Wednesday 17 January 2018 11:15, UK
In a summer of spiralling transfer fees, Tottenham’s inactivity stands out. But will the merits of continuity pay off? With the team on their United States tour, Adam Bate examines the great Spurs experiment with the help of an example from basketball…
With Tottenham striker Harry Kane grabbing attention on the club's United States tour by hitting a 50-yard field goal in New York, perhaps it is an appropriate time for Spurs supporters to be looking across the pond for inspiration. But it is another sport on the other side of that country that provides the most pertinent example to follow.
In 2014, Bob Myers, the general manager of California basketball team the Golden State Warriors made a simple but incisive point. "If you've played basketball, you know there is a hard-to-quantify element of continuity," said Myers. "Playing together with the same group of people for a long time makes you better. It just does."
The following year, the Warriors ended a 40-year wait to be crowned NBA champions. In part, their victory was heralded as one of continuity, having retained much of the roster from the previous season. Steph Curry led the way but others such as Klay Thompson and Draymond Green have since been given time to develop into stars in their own right.
Incidentally, the team that won the NBA the previous season just happen to be known as Spurs - the San Antonio variety. Their 2014 win was a fourth in 12 years together for Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili. Fellow all-star Kobe Bryant once admitted he was "extremely jealous" of the understanding that the trio had forged on the court.
Clearly, there is much to be said for continuity. Sadly, this is not always possible in football - a sport where everyone bar Real Madrid and Barcelona, even the financial powerhouses of the Premier League, can be considered selling clubs. It requires a special set of circumstances for anyone else to hold onto a successful squad from one year to the next.
As Monaco have discovered this summer, it takes only a glimpse of glory to see a side dismantled. Young talents Benjamin Mendy, Bernardo Silva and Tiemoue Bakayoko have already been sold on. Many of the rest are expected to follow. Individually, they will light up the Champions League. As a collective, blossoming partnerships have been cut short.
Instead, the onus will now be on these young players to forge new bonds and create fresh understandings on the pitch. Expectations will be as high as the fees that were paid to secure their signatures. Monaco's magic must be recreated but for the club that thrust them onto the world stage, they are left to wonder what might have been achieved together.
And if players cannot settle? If Kylian Mbappe finds Cristiano Ronaldo less than receptive? The chance to grow into a role is not guaranteed. It's not so long ago that James Rodriguez moved from Monaco to Madrid as a World Cup hero. Now he's the most expensive player ever loaned out. Patience is not valued too highly when transfers are considered the virtue.
So where does this leave Tottenham? Daniel Levy's smart contract work has helped to prevent the breakup of the team so far. Even more significant is the presence of Mauricio Pochettino, the coach who has fostered such an atmosphere of excitement at the club. Players genuinely believe they are at the best place to improve; the best place to win.
It has given rise to an unusual situation whereby Spurs are able to retain their stars but it is implausible within the wage structure that they can sign comparable talent from elsewhere. Vincent Janssen is a Netherlands international striker and Moussa Sissoko arrived having starred for France at Euro 2016. They are nowhere near good enough to break into the side.
The result is that while Kyle Walker has been allowed to leave for a huge fee, it is his erstwhile deputy Kieran Trippier, the continuity candidate who started half a dozen Premier League games last season, who is considered the best bet. Meanwhile, young midfielder Harry Winks is regarded so highly that he is seen as a superior alternative to those outside.
And so, for now at least, Tottenham are a team seemingly in stasis. Good enough to keep their players but without the resources or inclination to improve upon them. As a result, they become the control experiment for the continuity question. Some supporters might fear that they are standing still but it is a risk that Myers feels can be seriously overstated.
"Sitting still is usually not the best approach to building a team or sustaining success," he admitted in a 2016 interview with Tim Kawakami. "But when you honestly believe in the organic improvement of your own players and feel that they have an upside that hasn't been reached and a level they can improve aggregately as a team, then you do pause.
"And sometimes nothing is better than something. Giving them the chance to go out there and perform and try to do it again was something certainly they deserve. There wasn't a reason to say that they couldn't. And there wasn't a reason to try to shake things up. Look, they're proving that decision - the players are showing why that made some sense.
"Yeah, continuity is hard for a lot of reasons. It's hard because there's an immediate pressure to win. Change is usually associated with something good - whether it's societal or media. Doing nothing is sometimes looked at as a negative. But sometimes doing nothing is a positive. I think in this case it was." The Warriors went on to win the NBA again in 2017.
Will the same prove true of Tottenham? Perhaps seeming to do nothing is actually nothing of the sort. It will give Kane the chance to develop his relationship with Dele Alli as they enter their peak years. Toby Alderweireld's partnership with Jan Vertonghen can continue, while Eric Dier, Danny Rose and the rest will have the opportunity to grow too.
The players seem to understand this. "If you buy a lot of players everyone needs to know what is going on straight away and be a bit lucky," said Christian Eriksen recently. Mousa Dembele agrees. "It's a very good thing to have a group that stays together and understands each other as well," added the Belgian midfielder. "Everybody knows what to do."
When they line up against Newcastle on the opening weekend of the season, only one change is expected from the line-up that thrashed Hull City 7-1 on the final day of the previous campaign - the return of the injured Rose in favour of Ben Davies. While for others it will be a day of discovery, for Spurs it will be a case of picking up where they left off.
It was not always so rare for a team to develop together and be given the time to reach the next level. This era of impatience and an obsession with transfers has seen it go out of fashion. But for Pochettino and his own band of warriors, this unique moment they find themselves in could be the competitive advantage that sets them apart from the rest.
