Tottenham Hotspur trying to construct a Champions League level defence out of Eric Dier and Ben Davies almost feels, with all due respect, almost like Gordon Ramsey attempting to cook a Michelin star meal out of ingredients bought from FarmFoods.
Antonio Conte, like Jose Mourinho and Nuno Espirito Santo before him, discovered that there is only so much you can really achieve when two thirds of your preferred backline would get nowhere near the respective starting XIs of your top six rivals.
“Ben Davies is solid. He works hard, I like him. Dier is the same. But if you look at that back three on paper, when you’re realistic about your chances of winning (a trophy) that back three is not good enough,” fumed an irate Jamie O’Hara after Spurs’ FA Cup exit at the hands of second-tier Sheffield United (talkSPORT).
He had a point.
Dier and Davies have had their moments in a Tottenham shirt. They were key figures in the nostalgia-inducing Mauricio Pochettino era. Champions League finalists to boot. But that was four years ago now, and their continued presence alongside the admittedly-excellent Cristian Romero highlights if not a lack of investment then a lack of quality recruitment.
“(If Pochettino returns he is) going to look at Ben Davies and Eric Dier and say; ‘How are they still here?’,” O’Hara adds. “He is going to look at the dressing room and say; ‘What has changed’?”
Tottenham can finally upgrade Eric Dier with Kim Min-Jae
The good news is that, if reports are to be believed, Tottenham are at least aware of the need for change. The Daily Mail believe that Spurs have ‘expressed an interest’ in triggering the £40 million release clause in Kim Min-Jae’s Napoli contract, and may hold an advantage over rivals Liverpool and Manchester United due to the presence of Kim’s South Korea team-mate Heung Min Son in the North London dressing room.
And if Dier is a Farmfoods centre-half – at least compared to the elite-level options available at other top-level clubs – then Kim is a man straight off the shelves of Waitrose. Is there a finer defender in European, or even world football?
Napoli manager Luciano Spalletti doesn’t think so.
‘Best in the world’
“Kim does at least 20 incredible things per game,” beams a coach who has Napoli on the verge of their first Scudetto triumph since 1990.
“For me, he truly is the best centre-back in the world. When he starts to run, he can get into the opposition penalty area in five seconds flat.”
Whoever takes over from Antonio Conte at Tottenham – be it a Julian Nagelsmann, a Brendan Rodgers, even Pochettino – there can be no room for sentiment.
For far too long, throughout so many eras and false dawns, the same old players have been allowed to trudge through games, rewarded for their mediocrity with an almost guaranteed spot in the starting XI. No accountability, no fear of punishment.
If Tottenham are to make the next step, or come close to reaching the standards they set during Pochettino’s first spell, replacing Eric Dier with Kim Min-Jae is the sort of move that must become the rule rather than the exception.
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