Crafting the Ultimate Spurs Player for the 21st Century: Son and Dele Excluded – Find Out Who Makes the Cut! [Check comment for full story link]
Tottenham have had some fine players over the years, but what if a star with all the best bits was created?
Tottenham Hotspur have enjoyed plenty of top talents over the years, but it’s not been enough to glean silverware for quite some time, with the wait for a major honour stretching 16 interminable years.
Since triumphing against Chelsea in the 2008 League Cup final, Tottenham have gone through eight permanent managers, qualified for six Champions League campaigns and reached four cup competition finals, but alas…
Still, Spurs have had some scintillating players on the books and are at the beginning of what looks like an exciting resurgence under Ange Postecoglou, who has picked the club up after a dreadful 2022/23 campaign and charted a course for success in the Premier League, battling for top four.
Postecoglou boasts a team of myriad qualities, but we wondered what the perfect Tottenham player might actually look like, harnessing the finest attributes of the finest players of the 21st Century.
Interestingly, this superhuman Spurs sensation would not actually call upon skills from phenoms such as Dele Alli or current club captain Heung-min Son.
Here they are…
1. Brain: Mousa Dembele
Spurs have had some brainy boys in their ranks over the years, and there are a couple lower down this list that would be in with a shout for the most erudite Lilywhites over the years, but Mousa Dembele might just be the cream of the crop in this regard.
Described as a “genius” by Mauricio Pochettino, Dembele read the game like a scholar perusing a library, with his distribution, marking, pressing, counter-pressing, vision, command, understanding, spatial awareness… need I go on? Maybe not, the picture’s clear.
https://x.com/SpursOfficial/status/1696502840070406317?s=20
The former Belgium international might not have been the most goal-efficient midfielder in the Premier League but he was the engine to charge a Tottenham team under Pochettino’s wing that boasted flair, firepower and steel, but none wove the threads of the team together and held it in unity like Dembele. The very embodiment of the all-encompassing, all-seeing midfield machine.
2. Head: Michael Dawson
Something of a stalwart, Michael Dawson was an absolute rock for Tottenham throughout the 2010/11 season, handed opportunities following injuries to players such as Jonathan Woodgate and Ledley King, amassing 324 fixtures before joining Hull City in 2014.
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Since WhoScored started recording statistics in 2009/10, Dawson won an average of 3.5 aerial duels per game throughout the duration of his professional career – for reference, Cristian Romero averages 2.5 per fixture throughout his career.
3. Pace: Kyle Walker
Last season, Kyle Walker clocked up the fastest speed in the Premier League at 37.31km/h, despite spending the lion’s share of the campaign as a 32-year-old.
The Manchester City right-back departed Spurs back in 2017, joining Pep Guardiola’s side in a world-record (for a defender) £53m deal.
https://x.com/ChampionsLeague/status/1659318192093937664?s=20
He might have left the London club way back when but he chalked up 229 appearances for the Lilywhites and has some of the most blistering pace the Premier League has seen.
4. Vision: Luka Modric
Luka Modric could probably stake a claim for a number of facets to sculpt the finest footballer in the land, such is the complete brilliance of his skill set.
The 2018 Ballon d’Or winner is one of the finest midfielders of his generation and while he’s now 38 years old, remains an important member of a hungry Real Madrid team.
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He joined Los Blancos from Tottenham for £30m way back in 2012, but not before cementing himself as one of the finest passers in the Premier League, with his technical quality leading iconic Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson to claim that he “could play in any team.”
5. Strength: Sandro
When Tottenham plucked Sandro away from his Brazilian homeland back in 2010, manager Harry Redknapp described him as a “strong and aggressive” player, and while he didn’t live up to the hype – largely due to an unfortunate anterior cruciate ligament rupture when he was 23 – this was certainly an apt remark.
Lean, mean and a scythe-kicking martial artist, Sandro was a tough nut and you wouldn’t mess with him when he was in his groove.
6. Right foot: Harry Kane
Obviously, it’s Harry Kane for this one. The Three Lions captain is one of the best centre-forwards that England has ever seen, and he left Tottenham as the club’s record scorer with 280 strikes from 435 appearances.
After a career of service down at N17, the 30-year-old completed an initial £82m transfer to the German giants following Spurs’ dismal 2022/23 campaign, where he scored 30 Premier League goals.
He’s a brilliant goalscorer, but he’s an even better footballer.
7. Left foot: Gareth Bale
The perfect player to complete the perfect Tottenham footballer. Gareth Bale started his Lilywhites journey as a left-back after signing from Southampton as an 18-year-old in 2007, joining for a £7m fee, but he would go on to cement a legacy as one of the game’s greatest ballers of modern times.
Deserved? Absolutely. And while Bale’s got pace for days and underrated power to rival most strongmen in the Premier League, it’s his left foot that has fired him into an iconic position, scoring from right wing during 2012/13 and thus earning a world record £85m transfer to Real Madrid.
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Gary Neville said that that goal against Liverpool in the Champions League final “may be the best goal I’ve ever seen”, and it really was that good.
Despite enjoying the entirety of his silver-laden success after leaving Tottenham, the now-retired Welshman is one of the greatest to pull on that white shirt.
