Tottenham Hotspur are changing their transfer strategy. It is about time they did

Tottenham Hotspur’s Cristian Romero and Djed Spence are two players who were key players for their countries in the recently concluded FIFA World Cup, and they both did exceedingly well for their nations. Romero finished second with Argentina while Spence finished third with England, with both playing big roles in their country’s runs to the business end of the tournament.

Yet, with just under three weeks for the transfer window to end, both of them find themselves in the unfamiliar and uncharted territory of being put up on the window for the interested buyers in the transfer market. While Djed Spence is reported to be in the final exchanges of a deal that will take him to Inter Milan in a deal worth £25.6m, Romero’s future is still uncertain, with clubs still interested, but nothing concrete so far.

Now the dealings for these aforementioned players are nothing new, with discussions about the futures of the two not really breaking news by any stretch of the imagination, however, there seems to be an upheaval in the way Spurs are doing their business this time around.

If at all Spurs manage to sell both of them before the end of the window, this could have the potential to be a landmark moment for the club in their first steps of the post-Daniel Levy era. And it is not because of the scale of finances, nor for the quality of players they are parting with. It will be because of the change in their method of doing business.

In the purchases of Matheus Fernandes and Sandro Tonali, the club have finally shown that they will not be averse to spending the big money required to get in the players they want, which is testament to the wages that they will be paying them too. Even the renewals of Pedro Porro and Mickey Van de Ven show their attitude towards recommitting the existing players with big money.

A dual sale of Romero and Spence will rubber-stamp their change in approach towards selling players as well, and that will be something new.

Tottenham’s relationship with the market in terms of selling players over the years has been bittersweet to say the least. The way things worked under Levy was that if they had a player with the quality worth the big bucks, Levy milled and eked out every last penny of it, for instance Dimitar Berbatov, Gareth Bale, Harry Kane, etc.

However, the downside was that apart from these blue riband players, Levy rarely sold players in their prime. As a result, the squads could never get an infusion of fresh and quality new faces in the side. It was akin to a swimming pool that needed to have its water changed a while back, and failure to do so has made it stale.

Over the years, Spurs have had golden opportunities to recoup money from their key pieces. Eric Dier, Dele, Toby Alderweireld, Lucas Moura, and Danny Rose were all of big interest and had Spurs lined up their fortunes correctly, they would have raked in the sales as well as used it to bolster their ranks with quality replacements.

But they did not. And millions of pounds went washing away. The players eventually ended up staying way too long, and their inevitable departure got the club absolute pittance in terms of financial windfall. 

However, there is a change, albeit very small. But it is still a change. The sale of Brennan Johnson to Crystal Palace in January for £35million did bring a lot of sharp criticism and uproar, but it was the right move, and it came as a welcome change given that Spurs never do such moves.

The reported transfer rumours of Romero and Spence mean that Spurs have made a long-awaited and much-needed change to their oft-maligned transfer strategy in terms of player sales. And it was about time that they did it.