Of all of the top seven teams from last season Tottenham have probably received the least attention of all in the run up to kick off next week but that will probably please their fans who will be happy to see their club out of the headlines. Tottenham have remained steadily in the top seven the last few years though have experienced plenty of upheaval in terms of their playing staff (notably Gareth Bale) and since Harry Redknapp left the club no manager has been able to be universally popular nor successful.
Mauricio Pochettino will be taking to the helm for 2014/15 and will be hoping he can be the man who brings attractive and winning Football to White Hart Lane.
It is clear why Pochettino was selected by the club to bring the club back to the level of contention they want, which is ideally top four, because he did so well in steering Southampton to eighth place last season, doing so on a much more limited budget than is available at Tottenham and did so playing exciting football. Looking back on last season there were actually a number of positives including the fact that they won ten away games (as many as champions Man City) and won most of the games at home against 'lesser' teams - something they haven't been able to do particularly well in previous years. The glaringly obvious undoing of Tottenham was the fact that they managed only five points from thirty available to them against the teams that finished above them and only one point against the top four teams.
This statistic is made worse by the poor manner in which they lost games to top teams, being humiliated home and away by both Man City and Liverpool. Southampton under Pochettino had mixed fortunes against top teams but he will need to try and rectify this damaging record if Tottenham are to progress under his management.
The amount of money available to the owners of Tottenham rarely becomes available in any great extent to the manager and this transfer window has continued that trend with Michel Vorm and Ben Davies coming from Swansea and talented English youngster Eric Dier coming from Sporting Lisbon but none of these are likely to be transformational, especially in the area that is in the greatest need which is up front.
The only two experienced strikers Tottenham have are Emmanuel Adebayor and Roberto Soldado, two strikers who had unconvincing campaigns last season and certainly cannot be relied upon, there are in fact even rumours that Soldado may leave and it would be no surprise judging on the disappointing time he had in first year at the club.
Tottenham will have European games to play as I'm sure they will qualify for the group stage of the Europa League and it cannot be stated more clearly how desperate their need is to sign a striker who will score goals on a consistent basis. A striker of such description is not easy to come by, especially at this time in the transfer window but finding one will make the difference between just getting into the top seven again or potentially being in contention for top four. 2014-15 Prediction: 6th.
