Tottenham hopes to strengthen the team's roster this summer to meet the Champions League challenges. Last summer, Tottenham introduced several young players and an experienced striker Solank. This summer, they are more inclined to sign instant players so that new head coach Frank can achieve good results in various competitions faster.
Tottenham has spent £55 million to introduce Kudus from West Ham United and bought out Terr, who had previously loaned for the team, for about £30 million. In addition, Danso's loan contract is automatically transferred to a permanent transfer, with the transfer fee being £21 million. The newly joined Koda Takai is the only new player who has not yet made a record in the Premier League this summer.
Tottenham Hotspur also tried to sign Nottingham Forest midfielder Gibbs White, but the £60 million transfer is temporarily stranded due to legal issues.
Another player interested in Premier League experience is former Fulham midfielder Palinia, the 30-year-old defensive midfielder transferred to Bayern Munich for £46 million a year ago, but his performance in Germany was not ideal, with only six starts in the Bundesliga and only nine starts in all competitions.
Palinia suffered a right adductor muscle laceration while training for the Portuguese national team in November last year, leaving him out of the game for two and a half months. He was then suspended due to injury and red cards, and his playing time was very limited. In this month's Club World Cup, Palinia only made a substitute for 45 minutes in the last group match against Benfica.
Tottenham's interest in Paligna can be traced back to his time at Fulham. At that time, he played 79 games for Fulham and performed well. He even approached joining Bayern as early as 2023, but because Fulham failed to find a suitable replacement, he finally failed to make a move.
Although Tottenham is interested in Paligna, he is just one of several defensive midfielders that Tottenham is interested in. Tottenham must first let the existing midfielder leave the team in order to free up space for Palinia.
Currently, Tottenham's midfielders include Bisuma, Bentankur, Berrival, Sal and Archie Gray, while Madison and Kulusevsky can also serve as guest midfielders, as well as potential new player Gibbs White.
Bisuma and Bentankur both will expire in the next 11 months. It is worth noting that in his first interview with Tottenham Hotspur's official website, Frank mentioned that he hopes to integrate the Uruguayan into the team this season. There is a lot of news about Bentancur's contract renewal, and Bisuma seems to be the redundant candidate, and his performance has been unstable since joining Brighton in 2022.
Tottenham also needs to consider the regulations on the registration of local youth training players, which means they need to reduce 31 first-team players to 21 places to meet the requirements of the Champions League roster.
In addition, Palignia's transfer fee is also a problem. According to German media reports, Bayern hopes to recover as much transfer fees as possible, with an estimated price ranging from £25 million to £30 million. This is contrary to Tottenham's policy of usually only investing large sums of money in young players.
Given that Paligna is 30 years old and has played very few games last season, Tottenham may consider introducing him with loan plus buyout option unless the transfer fee drops.
Tottenham had been interested in Frank's captain Noelgo when he was coaching at Brentford, but the 31-year-old Danish midfielder eventually joined Arsenal.
Frank was asked at the Tottenham debut whether he would continue to pay attention to players with Premier League experience, and said: "I think having Premier League experience is a plus, but it is not the most important thing. For me, the most important thing is the ability of the players. If you are a very good player, I don't think there will be any problem with him adapting to the Premier League."
Frank also emphasized that although he wants to have a strong team, he needs to decide which players should leave in the next few weeks. "There is no doubt that if you want to compete in all the events, you need a competitive team. There are many competitive players in our roster. It's an exciting team. There are no doubt that the club is looking for opportunities in the market. I would rather talk about these things after the players arrive."
"The lineup always needs to be balanced, and the team is appropriate to stay competitive. I know the situation of Tottenham and these players, but I need to know them one by one and gain more knowledge through daily training. But if you want to compete, you need to make the most of the entire roster."
Frank seems to temporarily rule out the possibility of introducing a forward again. "I think the three or four of the forwards are strong enough, especially with Solank in the front, Richarlison is also an excellent striker, and despite his injury, he performed strongly at the end of the season and helped the team win the UEFA Cup. Brennan, Kulusevsky, Madison, Odobel, Ter and Kudus, I believe it is a creative front line and we will definitely score a lot of goals."