Opinion: One player Spurs should sign from each of Europe’s top 5 leagues

The January transfer window may have only shut one month ago, but all eyes will be turning towards the summer window within a matter of months.

Therefore, I’ll be helping out Tottenham’s recruitment by scanning across Europe’s top five leagues and plucking players out from each league.

However, I won’t be writing in a Tottenham dreamland where money is no barrier and there is no painstakingly slow dealing Daniel Levy who is winding down or holding up deals.

I will be looking from a realistic view on what transfers could be done this summer to help Conte take Tottenham to the next level.

Premier League

After Tottenham failed in their pursuit of former Wolves winger Adama Traore (SkySports), they will likely be looking to still improve in the right-wing back position for the 2022/23 season.

A player who seems to have attracted a lot of interest from Tottenham is Brighton full-back, Tariq Lamptey (Express).

The 21-year-old has been impressive for Brighton for a couple of seasons now, despite having injury problems littered throughout those campaigns, and would be a great player for Tottenham’s young and developing squad.

Emerson Royal hasn’t appeared to be up to the required standard that Tottenham will need should they qualify for European competition and aim to compete at the top end of the table next season, conceding too many defensive errors and not offering enough dangerous deliveries into the box.

Tottenham’s other right-wing back option, Matt Doherty has also failed to impress and truly string together a run of games that he’s started in, making it likely for Spurs to offload one of the Irishman or Brazilian if they were to sign Lamptey.

Lamptey would however come at an inflated price due to him only being 21 years of age and English, but Tottenham will be keen to show their ambition to Antonio Conte and making a signing like Lamptey would certainly be a strong message of intent to the Italian.

Serie A

The Italian topflight is a league that Director of Football, Fabio Paratici, and manager, Antonio Conte, have a fondness and intelligence of. Luckily, Serie A is full of top talents, with many top-class players being plastered with a ‘for sale’ sign.

One of those players is Lazio midfielder Milikovic-Savic, the Serbian would be a top-quality option for Conte’s midfield, and with the current Lazio player falling out with manager Maurizio Sarri (Marco Conterio) the Rome based club may be keen to offload the player.

However, it is likely that a deal would still be very expensive regardless of whether Milinkovic-Savic is keen to leave.

That’s why I have chosen AC Milan midfielder Franck Kessie. Kessie has been linked to Tottenham for a while now (SkySports), especially with the Ivorian’s contract ticking away as he enters the final 6 months of his deal.

Kessie could slot straight into Tottenham’s team alongside a player such as Oliver Skipp, or the recently arrived, also from Seria A, Rodrigo Bentancur; perhaps replacing Hojbjerg in the Tottenham midfield.

Kessie offers a lot more going forward than Hojbjerg, creating 0.9 key passes per game, on average (WhoScored) from defensive midfield this season in the Serie A, 0.3 more than Tottenham’s current anchor-man in the Premier League (WhoScored).

Kessie is also more secure with driving the ball forward as he succeeds in 83% of his dribbles (FotMob), whereas Hojbjerg only succeeds in 62% of his (FotMob), leaving Tottenham susceptible to a counterattack.

Kessie could join on the first day of the summer window on a pre-contract agreement if Spurs can beat clubs such as Barcelona to his signature (EuroSport).

The Ivorian is likely to have a large signing-on fee and wages attached to him, but it would still be considerably cheaper than other options of Kessie’s quality, Paratici also has a tendency to seal free transfers.

Ligue 1

My selection from the French League was driven by the idea of securing depth within the centre back position, therefore I have chosen Lille defender Sven Botman.

Botman is still youthful and is currently only 22 years of age, but his impressive performances particularly over the past two seasons have attracted interest from various clubs, including AC Milan and Newcastle United (Chronicle Live).

The ex-Ajax player has already won a French League title as well as the experience of playing Champions League football, accompany thus with the fact Botman has played 100 matches of topflight football (FotMob) he starts to become an attractive centre back option.

Botman’s height only enhances his quality as a centre-back as he stands at six foot and four inches tall, allowing him to be a threat from attacking corners, along with being able to clear away high crosses too.

Botman’s height would make him the tallest out of Tottenham’s usual centre backs by a whole two inches, this statistic however does exclude sporadically used defender Joe Rodon who is the same height.

However having a more consistent starter with aerial ability would help eradicate the issues that Tottenham have been having from crosses recently, notably conceding two goals from crosses against Southampton, costing Tottenham three points.

La Liga

I would have initially implored the Tottenham board to move for Brazilian playmaker Philippe Coutinho, however, Aston Villa flew out of the blocks to complete that deal before any other team could.

If Aston Villa however do decide against signing the Brazilian permanently, he would be a great creative player for Tottenham.

Therefore, I would instead visit Spain with the mission of fixing the lingering problem at Tottenham, a second striker.

It’s always difficult to convince a striker to come to Tottenham, when the player would be fully aware they would be playing second fiddle to England captain Harry Kane.

Therefore, if he could be convinced, I would seek a deal for Sevilla striker Youssef En-Nesyri to try and plug the second striker gap at Spurs.

The Moroccan striker is currently out of favour at Sevilla despite netting 18 times in only 23 starts last season (FotMob).

En-Nesyri appears to be a great fit for Spurs as he is reliable in front of goal, outscoring his xG by 2.00 last season in La Liga (FotMob) and is accustomed to being thrown into the mix off the bench as Youssef was substituted on 15 occasions last season.

The ability to come on and score would be a great attribute for Tottenham when they want to hand Kane a rest or switch to two strikers. The difficulty however would be fending off competition from other teams interested in the striker.

Sevilla’s price tag may also require some tough negotiating to be at an affordable level for a backup striker, Transfermarkt currently value the striker at £36 million but with En-Nesyri being kept out the team by Spanish forward Rafa Mir, it’s possible Sevilla’s price tag may be lower than anticipated.

Bundesliga

My chosen signing from the Bundesliga would be a player Tottenham have previously been linked with due to his inevitable departure from RB Salzburg (Football London). The player is Hungarian midfielder, Dominik Szoboszlai.

The RB Leipzig midfielder has only recently joined the German side from their Hungarian affiliate team and fellow Red Bull club, RB Salzburg, which is why it may be difficult to lure over Dominik to North London.

There is the possibility that Szoboszlai’s contract entails a release clause which tends to be the case with many players contracted to the Red Bull clubs around the world.

An obvious example being Erling Haaland who moved for a small fee of £18 million (Transfmarkt), only slightly more than Tottenham spent on Jack Clarke, despite the young Norwegian lighting up the Champions League with RB Salzburg.

Dominik would be the ideal signing due to his offensive abilities of being able to create and finish, the midfielder has already scored 4 goals and assisted 5 in only 12 Bundesliga starts this season (FotMob), almost matching his statistics in the Austrian Bundesliga last season.

With the German league being more challenging it suggests the 21-year-old is only getting better.

Szoboszlai can play on the left and the right, but primarily likes to play through the middle in an attacking midfielder role.

A creative midfielder with some offensive threat could be exactly what this Tottenham side needs, especially following Dele Alli, Lo Celso and Ndombele’s departure in January.

And at 21 years old Dominik Szoboszlai would be a perfect option with a high ceiling of growth, and if there is a manager to help you achieve your very best it would be Antonio Conte.

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