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It took ten games for the Tottenham title challenge to end last season, but it lasted just 45 minutes in 2024/2025. Familiar problems endure for Ange Postecoglou.

After £65m man Dominic Solanke nodded one straight at the goalkeeper early on and looked to to be the only incongruous part of a Tottenham team that was clicking impressively, Jamie Vardy – whom we had been told incessantly Had No Pre-Season by the commentary team, perhaps in a bid to explain his almost complete lack of involvement up to that point in the 57th minute – glanced a chance of similar difficulty, his first sniff, past Gugliermo Vicario to give Leicester parity in a game they should have been well out of.

It was lovely to see some life in the old dog, even if our whimsical hopes of a season of prime Vardy were short-lived as the Leicester striker raced through on goal off the last Tottenham man soon after to miss a chance he would have gobbled up in his heyday. He looked utterly exhausted as he shouted into the night sky. But then again, he Had No Pre-Season!

Spurs were dominant in the first half. The full-backs were high and aggressive, the centre-backs quick and comfortable and James Maddison pulled the strings in midfield. It felt very like the start of last season, when after the first ten games Tottenham led the way in the Premier League and were deemed to be in the title race, premature though that felt before their collapse against Chelsea and absurd as it turned out come the end of the campaign

Their goal was Ange Postecoglou’s style in a nutshell: forward pass after forward pass to pin Leicester into their own box before the ball was set back for Maddison to deliver a lovely cross for Pedro Porro – a full-back in a striker’s position – to flick beyond Mads Hermansen.

Spurs had 10 shots and 22 touches in the opposition box to Leicester’s one on both counts in the first 45 minutes. The gulf was massive; so big that it felt like it couldn’t merely be a case of a seasoned group of top flight players putting a team ill-prepared for life in the Premier League to the sword, but a relegation candidate against a side prepared to do something special this season. How wrong we were.

After a half-time ‘lads, it’s Tottenham’ from Steve Cooper, Leicester got in Spurs faces, made the most of space behind the bombing full-backs and could quite easily have won the game in the end. Vicario made that one point-blank save from Vardy and another in injury time after Lucas Bergvall gave the ball away having come on as a substitute to produce a delightfully Spursy cameo featuring a few lovely touches and that one panic-stricken moment that nearly cost his team.

Postecoglou will be hugely frustrated. His team should have been out of sight, and probably would have been had Solanke been in and around the team for even two or three weeks longer. He missed that one big chance but also wasn’t quite on the same wavelength of his teammates throughout the game. Balls were crossed into areas he should have been in while many of the runs he made went unnoticed.

But there were other issues. Cristian Romero was attracted to the ball, as is frequently the case, to give Vardy far too much space in the box to score, and Micky van de Ven looks set once again for a workload that may well prove to be too much for one – admittedly very fast – individual, with the flanks in behind Destiny Udogie and Pedro Porro the very obvious areas opposition teams can hurt them consistently.

The difference in composure from the first half to the second was the most alarming aspect of the game though. They very clearly did not like it up’em, and that enduring quirk of Spurs teams that somehow spans generations remains the significant hurdle for Postecoglou’s side to mount a title challenge. Maybe next season.

Leicester City have reportedly agreed terms with Tottenham Hotspur on a deal to take Oliver Skipp off their hands, with the midfielder now set for a medical ahead of a potential move to the King Power Stadium.

The Athletic’s David Ornstein writes that fee worth over £20m has between agreed between the two clubs and that Skipp travelled to the East Midlands for a medical on Sunday.

As chance would have it, Leicester City will host Tottenham Hotspur on Monday evening as the opening weekend of Premier League action comes to a close. Skipp would be ineligible to appear in the fixture, however: his registration would need to have been registered with the Premier League by midday on Friday.

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Earlier reports had suggested that Tottenham wanted to add to their midfield ranks before they would countenance a move away for Skipp, but if that was indeed the case, they now appear content that new arrivals Archie Gray from Leeds United and Lucas Bergvall from Djurgarden are sufficient reinforcements for now.

Should the move go through, Skipp would link back up with fellow Spurs academy graduate Harry Winks, who made the move to Leicester last summer and played a key role in helping them achieve automatic promotion back to the Premier League as Championship winners.

Skipp will also be a familiar face to new manager Steve Cooper, who managed him at youth level for England. Cooper joined Leicester earlier this summer after Enzo Maresca was poached by Chelsea.

Leicester could face an uphill battle to avoid relegation back to the Championship again as they face charges of allegedly breaching the game’s profit and sustainability rules, which can be punished with a points deduction.

