The New York Times

Tottenham Hotspur needed a big performance to breathe life into their season — and in one of Europe’s most intimidating arenas, they delivered it.

Eintracht Frankfurt’s Waldstadion was a seething swirl of noise for this Europa League quarter-final but Spurs kept their heads and eked out a 1-0 victory courtesy of Dominic Solanke’s first-half penalty.

It was enough to earn a spot in the semi-finals and relieve some of the pressure on head coach Ange Postecoglou, with James Maddison’s injury — sustained in winning the spot kick — the only sour note of the night for the London club.

Here, we analyse the big talking points.

Why this was Spurs’ most important win of the season

Tottenham have had some thrilling wins this season, some thumping ones, but this might just be the most surprising and the most important.

And, of course, this win puts Spurs into the Europa League semi-finals. They are just two games away from the final in Bilbao, and the possibility of their worst season in recent history ending in glory. That would be a huge vindication for the embattled Postecoglou. But this win was a vindication, too.

This has been a season of nauseating ups and downs. And there have been far more downs than ups over the last few months. But tonight in Frankfurt, when the season and indeed the whole Postecoglou tenure looked over, Spurs somehow produced a performance no one expected.

The rollercoaster rolls on.

Jack Pitt-Brooke

Solanke keeps his cool and ends his drought

It took an age for Tottenham’s penalty at the end of the first half to finally be awarded after James Maddison was smashed into by Frankfurt goalkeeper Kaua Santos.

When it was, Postecoglou could be seen shouting from the technical area for Solanke to take it, rather than Mathys Tel, who was at that point holding onto the ball. Earlier this month against Southampton, there had been a row between Tel and Brennan Johnson over who would take a penalty, but the stakes were far higher tonight than they were then.

In the end, Solanke stepped up and buried the ball into the net. It was his first goal since January 4, before the knee injury that has spoiled the second half of his season. This was his eighth start in a row following almost two months out, but it has been a slow journey back to his former self.

Solanke’s pressing and hold-up play were integral to Spurs’ game in the first half of the season, as well as his goals. He was one of the players who made the system work. And Tottenham fans will be as happy with the return of his all-round game tonight, as they will with his crucial penalty.

Jack Pitt-Brooke

How Tel proved his mettle

Clearly Tel has struggled for involvement so far during his Tottenham career and — at times — he has tried too hard. That’s an old Bayern Munich habit, which developed when his minutes became scarce and his every touch needed to be impressive.

This was much better; more measured. At this stage of his career, Tel looks more comfortable biting in from the left, rather than carrying the responsibility of a No 9, and he was a menace in the gap between Rasmus Kristensen and Tuta, Frankfurt’s right-back and centre-back.

The first-half highlight was the curling shot that Kaua Santos clawed around the post, but Tel’s performance had an instinctive rhythm that he has rarely shown since arriving. It helped suppress Kristensen, too, who has been one of the more dynamic full-backs in the Bundesliga this season and who prefers to operate as an auxiliary winger at times.

As the game developed and Spurs’ defensive line dropped, he was an asset on the counter, too, often working hard to keep pace with breaks out of defence and offer a crossing option at the far post. Midway through the second half, he had another dart infield, beyond Kristensen again, just lifting a shot high and wide.

It was nothing revelatory and there were still flaws, but it was a display of important dimensions.

Seb Stafford-Bloor

Romero stands tall — at last

This was the good side of Cristian Romero.

There was a moment in the first half when Postecoglou was angrily shouting in his captain’s direction. Romero simply turned to his head coach and gestured for him to calm down.

No, Romero is not known for his even temperament and has spent his entire Tottenham career — when he’s been available — playing right on the edge. But when he’s good, he’s really good, and on Thursday he was near-perfect.

He’s at his best when he is aggressive without becoming reckless. When he doesn’t collect needless early yellow cards that neuter his aggression and when he defends as if it’s a point of honour. Much of the game happened in front of him and Micky van de Ven, but there were still plenty of loose balls in the box that required good timing to clear.

There were some tough headers on the way to full time, too, and Romero was hard and uncompromising in how he competed under those balls, taking the physical punishment that was the inevitable cost. And while there was a late booking for a rash tackle, it did not cost his team on this occasion.

He has not had a good few weeks. His performance at Molineux was especially limp. But this was a captain’s effort and Romero was the key to a first clean sheet since the middle of February.

Sebastian Stafford-Bloor

How Spurs drew Frankfurt’s sting

Frankfurt did not cope with the evening’s adversities particularly well. Losing Mario Gotze, their elder statesman, was deeply inconvenient on a night which called for composure. Frankfurt are a young side prone to volatility, and even though Gotze is well beyond his prime, the experience he provides is valuable.

Tottenham did well to keep digging at their opponents’ ribs, though. The penalty decision angered the crowd and further unsettled the players, and it was probably no coincidence that most of the physical confrontations thereafter brought Frankfurt players rushing in from all sides and — in the first half — saw a member of their coaching staff sent to the stands.

Spurs managed that nicely. They were aggressive enough in response without ever losing control. The tenor of their football was surprisingly measured, never allowing their opponents’ chaotic energy to be a force for good. They drained the clock when they could. The aggression and risk in their passing was dialled back, and their game management was far better as a result.

For all the noise in the Waldstadion and despite Eintracht’s urgency, they created very few clear chances, with two late scuffed shots from Kristensen the only moments when they really threatened to score.

Sebastian Stafford-Bloor

What did Postecoglou say?

The Spurs head coach was proud of his side’s efforts in securing a gritty win but said he did not believe it would help ease the pressure on his position.

Asked by TNT Sports if the win would help quell the speculation around the job, he replied: “I doubt it. I’m the same coach today as I was yesterday. The pleasure comes from seeing this group of players rewarded. People like to mock and ridicule my achievements – that’s fine, I’ll just keep doing what I do.

“There’s been a lot of noise around the team but you wouldn’t know it in camp. They’ve been so focused on us achieving what we want to and I’m super proud of them.

“You know what you’re up against and we had to work hard and defend. We had to be well organised and have our clean moments going forward. I think over the two legs we deserved to go through.”

What next for Spurs?

Monday, April 21: Nottingham Forest (Home), Premier League, 8pm UK, 3pm ET

(Top photo: Alex Grimm/Getty Images)

Tottenham Hotspur’s entire season hinges on the outcome of their Europa League quarter-final second leg against Eintracht Frankfurt.

The tie is delicately balanced following last week’s 1-1 draw. They need to win in Germany today (Thursday) to keep their hopes of silverware alive and for head coach Ange Postecoglou to cling onto his job.

Now would be the perfect time for Dominic Solanke to demonstrate why Spurs broke their transfer record last summer to sign him from Bournemouth in a £65million ($86m at the current exchange rate) deal.

In theory, Solanke was the overdue replacement for the club’s record goalscorer Harry Kane, who joined Bayern Munich in August 2023 for €100m (£86m, $114m). Spurs had considered signing Ivan Toney from Brentford, who instead moved to Al Ahli in Saudi Arabia, but Solanke was Postecoglou’s first choice.

The only problem is that their marquee striker has now not scored in his last 11 games — a run which stretches back to the beginning of January.

The pressure is on Solanke even more after Postecoglou revealed on Wednesday that captain Son Heung-min would be unavailable to play against Frankfurt tonight because of a foot injury.

You might be surprised to learn that Spurs’ top scorer in the Premier League this season is Brennan Johnson with 11. James Maddison (nine) is close behind. Solanke is joint third on seven, alongside Son and Dejan Kulusevski.

It is a slightly underwhelming return from the 27-year-old, who has registered a total of 2,033 minutes across 23 appearances.

Fellow striker Richarlison, who has struggled with hamstring and calf injuries for the majority of the campaign, has somehow scored three times in 293 minutes. The Brazilian’s latest effort came in Sunday’s defeat to Wolverhampton Wanderers, when Mathys Tel scored too. Tel has scored in back-to-back games but the 19-year-old Frenchman is still adjusting to the physicality of English football and a new environment after joining from Bayern in a February loan deal that includes an option to buy.

Spurs have three centre-forwards who are either struggling for form or fitness heading into their biggest game of the season.

