Tottenham Hotspur must hold on to their best players if they are to achieve success in the future.
Sky Sports pundit Paul Merson explained why the Tottenham players could become disillusioned if the club sell Toby Alderweireld in the summer, when speaking on Gillette Soccer Saturday, after the centre-back was linked with an exit from the club this week.
The Times reported on Thursday that Spurs are willing to part ways with the Belgium international in the summer, after it emerged that he is demanding somewhere around £150,000 per week in order to commit his future to the Lilywhites.
The 28-year-old joined Spurs from Atletico Madrid in the summer of 2015, for a fee believed to be worth in the region of just £11.5 million, and he has since gone on to establish himself as one of the continent’s finest central defenders.
Tottenham fans will surely be concerned about rumours linking Alderweireld with an exit this summer, especially with the likes of Manchester United and Liverpool being mooted as potential destinations for the centre-back.
Merson explained why the Belgian being allowed to leave Spurs could spell disaster for them as a football club, when speaking on Sky Sports’ Gillette Soccer Saturday programme:
“The Tottenham players if he’s (Alderweireld) let go, and I think his clause is £25m, which is a cup of tea for someone of his standard, the players will be in the dressing room going ‘where are we going? Where are we going if we are letting one of the best centre-halves in the world go?’.”
It will be interesting to see how much game-time the Belgian is given by Mauricio Pochettino between now and the end of the season.
If the partnership between Jan Vertonghen and Davinson Sanchez continues to flourish, however, Alderweireld might find himself surplus to requirements at Tottenham sooner than he might have imagined.
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