When Danny Rose went public with his annoyance at both Tottenham’s wage structure and their transfer policy, there was widespread condemnation of a player who has been absent with a long-term injury speaking to a national newspaper about his desire to move, his frustrations at the board, and his unhappiness at a lack of signings only days before the season started.
But whilst there was outrage over how, why, when and even where Rose made his comments, there was little argument over what he was actually saying. Spurs certainly are in a bind when it comes to their wage structure. Their players can probably earn twice as much elsewhere, which would be a sore point in any industry, and the summer dragged on for a long time before Daniel Levy finally brought new faces into the club. If one player is unhappy enough to do what Rose did, it’s not a jump to suggest that there may be others whose anger or frustration hasn’t yet bubbled its way up to quite such combustible levels, but who still feel the same way.
And even if there have been signings at the club since then, in the form of the exciting young Davinson Sanchez and the clever purchase of Fernando Llorente most notably, whatever optimism came from the end of the transfer window likely won’t change the general feeling around a group of players who fear their hard work in bringing Tottenham to the top of the English game is being under-rewarded.
The latest player to turn down a new contract is Toby Alderweireld, arguably Spurs’ best defender and certainly one half of the best centre-back pairing in the league last season. Reports in the Telegraph claim that talks over renewing the Belgian’s £50,000-a-week contract have broken down, and that both Manchester City and Chelsea are waiting in the wings to make moves for him next summer.
The end of the transfer window doesn’t mean the end of the drama, it seems. Just days after the end of the period in which players can leave their clubs, there are still stories about those who want to move and the clubs who are interested. And yet, there is no immediate danger of Alderweireld going anywhere, nor does it seem likely that a January move would be forthcoming either: Spurs can extend the Belgian’s contract for one more year if necessary, and that would at least give them until next summer to find a replacement.
But despite there being no obvious danger of losing another important member of the back-line that conceded the fewest goals in last season’s Premier League, it does show that Spurs haven’t managed to get rid of the feeling that some players are unhappy and want to leave the club.
There’s a new stadium on the way, and clearly that means financial prudence is necessary. Big wages and multiple club-record transfer fees of the kind that other clubs are making would be a bad idea under the circumstances. But as a result, there’s a feeling that the club’s best players have more chance of maximising their earning power as well as winning medals at other clubs, and the combination is powerful.
There’s no doubt that most, if not all, the players at Tottenham at this stage buy into the Mauricio Pochettino method and are committed to winning something at the club they’ve built from a Europa League team to one that can push for major honours. But is that patience wearing thin? Footballers have short careers, and they are only able to earn millions of pounds a year for around a decade.
After that, their earning potential diminishes dramatically – can you really blame a player for wanting to earn double his money elsewhere? And especially given the fact that the gap between Spurs and the other clubs in the top six is now non-existent. If they really are some of the best players in England, why don’t they have the salaries or the medals to show for it?
This season has started badly, too, which is perhaps all the more reason to loosen the purse strings and negotiate new contracts which are closer in monetary terms to the kinds of wages that the Manchester clubs or Chelsea are paying. And if they don’t, the rest of the Spurs squad have a legitimate question which deserves an answer: are they committing their careers to a genuine top four club for the foreseeable future? Or are they committing to one which is simply going to punch above its weight for a few seasons before falling away again?
Currently, Spurs are acting like they don’t belong where they finished last season – and the players surely know it.