Leicester have also been hit by the loss of striker Patson Daka to an ankle injury suffered in a pre-season friendly against Lens last month, with Cooper confirming that he is expected to be out for ‘months’.

Tottenham meanwhile have ambitions of building on last year’s fifth place finish, which saw them finish two points adrift of a Champions League place.

Spurs dropped just four points in the first ten games of last season but were very streaky for the rest of Ange Postecoglou’s first campaign in charge.

Postecogolou reflected ahead of the new season: “Obviously, we changed the football and we had some really good moments and some moments where we had to work really hard to get some results and probably the back end of last season was disappointing for us.

“There’s a lot in there but for us if we can get improvement in that then more consistency gives us an opportunity and a platform to try to achieve something which is what you go into every season trying to do.”

Manor Solomon will reportedly be loaned out by Tottenham this summer, while 17-year-old attacker Mikey Moore is set to stay in the spot that he could have filled.

Solomon was unfortunately ruled out for the rest of last season at the end of September, having played just five Premier League games. He had started two of those, and assisted twice in a 5-2 win over Burnley.

Following on from the good start he had, Solomon could have continued his form throughout the season, had he remained fit.

But that he missed most of the campaign has hurt him, as the Standard reports he ‘is likely to be loaned out’.

The winger has been surpassed by 17-year-old academy talent Moore, who it’s said will be part of Ange Postecoglou’s squad.

The forward turned 17 in August, and operates either as a left-winger – Solomon’s position – or a central striker. Moore was in red-hot form last season in the under-18 Premier League, bagging 14 goals and eight assists.

He also netted two goals and assisted once in the FA Youth Cup, and has been fast-tracked to the first team from the 18s, having only played two Premier League 2 goals last term.

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Moore is believed to have a very high ceiling, and Tottenham have worked hard to keep him at the club, amid interest from a number of Europe’s biggest sides.

Moore scored the winner in the 3-2 pre-season victory over Vissel Kobe during the tour of Japan, showing he is already capable of having an impact at senior level.

He will compete with the likes of Brennan Johnson, Heung-min Son and Richarlison for a place, but will not have to worry about Solomon, in a sign he is now held in higher regard as his development continues.

Fellow academy products Alfie Devine, Ashley Phillips and Jamie Donley will reportedly be loaned out, but Moore has done enough to show he’s worthy of playing in the Tottenham first team.

Alan Hutton believes the sale of Cristian Romero by Tottenham would be an “absolute nightmare” at this stage of the transfer window, though the fee of a potential Real Madrid transfer would be “huge”.

Romero has racked up 98 Tottenham appearances in three seasons with the club. He’s helped the north London outfit to fourth and fifth-placed finishes in two of those seasons.

While his temperament sometimes lets him down, Romero is clearly a vital member of the side, and in the best centre-back pairing, alongside Micky van de Ven.

But there is potential that Romero departs soon, with Real Madrid keen, and a recent report stating he could be leaving. While former Premier League defender Hutton feels Tottenham could raise a big fee from that transfer, he thinks it would tear the side apart at the start of the season.

“I think the fee would be huge,” Hutton told Football Insider.

“If you think about what Crystal Palace want for Marc Guehi, around £70million, I know he’s young and he’s had a brilliant Euros, I really like him as a player.

“I know Romero can be rash at times, that is what it is, but I think for what he does, his recovery tackles, he just suits Tottenham.

“I think they’d be talking about that same mark [£70million] and if they don’t hit that I don’t think they’ll want to sell.

“He’s such an important player for Tottenham next to Van de Ven, I think they complement each other.

“To lose Romero at this stage of the transfer window going into the first game of the season would be an absolute nightmare for the manager.”

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Indeed, Spurs will already be without Yves Bissouma, who was an important asset last season, for the start of the campaign, after he was suspended by the club following a social media video.

They would surely rather not lose Romero as well, with little time to find a proper replacement.

Seeing him leave would derail their season at the worst tame, after a stable pre-season which has allowed the squad to gel together more ahead of the second campaign under Ange Postecoglou.

Ange Postecoglou has told Yves Bissouma he must make “better decisions” after revealing he has been “suspended” by Tottenham following a social media video.

Bissouma played 28 Premier League games for Tottenham last season, as they finished fifth. He only missed games through injury, suspensions for being carded, and national team duty with Mali.

This summer, he has featured regularly for Spurs in pre-season, starting their last game – a 3-2 loss to Harry Kane’s Bayern Munich on August 10.

