Tottenham Q&A: Why do Spurs struggle with squad depth?
- Published
In the second part of our Q&A with our Tottenham news reporter Nizaar Kinsella, he looks at your questions on Spurs' squad and whether there is a historical issue behind under-performance.
John asked: Spurs always seem to have quite a big drop off when missing certain players. Why do you think squad depth has been such a persistent issue at Spurs?
Nizaar answered: This is an age-old philosophical debate about Spurs dating to Mauricio Pochettino's time as manager. More recently, we heard vice-captain Cristian Romero say Spurs simply have less squad depth than their rivals in December when speaking after defeat by Chelsea.
Part of it may be the stature of the club. Are Spurs really a club you expect to carry the biggest and deepest squad of options? Do they inherently deserve to win trophies?
But I went to the protests at the recent Manchester United game and there was a sense that with such high profits being pocketed amid good off-field progress, that more could be done to push for silverware with fans in attendance highlighting how the club had been successful in that regard before Enic's ownership.
As for why? I think Spurs have tried to build a substantial squad but have made too many missteps in the transfer market, including players like Bryan Gil and Tanguay Ndombele.
I think they need to be near-perfect in the market to match those clubs who are more able to write off transfer failures and go again.