Solanke has played over 150 top-flight matches in his career but the only season where he was truly prolific was the previous one, under Andoni Iraola at Bournemouth. Only Erling Haaland (27), Cole Palmer (22) and Alexander Isak (21) scored more than him last season.

Taking a look at the England international’s shot map, you can see he thrived on attacking crosses into the box from Bournemouth’s wingers. He converted a few low-quality chances, including two headers from awkward angles in his hat-trick during a 3-2 win against Nottingham Forest and a looping effort from outside the box in a 3-1 defeat against Brighton.

The first thing that jumps out from his shot map for this season is that he is underperforming his xG (expected goals).

According to the data, Solanke should have scored three more times based on the quality of his chances. He is shooting from further out (11.7 yards) but the xG per shot has marginally increased, which suggests a higher average quality of opportunity falling his way.

The biggest difference appears to be that Bournemouth created chances for Solanke in the six-yard box far more often than Spurs are managing to. A lot of the time, he is being presented with the ball around the penalty spot, where defenders will have a better chance of blocking the shot and goalkeepers have an extra fraction of a second to react if the ball gets past their colleagues.

Solanke experienced similar difficulties at Bournemouth, not scoring until his 39th appearance for them. Junior Stanislas, a team-mate on the south coast, told The Athletic last year: “His hold-up play, skills and willingness to run in behind — he was someone you always wanted on your team. He brought so much more than goals.”

As Stanislas’ comments suggest, Solanke’s underperformance in front of goal and Tottenham’s struggles to consistently find him in good positions do not mean he is playing badly. Johnson has been directly involved in 20 goals in all competitions this season. Before the 1-1 draw with Frankfurt last week, the 23-year-old winger explained why Postecoglou’s style of play suits him.

“We have a lot of fast players, so when the ball gets crossed, there tends to be a lot of space for the ball to go all the way across the pitch and it’s just about me gambling on what position to be in,” Johnson said in the pre-match press conference. “More times than not this season, I’ve been in the right position.

“Work does go on on the training ground, there’s a lot of coaches who do a lot of work with me, which I’m really appreciative of. One would be, for example, the first goal (in the recent 3-1 win against Southampton): noticing that Dom (Solanke) made the run to the front post, and being in position when the ball gets cut back on my left foot.”

It is encouraging to hear about the Wales international’s development but his comments touch on Solanke’s selflessness, which is a rare trait among strikers.

Solanke opens up space for others to exploit with his relentless running. He darts into different areas of the pitch, which gives centre-backs a dilemma about whether to track him or not. During his time in Chelsea’s academy, Solanke was praised for his ability to play as a No 9 or a No 10 between the lines. He can drop deep to link up play or stretch defences with his speed.

Pedro Porro’s equaliser against Frankfurt is a prime example of this.

Nobody would have blamed Solanke for allowing Son’s curved pass to bounce out of play but he doggedly chased after it. Maddison was credited with the assist but the move can be traced back to his striker’s intelligent movement. Even when he does not score, Solanke still finds a way to impact the game.

Something similar happened in January’s 1-0 victory over Liverpool in the Carabao Cup semi-final first leg: Porro played a long ball over the top for Solanke and he outmuscled Ibrahima Konate to reach it first and then set up Lucas Bergvall for the winner.

After only a couple of months of playing together, Spurs centre-back Micky van de Ven described Solanke as “unbelievable.”

“Even as a striker, you see offensive, defensive — he keeps running the whole game and I am watching him and thinking, ‘Phwoar, how are you even doing this, keeping sprinting over and over again’,” Van de Ven said before a 1-0 Europa League home win against AZ in October.

Richarlison’s fitness issues meant Solanke started and completed 90 minutes in the majority of Tottenham’s games before he suffered a knee injury in training in January that ruled him out for nearly two months. Just before that happened, Postecoglou said he had “exceeded” his expectations and admitted his striker needed “help”.

“Dom has just been outstanding in the way he’s carried the front line for us during this period,” Postecoglou said before a 2-1 loss to Arsenal. “With the way we play, we put a lot of demands on that position. It’s not just him standing up there scoring goals, it’s working hard for the team.

“I really think if Richy was available, I think (Dom) would have been able to contribute even greater for us in terms of his output in goals. I really love what he brings to us as a team from a football perspective, from a cultural perspective.

“The only growth we’ve seen in recent times is him and (Kulusevski) becoming on-field leaders in the team. With Dom being a new player, it probably would have been easier for him to slip in and do his job but he’s taken on the responsibility of helping the whole team. He’s been great for us. I really feel there is more to him and his game.”

Solanke’s work rate in and out of possession is undeniably world-class, with data from Footovision suggesting no centre-forward in the Premier League puts in so much effort without the ball. The bar chart below shows the players with the most pressures in a high block, defined by Footovision as a pressing phase where the centroid of the team is in the opposition half for at least four seconds. He is clear at the top.

Solanke also completes more pressures on the opposition goalkeeper than any other player (8.4 per game; Evanilson of Bournemouth is second with 6.3), suggesting that he has the physical capabilities to lead the line and apply pressure in an aggressive defensive shape.

A good example of Solanke’s pressing can be found in December’s defeat to Chelsea. He hassled his England colleague Levi Colwill and forced him to pass the ball to Marc Cucurella, who was also being hunted down by Johnson. Cucurella slipped, Johnson drove forward and whipped a cross into the box which Solanke fired past Robert Sanchez.

There have been lots of other occasions when Solanke has disrupted the opposition’s build-up, which has led to a chance for one of his team-mates. He will not receive the official assists but is clearly the architect of those goalscoring situations.

In an interview with Sky Sports last week, Solanke admitted it has been a “difficult” season. That knee injury disrupted his momentum, and other players also being sidelined means it has been difficult to build up any chemistry.

Spurs have lost more than half of their 32 league games and are 15th in the 20-team table with just two more points than fourth-bottom West Ham United while Bournemouth, the club Solanke moved on from last summer, are eighth and pushing to qualify for Europe. The forward has experienced the joy of returning to the England setup, seven years after his previous appearance, but has failed to match last season’s impressive output in front of goal.

There have been a couple of moments of brilliance this season, including a beautiful chip in a 4-1 defeat of Aston Villa in November but Solanke could do with a game-changing goal and the best time to provide it would be tonight in Frankfurt.

(Top photo: Julian Finney via Getty Images)

Bournemouth’s Dean Huijsen is almost certainly going to be one of the biggest stories of the summer transfer window.

Last week, The Athletic’s David Ornstein reported in his subscriber-exclusive Q&A session that Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur are all interested in the defender. David also highlighted that Huijsen has a £50million ($64.8m) release clause.

But why does each club want him, and whose style of play would he suit best?

The Athletic’s club experts James McNicholas, Liam Twomey, James Pearce, Chris Waugh and Jay Harris, and our tactics expert Anantaajith Raghuraman, have taken a look below.

Arsenal

Why do they want him?

Centre-backs with the physical and technical profile to play in Mikel Arteta’s team are few and far between. Arteta also values Premier League experience very highly. The opportunity to sign a player who ticks all those boxes was always likely to pique Arsenal’s interest.

Arsenal have been looking for a youthful centre-back addition for some time. They were previously interested in Vitor Reis, now of Manchester City, and have since turned their attention to Huijsen.

They may also lose Jakub Kiwior this summer; the Poland international has started just five Premier League games this season, and Arsenal recognise that if he wants to move for regular first-team football, it would be difficult to stand in his way. As such, reinforcements in that area will be important.

What role would he play in the team?

Arsenal have a very established central defensive pairing in William Saliba and Gabriel, but the arrival of Huijsen would provide a compelling third option.

His two-footedness and ability to play on both sides of the central defensive axis would open up some interesting selection and rotation possibilities for Arteta.

Would he suit the style of play?

His ease on the ball and ability to cope with the physical demands of the Premier League make him a good fit for Arsenal. There aren’t many central defenders out there with the ability to step into the Arsenal back four and replicate the roles of Saliba or Gabriel.

At 20, Huijsen has the potential to get there.

James McNicholas

Chelsea

Why do they want him?

Chelsea rarely pass up an opportunity to pursue a young player exhibiting elite potential, particularly when they feel the likely transfer fee represents an excellent long-term value proposition.

In terms of age, ability and suitability for Enzo Maresca’s system, Huijsen appears to tick all the main boxes of the profile Chelsea are looking for — even more so if he is prepared to fit into Clearlake Capital’s unique salary and contract structure at Stamford Bridge.

