Louis Saha thinks Tottenham could surprise a lot of people next season, and he’s convinced Roberto De Zerbi now has the tools to get Spurs back into the Champions League.
The vibe around the club has flipped completely in just a few weeks. Not long ago Tottenham were scrapping to avoid relegation right up until the final stretch of the season, but a bold summer of rebuilding has brought real optimism back to North London.
The board have backed De Zerbi in a big way, spending around £237 million on new faces and handing him a squad capable of pushing much higher up the table. Saha reckons that kind of outlay raises the bar significantly, and says finishing in the top four should now be seen as the bare minimum for this group.
He feels Spurs are sending a clear message with their recruitment, blending marquee signings with shrewd free transfers to build something that’s starting to look like a genuine top-four outfit. He also flagged the club’s excellent training facilities, noting that Tottenham finally have the ambition on the pitch to match the quality of what they’ve got off it.
One thing that could really help Spurs, in Saha’s view, is not having European football to juggle. Without midweek continental trips draining the squad, De Zerbi gets more time on the training pitch to drill his ideas and keep his players fresh, focusing on one game a week instead of two or three. That’s part of why Saha expects them to finish comfortably in the top four.
Midfield is where he’s most excited. He thinks Sandro Tonali, Mateus Fernandes and James Maddison together could form one of the best midfield trios in the league, bringing the balance and creative spark Spurs have been missing for years. He made the point that Tottenham’s problem was never a lack of quality players, but rather struggling to keep their intensity up for a full match — and he believes this rebuilt squad is much better placed to control games from start to finish.
Defensively, the arrivals of Marcos Senesi and Jan Paul van Hecke have added much-needed depth and stability to a backline that leaked far too often last season.
Even so, Saha doesn’t think the job is finished. He wants to see more firepower added up front if Tottenham are serious about challenging for trophies and closing the gap on the league’s top sides. As impressed as he is by the rebuild so far, he thinks one more top-class forward could be what turns this Spurs side from Champions League hopefuls into genuine title and cup contenders.