But the midfielder reportedly posted a video of himself inhaling laughing gas to social media, and Postecoglou has confirmed that has led to a suspension for the first game of the season, against Leicester on August 19.

“Been in the game for a long time, when a situation like this arises, I’ve tried to look at them in a couple of ways. First there’s a person and it’s Biss and he’s made a poor decision,” Postecoglou said, quoted by football.london.

“There are still sanctions involved, and some of those are educational. He is a footballer with responsibilities.

“He won’t be available on Monday. We’ve suspended him from Monday’s game. He needs to build that trust back with both me and the group. The door is open for him and we can help him realise the decisions he makes impact the group.”

Whether or not Bissouma can build up the trust with the club immediately after the first game of the season is unclear, but Postecoglou has told him how to do so.

“Behaviour mate. It’s that simple. It’s about making better decisions. He was very apologetic to me, the club and everyone involved but that’s just part of it,” he said.

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There are positives for Postecoglou, though, largely in the form of new signing Dominic Solanke, who has been bought from Bournemouth for £65million after 19 Premier League goals last season.

“Thankfully, it’s what we expected. He’s a top pro and he’s settled into the dressing room really well. Football-wise, you can see how he’s going to fit in. So far he’s fitted in really well with the group in training,” Postecoglou added.

It’s likely that the new striker will start against Leicester, while Richarlison, who played up top at times last season “has trained well” and “needs minutes” so could well also be given a run out, whether that be from the start or coming off the bench.

Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglou has declared that his team are not done with their transfer business in the current window and they have now been linked with a Bundesliga star wanted by Arsenal.

After bringing in a centre forward with the signing of Dominic Solanke, experts believe that the next step will be the pursuit of a winger ready for first team action.

That has seen Tottenham turn their focus to Bayern Munich’s Kingsley Coman who has recently been linked with Arsenal.

Spurs have lost out to London rivals in their hunt for a wide man already in the current window having seen Pedro Neto slip through their fingers and end up at Chelsea.

Journalist Steve Kay has asserted that Tottenham have added Coman to their transfer shortlist after two friendly meetings against Bayern in the last week.

The reporter went on to say that the France international might leave Allianz Arena in quest of consistent playing time and that Spurs might have an advantage over other teams in the signing process because he is represented by CAA Base.

“A good player, he’s struggling for game time at Bayern at the moment, a lot of good players there. There are going to be a lot of clubs after him,” Kay said on KS1 TV about Coman.

“I know Spurs are a team looking at him. Interestingly there he’s a part of CAA Base, which a lot of Spurs players are linked to as is Ange Postecoglou.”

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According to reports out of Germany Coman’s preferred move this summer would be Paris Saint-Germain.

Bayern want to send Coman on loan before the transfer window closes because of his wages.

Given that the Frenchman is not a key component of Vincent Kompnay’s strategy this season and is rumoured to earn €17m a year in Bavaria, they are hopeful that they will find a bidder in the upcoming weeks.

Manchester City is keeping an eye on Coman’s circumstances but has not yet shown a firm interest, and Barcelona would need to offload several players before they would entertain the idea of signing the 28-year-old for the upcoming season.

Coman is hoping to secure a move to France but PSG might not be in a position to sign him.

With Désiré Doué reportedly on the verge of joining, the Parisians are said to be debating whether they really need to add another striker this summer.

It was inevitable at some point in the post-Kane world they now occupy that Spurs would have to buy an oven-ready first-team striker, and that was always going to be a pretty significant and interesting transfer.

But the identity of that striker and the fee they’ve paid make it doubly so. There is something undeniably neat about belatedly replacing Kane with a player who is currently a one-season wonder after scoring 19 goals in 38 Premier League games last season having managed just 10 in total before that.

And if it all does work out, Dominic Solanke could end up costing them north of £60m and a club-record fee.

It’s a fascinating transfer because in a lot of ways it makes a lot of sense. He’s in the best form of his career, clearly, is a player arriving at what should be something close to his peak for a club busy hoovering up prospects and potential elsewhere, and we know that even one year of regularly scoring Premier League goals drives up a price.

It could and should all work out splendidly. So why do we have this marked down and underlined three times in red pen as our flop of the season?

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Firstly, buying strikers is really hard. There’s an alchemic quality to goalscoring that appears particularly hard to predict. Unless you’re getting a Haaland or indeed a Kane there really are no guarantees even the most impressive track record will survive moving leagues or even clubs within one.

Second, there’s just plenty of reflex muscle memory here. Spurs are not alone in being historically sh*t at buying strikers, but they are a particularly striking case.