What role would he play in the team?

Wesley Fofana’s continuing injury problems mean there is an opening next to Levi Colwill in Maresca’s strongest starting XI.

Huijsen would have competition to hold down that spot now and in the future — not least from rising academy graduate Josh Acheampong — but no one is currently barring his route to regular minutes at the heart of Chelsea’s defence.

Would he suit the style of play?

Huijsen’s comfort level on the ball makes him a fit for Maresca’s positional and possession-focused style of play, which often requires his defenders to invite opposition pressure before identifying and executing the right passes through and around it.

Another plus point is that Huijsen’s resume at Bournemouth has shown he is more than capable of standing up to the physical and athletic demands of being a high-level centre-back in the Premier League — and his youth means his body is unlikely to be finished developing yet.

Liam Twomey

Liverpool

Why do they want him?

Liverpool are looking to strengthen defensively this summer — and Huijsen certainly fits the bill in terms of his age, technical qualities and the fact that he possesses Premier League experience.

His £50million release clause also avoids the prospect of protracted negotiations, with Liverpool taking advantage of similar situations when they bought Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai two years ago.

Virgil van Dijk is on the brink of signing a new two-year contract, but uncertainty surrounds the future of his regular centre-back partner Ibrahima Konate. The France international only has one year remaining on his current deal, with talks over an extension dragging on.

There has also been speculation over Jarell Quansah, who attracted interest from Newcastle last summer. However, Liverpool insist that the academy graduate, who signed a new five-year contract in October, isn’t for sale.

Long-serving Joe Gomez is Arne Slot’s other senior centre-back, but he hasn’t played since February due to injury.

What role would he play in the team?

Much depends on what happens with Konate’s situation. If he doesn’t pen an extension, then Liverpool will either have to sell him this summer or run the risk of losing him for nothing in 2026.

Huijsen has the potential to be Van Dijk’s long-term replacement as Liverpool’s left-sided centre-back. However, the Liverpool captain’s new deal means he will remain a regular in Slot’s back line beyond this season.

Given that Huijsen is two-footed, there’s no reason why he couldn’t play alongside Van Dijk and benefit from the Dutchman’s wealth of experience as his development continues.

With Liverpool looking to compete on all four fronts next season, there wouldn’t be a shortage of game time for the youngster.

James Pearce

Would he suit the style of play?

Yes. Under Slot, Liverpool’s ball progression is funnelled more centrally. Huijsen’s comfort in passing with both feet will be incredibly valuable for Liverpool to break the first line and find Ryan Gravenberch in build-up play.

He can also deputise for either Van Dijk or Konate, having played in both centre-back positions for Bournemouth this season. Huijsen’s ball-carrying would add an extra layer to Liverpool’s ball progression, too.

He is capable of defending space and following attackers up the pitch, making him a solid fit alongside Van Dijk, who often sweeps up behind his partner, and Konate, who loves to duel.

Anantaajith Raghuraman

Newcastle United

Why do they want him?

There are only two areas of the team that Newcastle have failed to strengthen post-takeover: right-sided forward and right-sided centre-back. Both are priority positions for the recruitment team heading into the summer window.

Huijsen’s versatility, given how comfortable he is with both feet, means he could play in either centre-back position and that increases his attractiveness.

Crucially, Huijsen already has Premier League experience but is also young and, given he has a release clause, is available for what is considered to be a relatively reasonable price in the current market, and has the height and physicality to excel in England’s top flight.

While Huijsen is far from Newcastle’s only target — his Bournemouth team-mate Illia Zabarnyi has keen admirers within St James’ Park, though he does not have a similar release clause, while Crystal Palace’s Marc Guehi remains of keen interest — he does fit the ideal profile of centre-back they are hoping to bring to Tyneside.

What role would he play in the team?

Fabian Schar and Dan Burn have been almost ever-present under Eddie Howe, but are 33 and 32 respectively, and succession planning is required.

Schar has extended his stay by another 12 months, while Jamaal Lascelles’ (31) contract also has another year to run. But aside from the 25-year-old Sven Botman, Newcastle do not have a centre-back option who is under the age of 30.

Huijsen would provide direct competition for Burn, Schar and Botman, and he would also add depth to a Newcastle squad which must cope with the additional demands of European football next season (even if the competition they will play in is yet to be determined).

Chris Waugh

Would he suit the style of play?

Eddie Howe likes his centre-backs to be expansive. Only Fulham’s Joachim Andersen, Bournemouth’s Marcos Senesi and Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold have attempted more long balls (passes of 35 or more yards) per 90 than Schar’s 9.5.

Huijsen (9.1 long balls per 90) is excellent at progressing play with switches or line-breaking passes from either side of central defence.

His defensive fit is more interesting. Under Andoni Iraola at Bournemouth, Huijsen has shown the tactical nous needed to man-mark players across the pitch, which should fit seamlessly into Howe’s defensive scheme.

Anantaajith Raghuraman

Tottenham Hotspur

Why do they want him?

Spurs changed their approach in the transfer market after Johan Lange became their technical director in November 2023. Lange revamped the recruitment department to become more data-oriented and has focused on signing quality young players, including Archie Gray, Lucas Bergvall and Wilson Odobert.

Huijsen fits this profile perfectly. The Spain international could be the bedrock of their defence for the long term. With Bergvall and Gray in midfield ahead of him, Spurs could boast a squad packed with massive potential who could grow organically together.

What role would he play in the team?

Spurs have signed Micky van de Ven, Radu Dragusin and Kevin Danso over the last two years, while Cristian Romero is their vice-captain. All four of those players are senior internationals who want to play every single game. Do not forget about Ben Davies and Gray, either. The latter covets a central-midfield role but has mainly featured in defence this season.

If Spurs added Huijsen into the mix, then they would surely need to sell somebody to accommodate him. Dragusin is recovering from an anterior cruciate ligament injury and will not return until next season. Danso only arrived on loan, with an obligation to buy, in February. Davies is their longest-serving current player and is set to stay for another year.

That leaves Van de Ven and Romero. Van de Ven’s recovery speed is integral to Ange Postecoglou’s high defensive line, while Romero’s quality in possession is unmatched. The Argentinian has made several high-profile errors this season, however, and has been linked with a move to Atletico Madrid. Cashing in on Romero to make a move for Huijsen might be their best option.

Jay Harris

Would he suit the style of play?

Huijsen’s fit at Spurs is intriguing. His distribution will be crucial to their build-up, which involves quick passing from back to front, while he is great at defending space. Huijsen is not the quickest without the ball, which prompts doubts over his fit in their high defensive line.

But if Spurs choose to shift away from the Postecoglou project and adopt a different strategy, Huijsen’s attributes tick several boxes.

Anantaajith Raghuraman

(Top photo: Michael Steele/Getty Images)

Tottenham Hotspur captain Son Heung-min will miss his side’s Europa League second leg against Eintracht Frankfurt with a foot injury, head coach Ange Postecoglou has confirmed.

Son started the first leg against the Bundesliga team, a 1-1 draw at home on Thursday, but was left out of the squad for Tottenham’s 4-2 defeat against Wolverhampton Wanderers three days later.

The South Korean has featured heavily this season, appearing 43 times for Spurs in all competitions.

Postecoglou, who also confirmed that centre-back Kevin Danso has returned to training, said that Son had been dealing with the issue for multiple weeks and did not make the trip to Frankfurt.

“Sonny didn’t travel in the end,” said Postecoglou. “He is the only one who misses out. He has been battling with his foot problem for a few weeks now and has managed through it but it has got too painful in the last few days. He tried to train yesterday and it wasn’t right so we made the decision to leave him at home. He went home to recuperate.

“Everyone else is good. The only noticeable addition is Kevin (Danso) who trained and is available as well. So it’s only Sonny who misses out.

“It is a blow but it is consistent with everything else that has happened this year. It’s just another challenge for us to overcome. It’s unfortunate for him. He tried really hard. The reason we left him out on the weekend was to try to give him time to recover because he has been struggling with this foot thing for a few weeks now. But in the end he couldn’t make it. We have had these challenges all year and it’s just another one we need to overcome.

