Jack Grealish is ‘very, very Spurs’ while Son can have perfect ending…
You’ve got to hand it to Spurs, really, haven’t you? They just can’t help themselves.
It’s been only two weeks since the club experienced the moment of catharsis it had longed for so desperately for a decade and a half.
Even now, there are somehow still new videos of new angles emerging of the celebrations in Bilbao and in Spurs’ own stadium and during the parade two days later.
There is simultaneously more content from that night than can ever be viewed, yet not enough to sate the hunger of Spurs fans who had waited so, so long for that relief and release. They are still buzzing and will be for some time to come.
And yet, just two weeks later, that buzz has been harshed by the club finding itself in a familiar pickle and not quite sure what to do with itself.
The manner of the season that has delivered that long-overdue success is an impossibly confusing, incredibly funny and was, if anything, Clive, almost too Spurs. Nobody now seems entirely sure what to do.
Ange Postecoglou is the manager who dared and did, but also the manager whose daring involved 22 league defeats, more than any other non-relegated team has ever managed in a Premier League season.
Deciding which one of those things weighs heaviest has split supporters down the middle, caused us to flip-flop so many times we’re genuinely not sure at all what Spurs should actually do, which more worryingly also appears to be the current state of affairs at boardroom level. And because this is Spurs, that boardroom is also one in the midst of significant upheaval with the departure of long-time Daniel Levy ally Donna Cullen.
Throw in the mooted return of Fabio Paratici in some capacity, official or otherwise, and you’ve got a club experiencing an awful lot of change and uncertainty at a critical time.
The upshot is that in a summer where transfer business across the board has been shuffled forward by the Club World Cup – even for those clubs not directly involved – Spurs are in very real danger of missing the spectacularly unexpected opportunity that has presented itself.
As other teams begin their rebuilds in earnest, Spurs exist in a state of limbo, not knowing where the summer may take them.
But one idea that has been floating around is that they might sign Jack Grealish from Manchester City, and we have to say that this strikes us as such a perfectly Spurs transfer that it doesn’t even matter who the manager might end up being. Unless it’s somehow Pep Guardiola.
Grealish is very, very Spurs. We struggle to think of a current player who is more Spurs but who hasn’t actually played for Spurs. Eberechi Eze, perhaps.
Whether Spurs are actually interested in Grealish, or even in a position to know who they’re interested in at all, we don’t know. It doesn’t really matter, because all we know is that we suddenly have a powerful need for this to happen.
It just makes sense.
Grealish would, in a World Cup year, get a Champions League stage on which to reassert his talent and credentials, at a club where the spotlight is plenty bright enough and there are fewer stars competing for it.
He would bring much-needed flair and a point of difference to an attack that, even when working well, is all too often mechanical and slightly lacking in joy and wonder.
For all the Angeball talk, Spurs really haven’t been that side in any meaningfully successful way for at least half a year. They’ve spent that time getting absolutely paddled in the league week after week, while steering a course through the Europa League playing an entirely different kind of enormously functional and incredibly effective football quite at odds with their reputation for flaky, maverick, entertaining nonsense.
There are pragmatic concerns around wages, because Spurs simply do not pay what other clubs with their levels of income pay, but even here there is a route around it.
One report about Spurs possibly selling Son Heung-min described it as a ‘desperate bid’ to raise funds; we would contend whoever wrote that watched very little of Son last season.
He has been a wonderful player for a very long time, but his decline last season was swift and, frankly, deeply upsetting. He suddenly looked a very old and very leggy 32. Grealish, meanwhile, is a far lighter-raced 29-year-old.
Son finally getting that magic moment in Bilbao after a decade of selfless, loyal service to a club that only very occasionally deserved it was a wonderful moment, one of our favourites of last season. Or any season.
But even there he was able only to play a bit-part role in the final, when it was Cristian Romero who provided the on-field leadership Spurs needed to coax them through the second-half stresses as they sought to protect their scrappily-won lead at all costs.
It’s easy to draw comparison between Son’s still very reasonable contribution in goals and assists during such a difficult campaign and another year of almost nothingness from Grealish, but context is vital here. Grealish has had no rhythm for the last two years of his career. No chance to really get his teeth into the game.
There is every reason to believe he still has something more to offer the right club in the right spot, and Spurs just look a superb fit. It’s far harder to see how Son can get back to anything approaching his best with another year in the legs.
Perfect endings are rare in sport, and Son has the chance for one at Spurs. Go now, as the legend who lifted a major trophy. The first Spurs captain to do that since Ledley King, for crying out loud. It won’t get better than this for him at Spurs.
He has a year left on his contract after Spurs exercised an extension which always looked to be more about protecting his value than anything else.
He would be a perfect signing for any Saudi club, who would only need to look to Spurs themselves to realise there are millions of fans who will follow Son wherever he goes.
There’s a huge summer of change coming for Spurs in more ways than one whatever happens, and moving on from one of their greatest players of the modern age should really be part of it.
