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What Tottenham Hotspur’s team might look like next season if summer transfer rumours prove to be true.
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Tottenham Hotspur have, let’s face it, not had a great season. Endless injuries and inconsistent form have sunk them into the bottom half of the table, and a lack of depth and quality in the squad has been exposed, at times ruthlessly. It’s fair to assume that they will be busy this summer.
The rumour mill has reacted accordingly, connecting the club with a slew of players up and down the pitch, and while in reality that club likely won’t spend quite as much money as the transfer columns suggest – this is still a Daniel Levy club, after all – but you can safely assume that Spurs will make a splash.
With that in mind, we’ve worked out a likely starting XI for next season assuming some of the more plausible transfer rumours work out – a total of £410m worth of players old and new. Let’s see what the new look Spurs could look like in 2025/26…
Goalkeeper and defence
GK: Guiglielmo Vicario (£17m); LB: Destiny Udogie (£17m); RB: Pedro Porro (£43m); CB: Dean Huijsen (£50m), Micky van de Ven (£43m)
For the most part, we’re assuming that Spurs stick with their expensively-assembled back line, not least because when fit and firing the individual components of their defence are all really rather good – but we’re adding one new face, brilliant young Bournemouth defender Dean Huijsen.
Spurs are one of several teams reportedly interested in the Amsterdam-born centre-half, who has shone since breaking into the Cherries’ first team over the winter, and he allegedly has a release clause which would make him available for £50m. That could be a bargain.
On paper, Huijsen could build a nice partnership with Van de Ven. Their playing style complement each other well – Van de Ven is at his best stepping up and pressurising ball carriers while running the ball forward himself, while Huijsen’s superb anticipation makes him a brilliant sweeper in behind. That and some rumours linking Cristian Romero with a move away is with the Argentine has made way in our starting XI.
Midfield
DM: Lamine Camara (£42m), Jhonny Cardoso (£21m); AM: James Maddison (£40m)
Ange Posetcoglou has been practically begging for new midfielders for some time now – and we reckon he could get more than one. Spurs already have a first option on American midfielder Cardoso as part of the deal which sent Giovanni Lo Celso to Real Betis, so it wouldn’t be any kind of surprise to see him make the move, but we also like the link with AS Monaco wonderkid Lamine Camara.
The 21-year-old Senegalese midfielder is far from the only player in that position whose name has come up in connection with Spurs, but he is among the most exciting and versatile – according to reports, he’d cost €50m (about £42m), which doesn’t feel like an unreasonable asking price given his box-to-box skill set.
We don’t necessarily think that Camara and Cardoso would hog all the first-team minutes over the likes of Bentancur and Sarr, but this would be a fairly pointless article if we didn’t give the new boys the nod in the rotation system…
Forwards
WF: Son Heung-Min (£22m), Tyler Dibling (£55m); CF: Dominic Solanke (£65m)
Is £55m too much for young Tyler Dibling? Perhaps, but Spurs and RB Leipzig are the two teams whose names are coming up most often in connection with the Southampton forward, and that’s the alleged asking price.
We suspect that he’d come in a little cheaper, in all truth, but don’t rule out a bidding war for a flexible forward whose off-ball movement has really caught the eye when he’s been available this season – the 19-year-old has been one of a very small number of silver linings to the massive rain cloud dangling ceaselessly over St. Mary’s this season.
Spurs are likely to sign a new centre-forward as well as they aim to find some depth behind Solanke, who has played well when fit but whose occasional absences have demonstrated the dearth of attacking talent behind him in the pecking order.
That’s four new faces in total in the starting line-up next season, none of whom are all that unlikely to be on the move, with North London an eminently plausible destination for the lot – but what will Levy do when the chips are down this summer? We’ll find out before too long…