Son has scored 11 goals and provided 12 assists in all competitions this campaign, with three of his goals coming in the Europa League. He missed a handful of games earlier in the season with a hamstring injury.

‘Dilemma’ for Postecoglou

This is a huge blow for Spurs just before the biggest game of their season. Son has underperformed over the last year but he is still the team’s talisman. He is an elite finisher who possesses the quality to threaten any opponent. Son’s link-up with James Maddison and Destiny Udogie caused Frankfurt a few problems last week with the way they rotate positions to confuse their opponents. Frankfurt’s job just became a little bit easier now that the 32-year-old is unavailable.

Postecoglou now faces a dilemma about who to play on the left wing. Mathys Tel has scored in consecutive Premier League games but has struggled to impress since he arrived in February on loan from Bayern Munich with an option to buy. Wilson Odobert has not played in their last two matches as his fitness is carefully managed. Richarlison has come off the bench in the last two matches, after missing two months with a calf injury, and it is unlikely he would be ready to start a game of this intensity.

Timo Werner was not registered in the squad for the knockout stages of the Europa League which leaves 17-year-old Mikey Moore as the only other alternative option.

You could argue that Tel and Odobert offer more dynamism than Son but nobody can match his experience. Postecoglou needs his senior players to step up to keep Tottenham’s hopes of winning silverware alive but he will have to find a way to succeed without Son.

(Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

On November 4 last year, Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou and chief football officer Scott Munn took to the stage of Australia House, the ornate hall in central London that has been the home of the Australian diplomatic mission to the UK since 1918. The event was billed as ‘An Evening with Ange’, opening with speeches from the Australian high commissioner, Stephen Smith, and the Greek ambassador, Yannis Tsaousis.

When Munn was on stage, he told a story. The previous week, Spurs had hosted Manchester City in the Carabao Cup and Aston Villa in the Premier League. Munn had previously worked for City Football Group, first at Melbourne City and then as the CEO for their Chinese operations. The technical director, Johan Lange, had joined Spurs from Aston Villa, where he had been sporting director from 2020 to 2023. So Munn had dubbed that week ‘the Scott Munn and Johan Lange Cup’. Postecoglou had assured him not to worry and that Spurs would win both games. And he was right: Spurs blew both City and Villa away with brave, intense, attacking football.

At the time, the week looked like another step in the right direction. In hindsight, it was the apex of what has become a disastrous season. But either way that evening — days before the dispiriting defeats to Galatasaray and Ipswich Town — was a moment of confidence, optimism and alignment. It felt as if the whole club was moving together in the right direction.

Just over five months on, Tottenham Hotspur does not feel like such a happy, settled place. Since that night, Spurs have played 22 league games and taken just 21 points. Their season hangs by a thread, and they will need to win away at Eintracht Frankfurt on Thursday night to keep it alive. And the public sentiment, the adoration of the crowd that elevated Postecoglou in his first year, has now seemingly gone forever.

The failure of Tottenham’s season raises plenty of questions about the boardroom, the dugout and the playing staff. But at the heart of it is whether the football leadership team that was established in 2023 can survive into the next season.

The year 2023 was effectively Year Zero for this iteration of Tottenham Hotspur. It was the year when the managing director of football, Fabio Paratici, was banned from football activities for 30 months and then forced to resign in April when he failed to overturn the ban. It was the year when Antonio Conte refused to sign an extension to his 18-month contract and was then sacked with 10 games left after destroying his players in an infamous press conference on March 18.

With the old order collapsing, Tottenham embarked on one of their almost-annual relaunches. There had been an external review of the club’s footballing activities (“to ensure we apply our values of innovation, drive and excellence”, Daniel Levy wrote in 2023 on the club website). This led to the creation of a new role — chief football officer — to coordinate all football departments. Munn was appointed in this role in April, officially starting his work in September.

Postecoglou was the next big appointment, arriving at the end of the season. He shone in interviews and was identified as the best candidate to deliver the cultural change and football rebuild that the club needed. And then, in October 2023, Lange arrived from Villa into another newly created role as technical director, taking charge of recruitment.

But as we approach the end of the 2024-25 season, it looks as if the football hierarchy set up in 2023 is likely to change again. And not just because Postecoglou finds his own future in severe doubt after a season that Levy described last month as “highly challenging”. Postecoglou is the public face of the institution, the figurehead who speaks to the media every few days, having to answer for the club’s strategy in public. But even if he is replaced by the end of the season, that will not be the only big change at Spurs this summer.

Tottenham have already announced the first, the arrival of Vinai Venkatesham this summer, joining the club’s board as the new chief executive officer (CEO). This is part of a move from the club to strengthen their corporate structure, with Levy explaining last week that growth meant they had to “expand our executive management”. In practice, this will mean Venkatesham taking on some responsibilities from Levy and other board members in his new role.

But even the arrival of Venkatesham is unlikely to be the end of the changes to executive roles at Spurs this summer. Multiple sources have told The Athletic that Munn’s future as chief football officer is in severe doubt, too.

Since Munn came in two years ago, he has overseen significant changes behind the scenes, leading to overhauls of departments, including scouting and medical, that required substantial staff turnover. He has not been afraid to ruffle feathers, to put it mildly. Perhaps that is inevitable in a role that demands hiring and firing.

Assessing the success or otherwise of Munn’s overhauls remains difficult, even with on-pitch results as poor as they have been this season. Clearly the medical department has struggled this season amid an injury crisis of unprecedented scale and requires continued work. There is still a view at the club that the changes Munn has overseen were long overdue. This was not exactly a perfectly functioning football club — or medical department — when Munn arrived in 2023.

Some would even argue that the changes in how Spurs recruited players — which led to the departures of some long-standing scouts and a replacement with a modern approach — has led to an improvement in talent identification at the club. Lucas Bergvall, Archie Gray, Wilson Odobert and Antonin Kinsky are all far-sighted purchases. No one would argue that the recruitment has been perfect or even sufficient for what Postecoglou needed. But its failures may owe more to strategy than to scouting.

And whatever happens to Munn, there is still the lingering figure of Paratici in the background. Munn has, to an extent, operated in the shadow of Paratici during his time at Spurs. Paratici has still been an external consultant to Levy over the last two years while he was banned from official work with clubs (that work, advising Levy on football matters, is consistent with the limited scope of Paratici’s ban). Some people at Spurs have said over the last two years that they missed Paratici in his old official role, given his charismatic personality and his winning CV from his time at Juventus.

In July, Paratici’s 30-month ban from official football work will be over. At that point, he would be able to work for clubs again. As it stands, a restoration at Tottenham is not on the cards. It is easy to be nostalgic about the Paratici period, but he brought plenty of drama to the club, as well as a few well-judged signings.

But whether Tottenham go back to an earlier organisational model this summer or forge ahead with a new one, they will start next season embarking on yet another brave new era, another relaunch, another attempt to get the balance right on and off the pitch.

(Top photo: Fred Lee/Premier League)

In January 2019, Mauricio Pochettino clarified his stance on what defines success for Tottenham Hotspur.

Three days after losing against Chelsea on penalties in the semi-final of the Carabao Cup, his side were eliminated by Crystal Palace in the FA Cup fourth round. It was the second time in four years the south Londoners had knocked Spurs out of that tournament, leaving their chances of winning a trophy that season hanging by a golden Champions League thread, with Manchester City and Liverpool running away from the pack in the Premier League.

“We are going to create a debate that to win a trophy is going to help the club,” Pochettino said in a post-match press conference after that Palace defeat. “I don’t agree with that. That only builds your ego.

“In reality, the most important thing is being consistently in the top four and playing Champions League. That is going to help the club to achieve the last step. Today, the club is doing fantastically, it’s so successful. In the last four or five years, we’ve been fighting in different ways to achieve what the club needs, to be in the level of Chelsea, United, City or Arsenal or Liverpool.”

Without the same financial clout as some of his rival managers, Pochettino may have had to prioritise one or the other. After all, while his team competed in vain towards the top of the Premier League table without adding another trophy to the cabinet, the club also built the most impressive football stadium in the country.

Rarely is the qualification for the Champions League six times in the drought period referenced by neutrals in mitigation — that 2019 season, for what it’s worth, ended with defeat in the Champions League final. Before Spurs were at home with the big six, they were considered in a bracket alongside Newcastle United, Aston Villa and Everton. While Newcastle put their 56-year trophy wait behind them with their Carabao Cup success last month, they had to go down to the Championship first. Villa were also relegated in 2015-16.

