Tottenham Hotspur are in a need of a new striker following the long-term injury to Harry Kane.
Paul Merson has controversially claimed that the Tottenham players will be persuaded to leave the club by their international teammates if they don’t finish in the Champions League places at the end of the season.
The Sky Sports pundit has claimed that the Jose Mourinho ‘gamble’ at Spurs has ‘gone wrong’ and it could result in players leaving the club in the summer, and being persuaded to do so when they are on national duty at the Euro’s.
Tottenham recorded a goalless draw away at relegation-threatened Watford on Saturday, with the North London club now eight points behind the top-four places.
Speaking to Soccer Saturday on Sky Sports (18/01/20 at 12:10 pm), Merson thinks opposition players will tell the Tottenham players, at the European Championships, that ‘my boss wants you’ as they will try to persuade them to leave the North London outfit.
“No, not for me [on Tottenham not needing the Fernandes signing given their problems in attack],” Merson told Sky Sports. “If it’s true about Harry Kane that he’s going to be out for a while, they need a centre-forward – I worry for Tottenham. He came in and they were 11 points behind. He’s been there quite a while and they’re nine points behind. For me, this was a big gamble that looks like it’s gone wrong, in my opinion.
“It’s weird how it works [with the players]. It gets to the European Championships. All of a sudden the players get together and they are away from their clubs. And all of a sudden, chit chat. Then bang! ‘You’re not in the Champions League, my boss says he wants you’. And it works. Don’t anybody sit there and think this doesn’t happen.
“Then they start feeding them and all of a sudden they go ‘I want to leave’ and they never go back to the club. And they don’t go back to the club. This is what Tottenham are going to have [to deal with]. We have sat here for a long time and people go, ‘Oh, you play for Arsenal’. It’s nothing to do with it. You see this happening a long time ago.”
Whilst Tottenham will be eager to put a trophy in their cabinet, and Mourinho will want to deliver that either this season or next season, his main target is to finish in the top-four.
There has been some improvements from Tottenham since Mourinho’s arrival, with certain individual players improving their performances and Japhet Tanganga being a shining light during these past few weeks.
But the same problems, both in attack and especially defence are still there, as their lack of striker is a major problem for the club.
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