The last actual striker they signed who could be considered any kind of success is probably Fernando Llorente, and for all his mischief-making in that 2018/19 Champions League run he also scored precisely two Premier League goals in 36 games.

Before that, Emmanuel Adebayor maybe? Peter Crouch a bit? Before that you’re probably looking at re-signing Robbie Keane and Jermain Defoe, and that hardly counts really and neither were quite so good in their second spells in North London.

You could make a case that while Son Heung-min has never really been a pure No. 9 he is nevertheless the best and most effective one they’ve signed in very nearly 20 years. And even then they only signed him as a fall-back having failed to secure their top target in Saido Berahino.

For the last indisputable unqualified successful signing of an out-and-out striker by Spurs you’re going right back to Dimitar Berbatov in 2006.

Kane clearly has been a very significant factor in the more recent failure to secure a striker signing that works, but it’s also an issue that precedes his rise to prominence by a good decade.

It’s an awful lot of years and an awful lot of money on an awful lot of Mido and Darren Bent and Roman Pavlyuchenko and Roberto Soldado and Vincent Janssen and Carlos Vinicius and Richarlison.

So it’s easy to see why anyone might be a bit nervous about the club now dropping anything close to £60m on a 26-year-old who has scored two-thirds of his career top-flight goals in the last 12 months.

There’s an intoxicating fragility to it as a transfer. Solanke’s efforts last season in an enterprising Bournemouth team mean there is clearly a whole host of plausible scenarios in which this all goes splendidly and by September social media is awash with all manner of ‘HARRY WHO?’ whimsy. You can’t yet, at this stage, truly confidently write it off as a bad transfer.

But you’d also not be remotely surprised if Solanke’s first season at Spurs comes far closer to the six goals in 33 games he managed in 22/23 than the 19 in 38 from the last campaign.

Maybe Spurs have been clever in signing Kane’s replacement a year on from his departure, providing a kind of decompression chamber that allows his replacement to avoid the harshest and most direct comparison. For better or worse, this Spurs team is also now a markedly and defiantly different one to that which Kane left on the eve of last season.

They are one of the biggest and least predictable variables in a league where, City and Arsenal apart, the rest of what we’re now cautiously calling a Big Eight look almost impossible to pin down.

Before Solanke’s arrival it still felt entirely feasible for Spurs to finish pretty much anywhere between third and eighth this season without anyone really being all that surprised, but now which one it might be feels quite significantly tied to his own efforts.

And that all feels so hard to predict, especially with his signing coming at just the right point for him to feature in no pre-season games at all but to have long enough with his new team-mates that it’s reasonable to assume he goes straight in for Monday night’s trip to Leicester.

A striker who could score anywhere between five and 20 goals without surprising anyone at a team who could finish third or eighth without surprising anyone. It’s quite a combination.

Harry Kane was overjoyed by the “amazing” reception he received upon his return from Tottenham before he gave Dominic Solanke a big seal of approval.

The England captain enjoyed a triumphant return to Tottenham after his Bayern Munich team earned a 3-2 friendly win at his old club on Saturday night.

It was the first time Kane had come back to his old stomping ground since his £100million transfer last August.

He was given a standing ovation on the pitch for the final 10 minutes before taking part in a solo lap of honour at full-time at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

“I am so used to coming here as the home player, been here so many times before so it was strange and putting this shirt on, being in the away dressing room, but I like to enjoy these occasions,” Kane said.

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“I had an amazing career at Spurs, so many great memories and just great to see the fans again, so many players and staff I have a lot of relationships with.

“The game itself, I probably shouldn’t have been playing. I only trained yesterday but I was always going to play 10 minutes and it was good.

“Everything was really rushed through last year, so we didn’t have a chance (to say goodbye), but it was great way to say thank you to all of them.

“The reception I got was amazing and great to clap them around the pitch after, those who stayed behind and I will always be thankful for every Spurs fan for the support they’ve given me through my whole career. It’s been incredible.

“I just appreciate them seeing me and me seeing them again.”

Kane and Eric Dier, who left Spurs in January to join Bayern, were presented with a special gift before kick off to acknowledged their service to the club.

Tottenham chose to parade new £65million signing Solanke afterwards alongside fellow summer arrivals Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall.

Solanke, 26, did not feature in the friendly but after he scored 21 times in all competitions for Bournemouth last season, Kane backed the one-cap England forward to flourish at his old club.

Kane added: “Yeah, he should be great. Dom is a great player, plays with high intensity, high speed.