While those sides struggled, Tottenham worked their way into contention. Jibes about the trophy wait, however, are the go-to method for poking fun at a club that has broadly overachieved over the past decade or so given their spending relative to many of their rivals.

Still, Spurs’ 17-year wait for a trophy is startling. There have been seven semi-final and four final defeats since Spurs beat Chelsea in the League Cup final in 2008. Over that time, their average league position was 4.94, basically fifth.

Since the resumption of competitive football after World War II, no club in England has had a higher average league position over a 16-year period than Tottenham’s between 2008-09 and 2023-24 and not lifted any kind of silverware. It’s an incredibly unlikely combination.

You only need look at Manchester United by way of comparison. Spurs have finished above United in six of the 11 full seasons since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement, yet during that spell United have so far won five major trophies to Tottenham’s none.

Premier League

While the 2016-17 side was undoubtedly better equipped to compete for a title, Antonio Conte’s Chelsea were more consistent. Between October 1 and December 31, Chelsea won 13 straight Premier League matches, creating a 13-point gap between them and Tottenham, who were fifth at the time. Though Spurs went on a dominant run of their own, winning 13 of their final 15 league matches to finish with 86 points, Chelsea closed the season out strongly to win the title, finishing seven points ahead of their London rivals.

Had Tottenham replicated that total the previous season, they would have won the title by five points.

Though Spurs may not have been entirely ready to compete at the elite level, the 2015-16 season represents somewhat of a missed opportunity. Tottenham were slow to get out of the blocks, picking up three draws and a defeat in their opening four matches. Failure to turn draws into wins would be the defining feature of their season, picking up 13, the most of any side in the top six. Still, Spurs were young and inexperienced — Harry Kane, Son Heung-min, Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli were all 23 or under at the start of the season — and were not expected to produce a title challenge.

Without any standout competitor, Leicester City lifted the league title as fairytale champions. Despite the pain, it should be remembered that Spurs had bettered all pre-season expectations by finishing as high as third.

Verdict: Spurs weren’t ready to compete for a league title in 2015-16 and came up against a slightly more consistent Chelsea side in 2016-17. When will they next get a better chance?

FA Cup

Spurs have reached the semi-final of the FA Cup four times since their last trophy and have not reached the final since 1991 — but they probably should have done so.

The standout example was in 2009-10, with Harry Redknapp’s side facing Portsmouth, who became the Premier League’s first club to enter administration. Not only were they in dire straits financially, but the south coast side were terrible on the pitch too, having been marooned at the bottom of the table since matchday two. To his credit, Redknapp did not overlook his former side, naming a full-strength squad for the Wembley occasion, but Spurs could not find a breakthrough in 90 minutes, and the tie went to extra time.

Portsmouth shocked Spurs, first through Frederic Piquionne, who capitalised on a Michael Dawson slip to put Avram Grant’s side ahead before former Spurs man Kevin-Prince Boateng punctuated Spurs’ most painful FA Cup defeat of the decade.

Spurs have been handily beaten twice by Chelsea in FA Cup semi-finals, but not without controversy.

Two years after the Portsmouth defeat, Chelsea beat Tottenham 5-1 at Wembley, but it may have turned out differently had goal-line technology been introduced by that point. With Chelsea 1-0 ahead, Juan Mata had a shot blocked by bodies on the line, but referee Martin Atkinson awarded a goal. Gareth Bale scored minutes later to make it 2-1, but the west Londoners ended the affair comfortable winners.

“I spoke to (Atkinson), and he said he feels worse than I do about it,” said Redknapp after the game. “I said, ‘I don’t think so’.”

In 2016-17, Spurs and Chelsea met as the two best teams in England, and Chelsea came out on top, winning 4-2. Losing to the best team in the country is excusable, but Pochettino’s decision to forgo the style that had brought Spurs into contention and match Conte’s system, starting Son at left wing-back, remains puzzling to this day.

Since Chelsea last won the league title (2016-17), the west Londoners have added four major trophies (FA Cup, Champions League, Club World Cup and the Europa League) to their cabinet. Between 2017-18 and 2023-24, they averaged 65 points a season. Spurs, for comparison, averaged 67.

Chelsea’s anomalous 12th-placed finish in 2022-23 skews the results. Still, it indicates how Spurs have provided consistent competition with their so-called “Big Six” counterparts in the league but have fallen well short from a trophy perspective.

A similar analysis can be made against Manchester United, who beat Spurs, with Michel Vorm in goal instead of Hugo Lloris, in the semi-final in 2017-18. In the years post-Sir Alex Ferguson, Tottenham (68.6) averaged a marginally higher points tally than United (68.1). However, United have won five trophies (Europa League, two FA Cups and two League Cups).

Verdict: There’s no doubt Spurs should have beaten Portsmouth at Wembley in 2010, but defeats by Chelsea sting for different reasons. Honourable mentions include the FA fifth-round defeat against understrength Championship side Sheffield United in 2022-23, the fifth-round penalty shootout defeat by Norwich City in 2019-20, and the 2-1 fourth-round defeat by Championship Leeds United in 2012-13.

League Cup

Spurs have lost in the final of the League Cup three times in this period, but all against better teams: Manchester United in 2008-09, Chelsea in 2014-15 and Manchester City in 2020-21.

The City defeat is perhaps the most contentious, a final often remembered in relation to Jose Mourinho, despite not being in the dugout for Spurs that day. Days before, he was sacked and replaced by a 29-year-old rookie Ryan Mason. We won’t ever know whether it would have made much of a difference, given City won their fourth successive Carabao Cup with a 1-0 win, but the decision to replace a serial winner with experience of underdog triumphs continues to be contested. In Levy’s defence, Mourinho had presided over a Europa League collapse against Dinamo Zagreb the month before.

Still, Spurs have failed to capitalise on straightforward opportunities earlier in the tournament. Chief among the disappointments was the penalty shootout defeat by League Two Colchester United in 2019-20. Pochettino was sacked weeks later, the 17th and final time the Argentinian presided over a cup exit as Spurs boss.

Verdict: In the drought period, the League Cup has been Tottenham’s most consistent cup tournament. There should be no great shame in losing to better teams in the final but defeats against Colchester, Norwich in 2012-13 and West Ham United in 2017-18 (after leading by two goals) were missed opportunities to win their fifth League Cup.

European competition

While it’s impossible to look back on the 2019 Champions League final without a tinge of regret, Tottenham lost 13 games in the Premier League that season and were coming towards the end of their cycle under Pochettino.

Having reached the final for the first time in the club’s history with a half-fit Harry Kane leading the line against a Liverpool side that would be a fair match for almost any club side in history, the journey to Madrid — chiefly the second legs away at Manchester City and Ajax — represents cherished memories rather than a trophy opportunity squandered.

However, there remains a feeling the Champions League campaigns in 2016-17 and 2017-18 ended prematurely, given the strength of the Spurs side at the time.

Tottenham thrilled in the 2017-18 group stage, collecting five wins and a draw from their six matches to top the table. Spurs beat Borussia Dortmund home and away, but the highlight of the phase was a 3-1 home win over eventual winners Real Madrid.

Still, Juventus eliminated them in the first knockout phase — the tie remembered by Giorgio Chiellini’s, “It is the history of Tottenham” comments after the second leg. After clawing back a 2-0 deficit in Turin, taking two away goals back to London, Spurs lost 2-1 at Wembley after conceding two goals in the final 26 minutes.

The season before, Spurs failed to progress out of a group with Monaco, Bayer Leverkusen and CSKA Moscow. It didn’t stop there, however, as Spurs were knocked out of the Europa League Round of 32 — which they qualified for by finishing third in that Champions League group — by Gent, who sat eighth in Belgium at the time. For context, Spurs finished on 86 points in the Premier League in 2016-17.

Perhaps their best chance of winning the Europa League came in 2012-13, when Gareth Bale helped fire them to a then-best Premier League points tally, but Andre Villas-Boas’ side couldn’t overcome Swiss outfit Basel (featuring a young Mohamed Salah) in the quarter-finals.

