compare Tottenham two years ago with Tottenham last season, two years ago in 2024/25 Tottenahm won 11 of their 38 games while in 205/26 they won ten of their 38 games. In 2024/25 they scored 64 goals while last season they scored 57. Not what one normally calls progress.
Of course the media value buying players above everything else – not because such a tactic works but because it gives the media something to write and talk about both in terms of who the club might buy and then, a while later, how they came to buy the wrong players.
Of course it is possible Tottenham will have bought the right players this time around, because certainly, the way that Tottenham ended last season did not bring much confidence that the team they had then could actually do the busienss in the top league.
And I do think the last ten games table can give a bit of an insight into a club’s overall effectiveness at a particular moment in the league. Indeed the last ten games table for the end of the season does quite often give us a glimpse as to how the new season will begin.
I won’t bore you with the whole table – but here are the top and bottom sections for the last ten games of last season…. and the bottom section is interesting because of some of the clubs it included….
Premier League Form (Last 10)
Team
P
W
D
L
F
A
GD
Pts
1
Arsenal
10
8
0
2
15
6
+9
24
2
Man Utd
10
6
2
2
19
12
+7
20
3
Man City
10
5
4
1
20
10
+10
19
4
Bournemouth
10
4
6
0
14
8
+6
18
12
Liverpool
10
3
3
4
16
16
0
12
13
Fulham
10
3
3
4
7
9
\-2
12
14
Tottenham
10
3
3
4
10
14
\-4
12
15
Brentford
10
1
7
2
11
12
\-1
10
16
Crystal Palace
10
2
4
4
11
17
\-6
10
17
Wolverhampton
10
2
4
4
9
17
\-8
10
18
Everton
10
2
3
5
15
17
\-2
9
19
Chelsea
10
2
1
7
9
19
\-10
7
20
Burnley
10
0
3
7
6
19
\-13
3
So we had Liverpool 12th, Tottenham 14th, Everton with their shiny new stadium 18th and Chelsea 19th. And it is quite clear that some sort of change of direction is needed for all those clubs.
Obviously what the media and some fans look for are new players, on the simple logic that those who delivered such a lowly finish last season were not good enough. And indeed it is true that sometimes new players can totally transform a team. But we should also remember that sometimes new players can take quite a while to settle in, and not deliver the goods straight away.
Furthermore just as a new player can join the team and transform it at once, it is also possible that a new player can come into the squad and upset the balance of play, leavingt the club worse off than it was before – at least until everyone manages to adjust to the new style of play that is now required.
Only three clubs conceded more goals that Tottenham last season, and all three of them were relegated. Now it is true that Tottenham compensated to some degree by scoring 48 goals in their 38 games, although we might also note that was only two more than West Ham. In short, Tottenham didn’t just miss relegation by two points but they were as lacking of goal scoring power as the inaptly named WHAM.
Of course maybe this summer they do know what they are doing, and they will be able to pull themselves up table: we shall look on with interest. Especially with Coventry City in the Premier League.
Now of course one cannot compare the top two leagues directly with each other, but it will be interesting to see just how many goals Coventry manage this season, what with them having knocked in 97 goals last season – that being over 2.1 a game in the Championship. Compared with Tottenham’s 1.3 goals a game last season.
As I say, we shall watch with interest.