It became the soundtrack of Tottenham’s January (and the first few days of February).
Almost every other day, head coach Ange Postecoglou would face the media, would be asked about transfers, and would insist that club staff were “working hard” behind the scenes to get him the players he needed.
Postecoglou knew better than anyone how important it was to bring new faces into his depleted squad, how many gaps needed filling if Spurs were to improve over the second half of the season. But while previous managers have piled the pressure onto the club’s board during a transfer window, he never did.
This was always going to be an especially hard window for Tottenham and January is never an easy time for clubs to do transfer business anyway. Johan Lange gave an interview to the club website on Tuesday in which he said only 10 per cent of all transactions take place in January.
Tottenham did not originally intend to spend a lot of money this month. Initially, loans were their priority, the club having committed a lot of money on transfer fees in recent windows. But over time, injuries forced them to bring forward some of their business planned for next summer. They made one permanent signing and two initially on loan. With Spurs’ needs very obvious to everyone else in football, it was not always going to be a barrel of laughs when it came to negotiations.
So, now it’s all over, how did they do? Was this the window in which Tottenham gave Postecoglou the tools to complete his job? Or will this be looked back on as another missed opportunity?
It feels like a long time ago now, but Tottenham had started this mid-season transfer window in the best possible way.
On its first day, January 1, chairman Daniel Levy and technical director Johan Lange were in the Czech Republic trying to sign Slavia Prague goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky.
It had been blatantly obvious since Guglielmo Vicario fractured his ankle against Manchester in late November that Spurs needed another ’keeper, that his 36-year-old backup Fraser Forster was being asked to do things that were simply not in line with his skill set. There was no prospect of ‘Angeball’ being played without a goalkeeper in the team who was comfortable on the ball. It was the most important of all the targets that Spurs had this month and Spurs knew Kinsky’s data showed how adept he was with his feet as well as with his hands.
Tottenham had been interested in signing the 21-year-old this summer when Forster’s contract is due to expire, but Vicario’s injury and the immediate need for a ’keeper it created forced the club to bring their plans forward, helping them to beat the stronger competition they would have faced for him in the next window. They agreed a fee of just over £10million ($12.5m) and, on the morning of January 4, the transfer was complete.
Kinsky arrived right at the start of the winter window (Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
It was a classic Lange move, much like the arrival of then 19-year-old winger Wilson Odobert from relegated Burnley at the end of the summer window: identifying a talented young player whose excellent data is backed up by traditional scouting (Spurs watched him more than 10 times), then moving to bring them in with minimal fanfare.
By the end of the winter window, Kinsky had already started six games for Tottenham and was looking a settled part of the squad. He was both a short and long-term solution.
With that first issue solved, Tottenham could turn their attention to their other problem areas.
And for much of January, it felt as if the key one would be in the forward line.
Tottenham had been short on attacking options all season. Odobert started three games in August and September, got injured, came back, got injured again and had hamstring surgery in November. He has not played for more than three months. Richarlison had a calf problem, came back, then a hamstring went, and he is only just back in the team in recent weeks after more than two months out. Dominic Solanke, Brennan Johnson and Timo Werner are all currently on the sidelines with knee, calf and hamstring issues respectively.
Solanke had played every game for Spurs that he was fit for this season, having to come off the bench every time he was due to have a rest. But then he felt something in his knee in training on January 18 and after assessment was ruled out for most of February.
That injury — plus the one to Johnson’s calf — left Son Heung-min and the returning Richarlison as the only two fit senior forwards for the final four games of the window. Clearly, they needed some help.
At the start of the window, Spurs had tried to sign France international Randal Kolo Muani on loan from Paris Saint-Germain, only for him to make the same move to Juventus instead. On January 17, Postecoglou denied this was a setback, saying Spurs did not “get to the point where we thought (Kolo Muani) was coming to us”.
But they still needed a new forward to lessen the burden on Son up front.
They were interested in Samuel Chukwueze at Milan and Borussia Dortmund’s Jamie Gittens, but neither of those went anywhere.
Then, in the final days of the window, they locked in on another target: Mathys Tel.
The 19-year-old Frenchman had been on the market during January, having fallen out of favour at Bayern Munich. The first plan was to sign him on a permanent transfer. Tottenham moved fast and swiftly agreed a deal with Bayern, with the player and with his representatives. The deal would see Spurs spend €60million (£50m/$62m) on one of the most talented young forwards in Europe.
This was a deal that would transform the mood around the club, just when they needed it most.
Except that on January 31, with only three full days of the window remaining, Tel changed his mind and said no, he would not be leaving Bayern after all.
Tel was initially hesitant about a move to Tottenham (R. Mitterer/Getty Images)
The frustration and disappointment at Tel’s decision underlined the situation the club was in.
Coming the day after Spurs beat Elfsborg 3-0 in the Europa League, sealing their place in the last 16, it felt as if the fanbase had been sent back into a negative spiral by the news. Tottenham had known all month they needed an extra forward to help out Son, Solanke and the rest. So how could they be surprised by their main attacking target like this on the final day of January? How did they get to this stage without knowing for sure that he was interested?
The important thing in hindsight is that Tottenham did not give up. Tel said he wanted to stay at Bayern until the end of the season, perhaps curious to hear what other offers were there. But Spurs persisted. Lange maintained communication with the player’s camp. He and Levy made a separate trip to Germany for more talks. Postecoglou also made one of his famous phone calls to explain the attraction of joining Tottenham. This is something the Australian takes seriously, a chance for him not only to persuade a player to come to Spurs but for him to assess if they were the right fit for the club. And once again, it worked.