Verdict: In the pantheon of European underachievements since 2008, the Gent debacle ranks at the top of the list, given how good Spurs were at the time. Honourable mentions include finishing behind Rubin Kazan and PAOK in their Europa League group in 2011-12, the Mislav Orsic hat-trick in the second leg of the Europa League round of 16 in 2020-21, and losing 2-1 away at Slovenian side Mura in the 2021-22 Europa Conference League.

(Top photos of Gareth Bale and Son Heung-min; Getty Images)

Lucas Bergvall’s first appearance for Tottenham Hotspur nearly ended in disaster.

During the opening fixture of the season, Spurs were drawing 1-1 at Leicester City and the then-18-year-old midfielder came off the bench with 12 minutes remaining.

Towards the end of the game, Bergvall lost possession deep in his own half, leading to Guglielmo Vicario tipping Wilfred Ndidi’s header, which would have given Leicester a 2-1 lead, around the post. Vicario was incensed by Bergvall’s carelessness and charged up to him, screaming at the teenager.

Any Spurs fan watching could be forgiven for thinking it would be a while before their young summer signing would establish himself as a first-team regular.

Eight months later, Bergvall has become integral to Ange Postecoglou’s starting XI. He is technically gifted and superb at wriggling out of tight spaces, but he works hard off the ball, too. In last week’s 1-0 defeat by Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, supporters booed Postecoglou’s decision to take him off in the 64th minute for Pape Matar Sarr.

After slowly settling into life in north London, Bergvall has been one of Spurs’ best players this season and will play a crucial role in the Europa League quarter-final against Eintracht Frankfurt.

Tottenham technical director Johan Lange and chief scout Rob Mackenzie flew to Stockholm in January 2024 on a mission to persuade Bergvall to leave Swedish top-flight side Djurgarden.

Bergvall and his family were impressed by their presentation, which highlighted his strengths and weaknesses. A couple of weeks later, Bergvall travelled to London and was given a tour of the training ground, meeting Postecoglou and chairman Daniel Levy.

Other clubs, including Barcelona, Newcastle United and Thursday’s opponents Frankfurt, were interested in signing him too. Bergvall’s family visited Barcelona and listened to a pitch from their sporting director, former Barca and Portugal midfielder Deco.

“We were eating in the mountains with Deco, we looked outside and there were 150 people trying to get in,” Bergvall told The Athletic last May. “We got into a taxi, drove into the city and they were following us. We got into a garage and switched cars.

“It was a crazy day. I came home and needed to decide, but my gut feeling was always Tottenham. They play really good football and it’s fun to watch.”

Bergvall agreed to join Spurs from Djurgarden on a five-year contract in February 2024 but did not officially arrive until pre-season.

Encouraging pre-season performances from Bergvall and fellow 18-year-old summer signing Archie Gray softened the blow of Spurs missing out on more experienced midfield targets Conor Gallagher and Jacob Ramsey. The internal belief was that Bergvall and Gray were ready to be thrown into the Premier League straight away. They both made an appearance off the bench against Leicester in August but had to wait until December for their first starts in the competition.

Bergvall’s performances were mixed during the first half of the campaign. His first involvement after coming off the bench in September’s 3-0 victory over Manchester United at Old Trafford was to whip in the corner from which Dominic Solanke scored the third goal. He started five out of Spurs’ eight league-phase games in the Europa League, but those early performances gave the impression he was not yet quite ready to compete regularly against the very best.

He has been booked eight times in 40 appearances this season and at times, it has felt like he could not cope with the speed and physicality of English football. He would confidently charge into tackles, expecting to win the ball, only to wipe out his opponent.

In November, a bruising defeat against Galatasaray in front of a raucous crowd in Istanbul felt like a Sliding Doors moment. Bergvall looked lost and was constantly shrugged off the ball by stronger, older players but Postecoglou insisted the experience would benefit his development. Stepping up from Sweden’s top flight was always going to be difficult in such a short time, and the entire team struggled that night against Galatasaray. Bergvall’s vast potential was clear but he was only showing flashes of it.

When Bergvall becomes frustrated or feels like he has a point to prove, he can be guilty of trying to do too much. The best example was in January’s 3-0 victory over Elfsborg. Postecoglou berated Bergvall on the touchline in the opening 10 minutes for attempting over-elaborate passes.

“He is 18 and he is such an exciting player,” Postecoglou said afterwards. “Like all young players, he made a couple of mistakes early on and wanted to atone for those mistakes. He dug himself a bit of a hole where he was trying to do things a little bit too complicated. I just gave him the message to settle down and keep the game simple. Get his rhythm back.

“Even when he is making those mistakes, he just works awfully hard and keeps running. It’s such a great asset to have. Probably in his mind it was a big game for him, playing against a club from his own country. That’s the reason we are exposing these guys.

“The more experiences they have like that, the better they will be able to deal with them further down the track.”

Bergvall made his first league start in a 5-0 victory at Southampton at the base of midfield. It is a role he had been groomed for in training and he took notes on how Yves Bissouma and Rodrigo Bentancur approached the position. He took part in a special individual drill before kick-off with assistant coaches Mile Jedinak and Nick Montgomery to test his control under pressure.

Bergvall impressed against Southampton but he was still waiting for, and needed, a truly breakout moment. It arrived a few weeks later in controversial circumstances in the first leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final tie against Liverpool. Bergvall produced an excellent performance for the first hour and nearly set up Pedro Porro when he chased Cody Gakpo’s backpass to Alisson and robbed Liverpool’s goalkeeper.

Then, the teenager’s inexperience took over. He was booked for a tackle on Luis Diaz and, a few minutes later, lunged at Ryan Gravenberch right on the touchline. Had Bergvall made contact with the Netherlands international, he would have surely been sent off.

He refused to learn his lesson and in the 84th minute, Bergvall wiped out Kostas Tsimikas when Liverpool counter-attacked but the referee played the advantage. Sixty seconds later, Solanke set up Bergvall to score the winner. Arne Slot and Virgil van Dijk went berserk while Liverpool’s assistant, Sipke Hulshoff, was booked for complaining. Bergvall darted past reporters after the game with his hood up, eager to avoid any awkward questions about whether he should have been on the pitch.

The Sweden international may not have been able to truly appreciate it at the time but there is no denying that it was a statement performance. Since then, he has started eight out of Tottenham’s 11 league games, replacing Bissouma at half-time on the three occasions he did not start. It was a switch that worked perfectly in the 2-2 draw with Bournemouth, as Bergvall assisted Sarr’s strike. He has usurped Bissouma, Mali’s captain, in Postecoglou’s pecking order and has been trusted more than Sarr recently. In total, he has played 1,072 minutes across 24 league appearances.

Tottenham’s domestic form has been awful and their season is drifting, which means Bergvall’s involvement in the Europa League is a better indicator of his importance. He started both legs of their 3-2 aggregate victory over AZ in the round of 16 and it would be a genuine shock if he did not start against Frankfurt. The lowest point in Bergvall’s debut season was the own goal he scored in the first leg against AZ when he tried to clear the ball from a corner but it bounced off his shin into the net. It speaks volumes about Bergvall’s character and mentality that, after that moment of poor fortune in the 18th minute, he was the only source of inspiration for Spurs in a miserable 1-0 loss.

While Dejan Kulusevski recovers from a foot injury, Postecoglou’s first-choice midfield appears to be Bergvall, Bentancur and James Maddison. When Kulusevski is fully fit, Maddison is more likely to drop out than Bergvall. Maddison and other senior players, including Solanke and Son Heung-min, can produce game-changing moments but the only player who has matched Bergvall’s consistency in 2025 is full-back Djed Spence.

Bergvall’s ability to quickly drive Spurs up the pitch is crucial. He is fifth for take-ons attempted per 90 minutes (4.7), out of all central midfielders who have played at least 900 minutes in the Premier League this season, and has the fourth-highest average carry distance (six yards). The calibre of the players above him in the latter metric — Kulusevski (7.6), Manchester City’s Bernardo Silva (6.5) and Arsenal’s £105million ($134m at current rates) club-record signing Declan Rice (6.2) — is another indicator of his quality.

Bergvall suffered from a virus during the March international break that forced him to miss both of Sweden’s fixtures and it is why Postecoglou took him off early against Chelsea. Postecoglou believed Bergvall “didn’t look himself physically” and lacked “running power”, but it did not prevent the midfielder from embarking on a couple of runs where he slalomed in between Chelsea players.

