This is the final one of our previews to be released, and it’s because I’ve been dreading finishing it. The Tottenham preview was the first that I worked on, and the rough draft was used as the example shown to all of the other contributors. And yet, here it is, sitting unfinished over a month later.

Why? Because I do not want to write about Tottenham Hotspur. I do not have any strong feelings about any other team we cover on this newsletter — including, believe it or not, Arsenal — but I struggle to provide objective, level-headed analysis of Spurs. For the unaware, I got the ball rolling on my eventual career in football media, and later analytics, by founding a Tottenham blog that’s still going strong to this day.

I am usually a Spurs Doomer who believes the sky is falling, and I know this about myself. For that reason, when I think that things are going very poorly for Spurs, I need to check myself. Are things really as bad as they seem, or am I just being a doomer? And folks, I am feeling very negative about Tottenham Hotspur heading into this season.

This might sound insane given that the team just won a major trophy for the first time in 17 years and hired a coach that readers of this newsletter will know I think is excellent, but the vibes are bad in the N17. Recruitment was going terribly before the club’s best player of the Premier League era told us he wanted to leave, and before the club’s current top performer tore his ACL.

Spurs enter a new season with a coach that I believe in quite a bit, but who I think is being set up to fail.

Not good at all, but certainly not nearly as bad as their final table position. Finishing 17th with a -1 goal differential is hilarious. Everton once finished 4th and qualified for Champions League with that very same GD. Football is amazing.

They overperformed their xG a touch, but this is pretty normal stuff. While Spurs were unlucky as hell, between injuries and the variance gods smiting them, they were still a blah mid table-quality team.

This trendline is heavily influenced by a pivot away from focusing on the league and towards focusing on the cups, but it’s still an ugly sight. Tottenham fell off a cliff when their center backs got injured, then proceeded to stink consistently for the rest of the season.

The sacking of manager Ange Postecoglou, despite him winning the Europa League, was extremely polarizing. If you’re still confused by it, I invite you to 🎶 LOOK AT THIS GRAAAAAAAAPH 🎶 and then you’ll understand why management felt it was time to make a change.

Hey, it’s the only team in this entire series that will not have their own attacking and defensive radars featured in the management section! Thomas Frank joins Tottenham after 7 years at the helm of Brentford, who he led to regular mid-table finishes despite having one of the lowest budgets in the Premier League.

Brentford were not an outstanding attacking team last season, but did make the most of set pieces, and didn’t take crap shots. High xG per shot is a Brentford hallmark; you do not see a lot of hopeful rips from outside the box or crosses for headers unless they’re absolutely point blank.

Their philosophy on the other side of the ball is consistent with that attacking idea. Brentford conceded a ton of shots per game, but a had a very low xG per shot conceded. As a result, their total xG conceded was very low. I wouldn’t categorize Brentford as a heavy or non-pressing team; they had pretty clear triggers, backing off when the ball was not in dangerous areas, but pressing aggressively in other more important ones. As a result, they had pretty middle of the road PPDA.

Their strikers would press in the first phase and make central buildup hard, but they let defenses knock it around in deeper areas on the wings all they wanted.

While Frank mostly used 3-4-3 or 3-5-2 formations last season, he’s proven to be tactically versatile over the course of his career. So far, he’s played with a 4-2-3-1 shape in all of Tottenham’s preseason matches. But he’s mentioned publicly that he’d like another central defender, leading me to believe that he’d love the option of playing a back 3 if he can get in another defender with a different profile.

Very little, though the one major in and out so far will feel like a seismic change to Spurs supporters.

Players out: LW Son Heung-Min, GK Fraser Forster, LB Sergio Reguilon, FW Timo Werner, LW Mikey Moore, ST Will Lankshear, CB Alfie Dorrington

After finally delivering them a trophy, Tottenham’s legendary captain departs. Son Heung-Min has headed for Los Angeles FC. Financially, it’s a great deal — it’s hard to argue with a £15m fee and your highest earner off the books right before he starts an inevitable decline. But it’s difficult a to put a price on losing what felt like the heart and soul of the club.

