One of the long tail effects of a World Cup year is that the players that go deep into the tournament are always the last to report back to their club teams for preseason training. I don’t begrudge them this at all — players put a lot of miles on their tires during a summer international tournament and basically don’t get much of a break at all. They’re mandated at least three weeks of down time after they’re eliminated from (or win) the competition, but in the case of clubs that make the semifinals,
it generally means that those players don’t return for preseason until a couple of weeks before the new club season starts.
That’s the case with three of Tottenham Hotspur’s players — Cup winner Pedro Porro, runner up Cuti Romero, and semifinalist Djed Spence. They are the last three Spurs players to return from summer vacation, and according to Football.London’s Alasdair Gold, all three are set to return to training this week. Spurs open the new Premier League season on August 22 away at Brentford.
Of course, nearly every Spurs fan knows that at least two of those three players may not be at the club by the end of the summer transfer window. While Pedro Porro has confirmed his long term Spurs future by signing a new contract at the club this summer, the club is in active negotiations with Atletico Madrid and (maybe) Inter Milan over the sale of Cuti Romero, and there have been numerous rumors that the future of Djed Spence may lie away from Tottenham.
Even so, returning this week means that one or all of those three players may participate in the upcoming home friendly this weekend against Hoffenheim at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. That friendly marks the first time that local English Spurs fans will be able to watch the team play in person this preseason, and as we inch closer to the start of the season it’s also likely we’ll see more and more first team players participating and starting.
Tottenham are emphatically not done in the transfer window, with head coach Roberto De Zerbi stating for the record that he hopes to bring in 2-3 more attacking players in what’s left of the summer. Spurs are still, ostensibly, working to sign Manchester City winger Savinho and have been linked with Liverpool attacker Cody Gakpo and any other number of available (and perhaps unavailable) players. That said, after a flurry of expensive signings early in the window, Tottenham haven’t signed anyone new for the first team since July 6, which is leading to a fair amount of angst amongst supporters.
Transfers are weird, twisty things and once again Spurs’ transfer drama could go right down to the wire with the club assessing all its options. But at least we can look forward to three important players returning, at least temporarily, to training.