Bergvall is second in the league among central midfielders, behind Bentancur, for interceptions per 1,000 opposition touches, highlighting his all-round ability. But Bergvall’s evolution into a No 6 presents Postecoglou with an awkward dilemma. Gray has played the majority of his minutes this season at centre-back or full-back but covets a role in midfield. The England Under-21 international earned his first start in that position in the 2-0 defeat by Fulham. Gray displayed good defensive awareness but was, understandably, conservative in possession, which should change with more exposure to the role. Gray and Bergvall only played together in midfield for around 15 minutes at the start of the second half until the former dropped into defence. The goal must be to have them start together and interchange positions when required.

Unsurprisingly, Bergvall’s closest friend at Spurs is his international team-mate Kulusevski. They grew up in the Swedish capital and started their careers at Brommapojkarna along with Spurs Women centre-back Amanda Nilden. Bergvall was close friends with Nilden’s younger brother, Charlie, when they were in Brommapojkarna’s academy together. Kulusevski has become a mentor for Bergvall and they are rarely spotted without each other.

The first time they met was when Bergvall visited Juventus’ training ground during Kulusevski’s three-year spell with the Italian side. Kulusevski looked after Bergvall and invited him to his apartment afterwards. They remained in touch and Bergvall spoke to Kulusevski before he committed to Spurs. They spend time with each other away from the training ground and on international duty, play the role-playing game Mafia, which is sometimes called Werewolf and partially inspired the hit BBC television show The Traitors, with their team-mates.

“He’s doing great,” Kulusevski said in January before Spurs faced Elfsborg. “It’s fantastic for him at that age to play so much. He’s had great performances, especially against Liverpool. I’m very proud of him and I’m trying to teach him. He’s learning and developing every day.”

The biggest influence Kulusevski has had on Bergvall is in the gym. When Tottenham’s squad work out before training, Kulusevski is always the last person to leave as he runs through extra sets. Bergvall was lean and lithe when he arrived at Spurs last summer but he looks stockier now.

“I don’t think he’s left (Kulusevski’s) side since he’s been here and Deki (Kulusevski) is in the gym all the time,” Postecoglou said last month. “He’s a great role model for him and if nothing else, Deki has forced him to get in there and work hard on his game.

“He’s also an outstanding technical player. His technical proficiency is still his greatest asset. He’s growing, you’ve got to remember he’s only just turned 19. He’s still a very young man and if he keeps building up physically as well, to the standard you need in the Premier League, particularly in that midfield position, if you have that physical ability and that technical proficiency, then you’ve got a decent player on your hands.”

It is this physical transformation that led to Maddison describing him as a “lump”.

“Lucas is a fantastic talent and you can sometimes forget how young is he,” Maddison said in an interview for Tottenham’s website after the second leg against AZ. “I misinterpreted him as a player. I thought he was more of a between-the-lines, technical player but he is actually a bit of a lump.

“He gets about. He is a big boy. He is powerful. He is technically very good. The (deeper) No 6 role suits him because he can drive forward and he is learning the discipline under this gaffer of what it takes to be a No 6. He is getting better game by game.”

When The Athletic watched Bergvall play for Djurgarden against Elfsborg last year, his father, Andreas, suggested his son may need an extended adaptation period. “It’s a five-year contract but we talked about this as a two-year project,” Andreas said. “He has to be patient, listen and adapt. I don’t think he expects to play right away but he will do everything in his power to do that.”

Bergvall still has a long way to go to fulfil his potential but the progress he has made over the last 12 months has been remarkable.

Additional reporting: Conor O’Neill

(Top photo: Catherine Ivill/Getty Images)

Ange Postecoglou has accused people of putting a negative spin on Tottenham Hotspur’s achievements and “turning gold into c***”.

In second-half stoppage time of Sunday’s 3-1 win over Southampton, Brennan Johnson, who had scored Spurs’ opening two goals, earned a penalty, which Mathys Tel converted. Johnson looked disappointed on the pitch and had to be consoled by Cristian Romero, Pedro Porro and Archie Gray. The Wales international admitted afterwards that he wanted to take the penalty to complete his hat-trick.

Postecoglou was asked about the incident before the first leg of Spurs’ Europa League quarter-final tie against Eintracht Frankfurt on Thursday and said “we’re in that position that the good stuff we may do is going to be turned into a glass half full rhetoric”

“It’s incredible, it’s just literally turning gold into c*** when it’s Tottenham,” the Australian added. “If we’re 2-1 up tomorrow night and get a penalty in the last minute, I want the best penalty taker to take it.

“I mean the one slight against this club is apparently it hasn’t been a winner. Well the winner’s mentality in the last minute of the game is to score a goal. We scored a goal and yet somehow, in this ultimate universe where everything Tottenham does is wrong, that’s come out as a negative.

“From my point of view, I was delighted because as I said if that’s tomorrow night and we get a penalty in the last minute and get a third goal which could be really decisive, I’m really pleased with the way the players handled it.”

Johnson was also asked about the penalty during Wednesday’s press conference and said as an attacking player he naturally wanted to take it, but once the decision was made he backed Tel to score.

“All of us attacking players, if there’s a chance to score from 12 yards without it being contested, all of us would want to take it,” Johnson said. “Once the decision had been made it’s not really my nature to argue or have a fight about who takes a penalty.

“I’ve been in that situation before, where people are really reluctant to let someone else have a penalty and it can put you off. So once the ball was with Mathys I just wanted to get on the edge of the box and support him. He put it away and he’s a quality player as well so it’s not like I’m doubting his quality. As soon as the ball was put in his hands I backed him to score.”

Spurs have struggled in the Premier League this season and have lost more than half of their games, leaving them 14th in the Premier League.

Postecoglou was in a fiery mood in his press conference on Wednesday. He directly referenced an article published by tabloid newspaper the Mirror about his future and said that “the general sentiment of people” is that “even if we win (the Europa League), I’m gone anyway.”

The 59-year-old then said that he remains focused on delivering success to Spurs “irrespective of whatever noise there is or what there may or may not be in the future.”

“I don’t see that that should diminish my burning ambition, my desire and my determination to make that happen,” Postecoglou said. “Anything you achieve in life usually comes with a struggle. Certainly everything I have achieved in my life has come with a struggle from a professional perspective. This is just another struggle, but never through this struggle have I lost the will to fight for what I think is the right thing to do and I’ll continue to do that.”

Spurs reached the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup but were knocked out by Liverpool after being beaten 4-0 in the second leg at Anfield. They were eliminated by Aston Villa in the fourth round of the FA Cup which means their only chance of winning silverware this season, and qualifying for the Champions League, is by winning the Europa League.

They face Eintracht Frankfurt at home in the first leg before a trip to Germany next Thursday (April 17). In between the two European fixtures, Postecoglou’s side play Wolverhampton Wanderers in the league.

(Marc Atkins/Getty Images)

The premise of hit TV series Severance is that a corporation can insert a chip into employees’ brains which means that when they step into the workplace, they instantly forget everything that they knew in the outside world.

Over the course of the show, it becomes clear that you are not merely ‘severed’ from your memories by this process, but from your original self. You become an entirely different person with a different personality. Your ‘outtie’ in the real world and your ‘innie’ in the office may have very little in common. Other than that, they share the same physical body.

The question, as we approach the quarter-finals of the Europa League this week, is whether the same thing can be true for Tottenham Hotspur. Is it possible for one team to be so bad in the Premier League but to step into the Europa League and suddenly become a completely different side? Can a fanbase forget everything they knew about the season so far and come into this week with the optimism of not knowing?

And is there any reason, outside of the world of science fiction, to be hopeful about Eintracht Frankfurt over two legs?

Thursday night could be the biggest game of Spurs’ season, and arguably their biggest game of this decade. The only trophy they have come close to in recent years is the Carabao Cup, reaching the 2021 final and twice losing a semi-final since then. But they have done nothing in the FA Cup of late and nothing in Europe since the 2019 Champions League final.

This campaign is a chance to change that. If they can just get past Frankfurt, their season will at the least be kept alive into May. It will be Lazio or Bodo/Glimt in the semis. They will be so close to the final in Bilbao they will be able to smell the pintxos.