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Tel flew to London on Monday afternoon, ready to do what he had not been on Friday. Tottenham finally had their elite forward, at the very end of the window, and with a summer buy option which could make the teenager their player for years to come.
But even though the Tel saga ended in the best possible way, this was not the extent of Spurs’ winter window because events forced them to move to strengthen another position, too.
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As the world entered 2025, centre-back did not feel like a top transfer priority for Tottenham.
Yes, Micky van de Ven, Cristian Romero and Ben Davies were all out injured, but they still had Radu Dragusin and Archie Gray together (when the window opened at New Year, those two were six games into what became an 11-match stretch starting together in the centre of Spurs’ defence).
When Postecoglou was asked at a press conference on January 3 whether the club had started the season short on centre-backs, he was clear that his answer was no: “How many centre-backs do we need to have? Seven? That’s (not) the real world… We had enough cover. We didn’t expect to lose all those centre-backs in one go.”
At that point, the hope was that Romero (thigh), Van de Ven and Davies (both hamstring) would soon return. And Davies indeed came back against Everton on January 19, immediately slotting in at centre-back alongside Dragusin. With Van de Ven soon to follow, maybe Spurs would be OK?
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And yet, in the final days of the window, as well as the back-and-forth Tel saga, the club found themselves having to push hard for new centre-backs.
When they hosted Elfsborg in that Europa League tie on Thursday, Van de Ven finally made his return, almost two months after going down with a hamstring injury against Chelsea.
But this was not the end of Tottenham’s centre-back crisis, far from it.
Van de Ven played 45 minutes against Elfsborg, which was always the plan for his first game back. At half-time, he was replaced by Draugsin, who had played a big part in every Spurs game since October. Twenty minutes later, Dragusin injured his knee and had to be carried off. It was his ACL and would require surgery. Dragusin’s season is over.
(Ben Stansall/Getty Images)
While the initial plan was for Van de Ven to play 45 minutes again in their next match away to Brentford on Sunday, he ended up not being included in the matchday squad at all. Postecoglou explained his change in heart as being a prudent measure, allowing the Dutchman to get “another full week of training” before the big games Tottenham had ahead of them.
Caution with Van de Ven was understandable. Not just because of losing Dragusin for the rest of the season, but also Romero’s slow progress from his own injury. This was sustained against Chelsea on December 8, too, when both he and Van de Ven made surprise returns from injury, only for both of them to go down again. And while Van de Ven has made it back, Romero hasn’t yet. When Postecoglou was asked about the situation on Friday, he admitted Spurs are “not really sure yet” about when the Argentina international will return: “It’s one we are looking at on a week-to-week basis.”
Combine Dragusin’s ACL, Romero’s slow progress and the need to be cautious with Van de Ven, and suddenly Spurs were down to zero specialist centre-backs, hence the need for reinforcements.
On Saturday, Spurs moved to make their second signing of the window. Kevin Danso, the Austria international, was on his way from French club Lens to Wolves. Tottenham knew he ticked many of their boxes. Here was an experienced centre-back, of a good age at 26, who had played in three of the top five European leagues, the Champions League and for his country at a major international tournament (last summer’s European Championship).
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Stylistically, his physicality set him up to play in Spurs’ high defensive line and he was an expert at one-on-one defending. Spurs moved fast to hijack his Wolves move, agreeing a loan with an obligation to make it permanent in the summer. Spurs will pay Lens €25million for him in the close-season, when Danso will sign a five-year deal.
But adding Danso alone was not enough.
Postecoglou admitted after the Brentford game that Spurs were “still a little bit thin defensively”, even after the Austrian’s arrival. So with the following night’s 11pm deadline looming, they continued to search for one more new option at the back. They looked at Milan’s Fikayo Tomori but found it difficult to make any progress in negotiations. A move for the 27-year-old England international never got off the ground.
Kevin Danso (Catherine Steenkeste/Getty Images)
On Sunday evening, they took their biggest swing of all, bidding for Crystal Palace’s Marc Guehi.
Spurs have been big admirers of 24-year-old Guehi, also an England player, for years. And with him now in the final 18 months of his contract, of course they would have an eye on his next move. But it was still a surprise when Spurs made their formal offer, especially among Guehi’s own camp, who did not know it was coming. For Tottenham to make a bid like that towards the end of the window suggests they were rushing around for options as the clock ticked down. Anyway, Palace said no.
Then there was Axel Disasi of Chelsea, who had started just four Premier League games this season under new head coach Enzo Maresca. Chelsea were always happy for the 26-year-old Frenchman to leave on loan in this window, and on Monday evening, Spurs made their move before deciding to pull out. Disasi has ended up being loaned to Aston Villa instead.
If you had asked Spurs fans at the start of the winter window whether they would be happy with signing a goalkeeper, a centre-back and a forward, all of them ready to play in the Premier League straight away, most would have said yes.
But Tel and Danso arriving so late in the piece made the club’s eight-game January schedule harder to manage, both in terms of results and the players’ workloads, while the fact Tottenham were looking for another centre-back on the final day of the window, even after getting Danso done, also points to a feeling at the club that they could do with one more option there.
All that being said, the squad is in a stronger position today than it was at the end of December.
This was the highest-pressure winter window Spurs have had for years, with Levy and the board under more scrutiny than ever from a highly frustrated fanbase.
They managed to land three good players in the end.
The proof of whether this was a good window or not will ultimately come on the pitch.
Additional reporting: Jay Harris
(Top photos: Getty Images)
