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da luck： Tottenham Hotspur looked to have had a reasonably successful summer transfer deadline day having signed Ryan Sessegnon from Fulham and agreed a season-long loan deal with an option to buy for Giovani Lo Celso, but the decision to bring in the latter is looking increasingly naïve.
The Argentina international said in his first interview on Spurs’ official website when he joined that Mauricio Pochettino had targeted him and wanted to bring him to north London, presumably to strengthen his midfield options.
However, given their issues on the road so far this season – they have conceded twice in all of their Premier League and Champions League fixtures on their travels – they appear to be having problems when it comes to shielding the backline.
Of the 121 matches in his career where Transfermarkt have recorded his position, Lo Celso has only played as a defensive midfielder on 19 occasions, with the large majority coming either in central midfield or even further forward in a more attacking role.
That suggests he too isn’t the answer to the issues Tottenham are having right now, where the likes of Harry Winks, Moussa Sissoko and fellow new boy Tanguy Ndombele aren’t providing that required protection.
Pochettino obviously felt as though they could bridge the gap, but he has been proved completely wrong.
He also seemingly decided he couldn’t rely on a player who could fill the role in Eric Dier seeing as he is yet to play a single minute of football in either the Premier League or the Champions League in 2019/20, but surely he knew that was the case while the transfer window was open?
Victor Wanyama even came on ahead of the England international against Leicester City at the weekend. This was despite the fact Spurs came close to offloading the Kenya international to Club Brugge, and he put in an awful display and was partly at fault for both of the goals the north London side conceded at the King Power Stadium during his short cameo on the pitch.
So if Wanyama and Dier aren’t the answer, then Pochettino has been left without a specialist defensive midfielder he can rely on.
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The decision to sign Lo Celso – who is more similar to Winks, Ndombele, Sissoko, Christian Eriksen, Erik Lamela and Dele Alli then he is to Wanyama and Dier – is confusing then.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but Tottenham and Pochettino should have made signing a top-class DM a priority moving towards deadline day, because they are paying the price for not having one away from home as things stand.