Under normal circumstances, you might expect a sense of feverish anticipation heading into Thursday. But this has not been a normal Tottenham season. In fact, it has been their worst league season for decades. With seven games left, they are 14th in the league table. The last time they finished lower than that was 1993-94. They have lost 16 from 31 league games.

The last time they lost more than half of their league game was 1934-35, when they finished bottom, were relegated, and did not return to the top flight until 1950. Daniel Levy was being gentle last week when he called this season “highly challenging”.

So if Spurs show up on Thursday and simply play like they have done in the Premier League, it is difficult to imagine how they might be able to beat Frankfurt. Dino Toppmoller’s team are currently third in the Bundesliga and well on course for Champions League qualification for next season. They are an efficient counter-attacking side, perfectly calibrated to take advantage of the flaws in Tottenham’s game.

If you have watched Spurs in recent months, you will be familiar with those issues. They struggle to control and manage the game. They give the ball away cheaply when they have too many players committed upfield. The midfield offers little resistance to opposition counter-attacks. They lack cohesion without the ball and confidence with it.

Of course, most of these problems are downstream from the brutal injury crisis they suffered, and the issues it exposed with the squad. But they were glaringly evident in the recent league defeats by Chelsea, Fulham and Manchester City, and in the first hour against Bournemouth. The only league games Spurs have won in the last two months were against Southampton, Ipswich Town and Manchester United. Even the performance level they showed against the now relegated Southampton on Sunday will not be enough against Frankfurt.

But what if the Spurs team that emerged out of the tunnel on Thursday night was somehow transformed from the one that we have seen recently? What if the same physical bodies can somehow become a different team?

This is not an unprecedented phenomenon in European football. There are plenty of examples of teams who were unremarkable in domestic competition, but who became something else when they stepped out to play in Europe.

Like Liverpool winning the 2005 Champions League despite finishing fifth in the Premier League, separated from Bolton Wanderers by only goal difference. Or Roberto Di Matteo’s Chelsea, sixth in the Premier League in 2011-12 but unrecognisable in Europe, knocking out Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona in the semis and then beating Jupp Heynckes’ Bayern Munich in the final at the Allianz Arena itself.

There is another example even closer to home. By the halfway point of the 2018-19 season, it was clear that Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham cycle was nearing its end. After failing to move on established players or bring in anyone new in summer 2018, the team had gone stale. They could not summon the old energy. They did not win an away league game after January.

But when the Champions League anthem played, Spurs were separated from their domestic selves and now capable of remarkable feats. They nicked a point in the Nou Camp to qualify from the group, they demolished Borussia Dortmund, they beat a peak-era Manchester City on away goals and then they produced one of the greatest comebacks in history to beat Ajax. And they had to play the second leg against City and both legs against Ajax without Harry Kane. They needed big contributions from Fernando Llorente, Moussa Sissoko and a hobbling Victor Wanyama to get them to Madrid.

It was all so thrillingly unlikely that you might as well ascribe it to science fiction, the tiring domestic team turning into the heroic European side who never knew when they were beaten.

And if the Tottenham team of six years ago could become different on European nights, then why can’t this one? All season, this group has been consistent in its desperation to make history and win a trophy for Spurs. They have saved most of their best performances for the cups, forgetting their miserable league form, knocking both Manchester teams out of the Carabao Cup, and beating Liverpool in the first leg of the semi-final. They finished an impressive fourth out of 36 in the Europa League league phase.

And while Spurs were indeed awful in the last-16 first leg against AZ, the only time in recent months they have played anything even remotely resembling ‘Angeball’ was the second leg. With their season on the line, they found the physical level to power past AZ and into the quarters.

On Thursday, Spurs have to do the same thing again: step out of the tunnel, wait for the Europa League anthem to play and become a different team. The side we see most weeks in the Premier League barely has a chance against Eintracht Frankfurt. But if Tottenham can sever themselves from that losing side, leave those bad memories and bad habits behind, and become something else, then maybe that version can finish this season well after all.

(Top photo: Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

It was a pass an ordinary Premier League centre-back would not attempt.

Having received the ball on the edge of his area, Cristian Romero had two conservative options: a square knock to Rodrigo Bentancur, or a 10-yard ball upfield to Lucas Bergvall.

But, for better or worse, nothing about Romero’s game is conservative. Rather than either of the above, he fired a 20-yard pass to James Maddison, who controlled the pass with his left foot before spreading it out with his right to Son Heung-min. The South Korean delayed and played Djed Spence in on the overlap, who cut a cross back into Brennan Johnson to drill a shot into the top corner. It was a shining example of the football Tottenham Hotspur have been capable of under Ange Postecoglou, but have not delivered on enough this season.

“It was a goal we’ve done a number of times, but we haven’t done consistently,” Postecoglou said in his post-match press conference after Spurs beat Southampton 3-1 on Sunday. “In the first half, I think we had many of those moments. With Cristian back there and Ben (Davies) and when Micky (van de Ven) plays, we’ve got centre-backs who are comfortable on the ball, can find the right pass and give us some really good solutions.

“It’s about making sure the guys further up find the right spaces. I thought in the first half, we did that a lot. It was an excellent team goal from start to finish.”

Romero is one half of a foundational centre-back partnership, the bedrock that determines whether Spurs flourish or flounder. Van de Ven’s pace allows Tottenham to be aggressive in planting their flag in the opposition half. Equally, without Romero, they do not have the incisive passing quality from defence to break lines and use their territory effectively. In the absence of that alchemy, “the guys further up the pitch” have often looked lost.

As it turned out, Postecoglou did not need the Dutch half of the duo, with Southampton offering little attacking threat. After all, they are in danger of becoming the worst Premier League side in history, and Sunday’s defeat confirmed their relegation to the Championship in record time. Spurs have not piled misery on many of the league’s bottom dwellers — losing to strong relegation candidates Ipswich Town and Leicester City at home — but they have scored eight against Southampton, with just one in response.

Which is precisely why any positive from this game cannot be drawn without a caveat.

Romero’s pass was excellent, and it’s an encouraging sign that the first link in the attacking chain is coming together before the Europa League quarter-final first leg against Eintracht Frankfurt on Thursday. Against Bournemouth, his first start in the league after missing three months with a hamstring injury, he attempted that kind of game-breaking pass in the first minute, and it almost immediately led to an opposition goal. In this case, it led to one of Spurs’ best goals of the season.

It was against little resistance from Southampton, but the trio of Maddison, Bergvall and Bentancur produced arguably Tottenham’s best midfield performance of the year in the league at a critical juncture of the season, particularly in the first half. After being substituted against Chelsea, with Postecoglou describing his performance at Stamford Bridge as “leggy”, Bergvall was a dominant physical force out of possession and cultured and comfortable with the ball.

Maddison played a vital role in both goals, assisting the second, and Bentancur was accomplished in possession, completing 26 of his 28 passes (93 per cent), though the opposition did not make it difficult (again, that caveat). Spurs’ performance faded in the second half, with Postecoglou suggesting the team became “way too passive without the ball” and “really sloppy” with it. Still, it is a step in the right direction for the creativity hub ahead of Frankfurt.

While Dominic Solanke was denied a long-awaited goal by Southampton goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale, who made several excellent saves, Mathys Tel opened his Premier League account from the penalty spot in injury time — kindly gifted to him by the penalty-winner Johnson, who was on a hat-trick. The explosion of emotion after the ball hit the back of the net demonstrated how much he needed it.

Yet, these positive lights only pierce the grey cloud looming over the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Before the game, a crowd marched towards the stadium, protesting against chairman Daniel Levy and ENIC Group, an investment company owned by the family trust of Joe Lewis, which owns a controlling stake in the club. Messages of “Time for change” and “Built a business, killed a football club” and chants directed at the chairman inside the stadium reflect a bubbling frustration that might be tempered only by the Europa League trophy.

For Postecoglou, it’s a reflection on his state of limbo at Tottenham that a comfortable 3-1 win comes with caveats. Spurs avoided the ignominy of becoming the only club to lose to all three set-to-be-relegated sides at home.

There is little glory in beating a side whose open ambition is to avoid becoming the worst team in the league’s history. But, before the meeting with Frankfurt on Thursday, it’s what was needed.

(Top photo: Marc Atkins/Getty Images)