Forster and Reguilon depart on free transfers. Werner is a loan return who did not have his option picked up. Moore, Lankshear and Dorrington have all been loaned out.

Players in: W Mohammed Kudus, CB Kota Takai, DM Joao Palhinha

I have mixed reviews for Tottenham’s business so far, and they certainly need a lot more to happen before the window closes.

I think Kudus is a severe overpay. He’s a very talented dribbler, but he has yet to show that he can convert his highlight tricky moments into actual goals or assists at Premier League level.

Spurs are banking on him producing more if he’s around better players, except all of their good attacking players have either moved to the United States or are on the trainer’s table.

I really like the bet on Kota Takai, who put up excellent defensive numbers in the J. League. Even if he never turns into a Premier League player, he’s not going to lose them money. If he has even a single decent loan on the continent, they’ll make a profit.

Joao Palhinha arrives on loan with no obligation to buy, which is good, because I would not pay a transfer fee for him. He is good at kicking people and nothing else. Apparently Thomas Frank wanted a people-kicker. A good midfield would not feature this guy.

Summary:

Takai won’t play as much as he did in Japan, but Palhinha will play more than he did for Bayern, and presumably be not quite as bad. Spurs are really banking on Kudus being more productive for them than he was for West Ham.

This section was going to be about James Maddison but uhh… crap. Maddison was stretchered off with a knee injury in Tottenham’s August 3 preseason game, and he’ll be out for most of the season. I can’t imagine I need to explain what’s going on in this radar for you to understand why he was the star player I wanted to focus on.

Spurs are also expected to be without Dejan Kulusevski for several months. They’re very much in the market for an advanced playmaker, but in the absence of one, an existing player in the squad will need to step up. Enter youngsters Pape Sarr and Lucas Bergvall, who up to this point in their Tottenham careers, have not produced much passing output.

But Bergvall is a talented dribbler, and has played a more advanced role in the past. Sarr has mostly been a box-to-box midfielder for Tottenham, but is getting run at the 10 in preseason in the absence of a real one, and has scored a few goals. I do not have an argument to make for one of these guys actually being a good 10, but that’s what Spurs will require to be any good in the first couple months of the season.

During Postecoglou’s first season, the center back play of Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero was arguably the highlight of the team. Last season, they both missed extended time with injuries. By the time they returned, the season was already virtually over, and Spurs lacked the talent to press effectively, making their formerly world class center backs look average.

Van de Ven was unbelievable at winning tackles and interceptions in his first season with the club.

And Romero was awesome at everything, which is what led to rumours that Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid were interested in him.

This season, they’ll be asked to play in a more typical mid-block system, seemingly with a double pivot more often than a single holding midfielder. They’ll probably have to do a lot less defending in space, which could make their lives a lot easier. If you are trying to huff some hopium, the case for Spurs being good this year is that these dudes are fit and should have a pretty normal midfield in front of them.

There is actually a bit of a goalkeeper competition brewing, with Antonín Kinský looking a little more comfortable early in preseason, but I do ultimately think Vicario starts more games this season.

Destiny Udogie is currently injured, and Djed Spence was surprisingly decent at left back last year. I wouldn’t be shocked if he just ends up playing more than half the team’s games in that spot.

Midfield is a grab bag of… well… mid. If you want to argue with me that someone who has not been projected into this lineup should be there, fine. I think every fit Tottenham midfielder is OK but pretty limited and it’s a weak spot for the club.

Given that Brennan Johnson is pretty much only good at getting close to the goal and getting high xG shots, he might find that a bit easier on the left than he did on the right. Kudus had to play on the left to accommodate others at West Ham, and will probably welcome the switch back to the right.

I feel the same way about striker as midfield. Richarlison and Solanke are both OK but not great. They’re both injured a lot. They both get into decent scoring positions and then don’t score. They may be the same person.

Our contributors voted on their projected table before the news came out about Maddison’s injury, and I suspect that would have influenced votes. They’ll finish higher than they did last year just from some simple regression to the mean, but they look closer to mid than Europe. This current prediction is generous.

Prediction: 8th