“For sure he is going to get chances in this team, the way Ange (Postecoglou) plays and you saw that again with two top teams going toe-to-toe.

“Yeah, I think it is a really good signing. I saw him in the dressing room there and wished him all the best. I hope he has a great season.”

Dejan Kulusevski struck twice for Spurs, first during the opening minute and again after the hour mark, but Bayern claimed victory in a five-goal thriller after goals from Dayot Upamecano, Serge Gnabry and Thomas Muller.

Tottenham are closing in on the signing of Dominic Solanke after agreeing a £65million fee with Bournemouth, according to reports.

Solanke enjoyed the best season of his career in 2023/24, scoring 19 goals as Andoni Iraola’s side finished 12th in the Premier League.

The 26-year-old started his career at Chelsea and made his name as one of the best teenage strikers in world football, joining Liverpool on a free transfer in 2017.

He struggled at Anfield before a switch to Bournemouth for around £19m two years later.

For the Cherries, Solanke has scored 77 goals and made 31 assists in 216 matches. Nineteen goals in 38 Premier League appearances last term was by far his best return in the top flight, beating the six goals in 22/23 and three in 19/20.

The former Liverpool striker has been linked with Tottenham this week and is now closing in on a transfer to north London amid reports he has informed Bournemouth that he wants to make the move.

First broke by Sami Mokbel, the Daily Mail journalist wrote on X on Friday: “Tottenham and Bournemouth agree £65m deal for Dominic Solanke. Player now set for his medical.”

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David Ornstein and Fabrizio Romano have since chimed in, with the latter giving the transfer the “here we go” treatment.

Romano confirmed that Spurs will pay £65m in total for Solanke with a medical booked and contract already agreed.

He said: “Dominic Solanke to Tottenham, here we go! Deal agreed for £65m package add-ons included, record fee.

“Solanke set to travel for medical after contract until June 2030 agreed days ago. Exclusive story from last week, confirmed.”

Ornstein has claimed that Solanke ‘is desperate to move to Spurs and was Ange Postecoglou’s top summer transfer target’.

Postecoglou did not replace Harry Kane when the Spurs legend joined Bayern Munich last summer.

Speaking during his side’s pre-season tour of Japan, the Australian head coach said that he was keen to sign a new No. 9 that fits his style of play.

“What’s important is the type of striker we get,” he said.

“You know we play a certain way. We demand certain things from a physical perspective from the technical aspects of it that it’s going be a striker that fits that mould.

“It’s still the area of the park we’re really probably the thinnest when I talk about squad-wise at the moment, so obviously that’s a focus for us.”

📣 TO THE COMMENTS! Will Solanke be a success at Tottenham? Join the debate here.

Meanwhile, Spurs attacker Richarlison recently ruled out a move to the Saudi Pro League despite having a big offer on the table.

“There has been an offer [from Saudi] but my dream of playing for the Brazilian Seleção and in the Premier League [for Spurs] speaks louder,” Richarlison told ESPN Brasil.

“The money is big but my dream is bigger.”

Dominic Solanke has reportedly told Bournemouth that he’d like to move to Tottenham, as Spurs are said to be reaching the final stages of the transfer for the star striker.

Spurs, having seen only Heung-min Son and Richarlison pass 10 goals last season, and the latter do it for just the first time for the club, have been actively hunting for a striker signing this season.

Their favoured option of late has appeared to be Bournemouth’s Solanke. The striker scored 19 Premier League goals last term, and that only three players scored more in the league suggested he could make it at a bigger side.

A report of late suggested that if he attempted to put pressure on the Cherries, the move to Tottenham would come more easily.

And while that’s not exactly how things have panned out, it’s not far from it. Ryan Taylor has told the Spurs Chat Podcast that Solanke has told his club that he’d like to be able to move to Tottenham.

“Solanke wants the move. He hasn’t agitated for a move behind the scenes, but I believe he has told Bournemouth in private talks that he wants to join,” he said.

“He fully respects Bournemouth, they have played a big part in his career and he’s starting to fulfil the potential we saw at Chelsea.”

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And knowing that Solanke is probably destined for bigger things, after more than five years and 77 goals for the club, it seems that the Cherries are willing to let him have his wish.

Indeed, it’s been stated that Tottenham are ‘finalising a deal’ to sign the striker, in what would become a record sale for Bournemouth.

The current record is the £41million they received when they sold Nathan Ake to Manchester City. Solanke has a release clause of £65million, and while it’s not definitively reported that will be paid by Spurs, it seems likely.