Every so often a team goes on a shopping spree that makes supermarket sweep look like a dull affair. Chelsea did it when Abramovich bought the club, Man City did the same when they had an injection of oil cash, and now Spurs have had a remarkably successful summer spending £110.5m. This time, however, whilst Tottenham has always been a relatively wealthy club, the money they have spent has been raised by sale of a talented young player who they have had a significant hand in developing.
Spurs' squad this season is made up of a venerable collection of names. Paulinho, who had a storming Confederations Cup, and Roberto Soldado, who scored 30 goals for Valencia in all competitions last season, were brought earlier in the summer and on both occasions broke the club's transfer record. They also signed winger Nacer Chadli from FC Twente and Etienne Capoue from Toulouse. A handy team of signings, even despite the sale of Steven Caulker to Cardiff which came as a surprise, especially with the value British players currently hold for football clubs.
The spending wasn't to stop there, though. Vlad Chiriches was bought to replace the gap left by Caulker, the club broke their transfer record for a third time to buy Erik Lamela for £30m, and finally on the last Friday of the transfer window, the club purchased Christian Eriksen from Ajax.
Even before the beginning of the season, Spurs were touted as likely competitors for the much sought after fourth position in the Premier League with the prize of Champions league football. After the signing of Eriksen however, many are now starting to consider them as possible title contenders. Some, though, argue that their squad is still one or two players short of the required calibre for a title challenge.
It seems that the squad is the first and foremost consideration in people's minds when they choose their title contenders for that year. And this is, of course, no surprise. But what role does management play in this equation? All these fourth position contenders seem to be one or two high quality players short of a league winning team, but it is possible for a good manager to over achieve.
Another fourth place contender, Liverpool, have a manager with a record of over achieving. Whilst with Swansea, Brendan Rodgers demonstrated that tactics and training routines can get the most out of a team and push them to do much better than most expect. In a much more significant way, Alex Ferguson won the Premier League in 2010-11 with a considerably weaker team compared with rivals Chelsea and Manchester City. Despite the fact that Ferguson had to rely on the likes of John O'Shea, Johnny Evans and Anderson (All good players but most probably would not make the starting line ups of Man City or Chelsea) the unique skills of Alex Ferguson combined with a culture of success meant that they could win the title. It also might be worth mentioning the fact that year after year Arsene Wenger has been criticised for not buying in new players during the transfer window, and whilst they don't always challenge for the title, they consistently seem to earn themselves a place in the Champions League. Surely, Wenger is responsible for this.
These examples make me think that if the management is right at Tottenham, then they could compete for the title. The remaining question, therefore, is whether Andre Villas Boas is up to the task and only time will tell us the answer to that. It is easy to place all the emphasis on the importance of signings and squads during the thrill of the transfer window, but if managers were unimportant, it would be the squad who would get the sack after a poor run of form rather than the manager picking up their P45. I don't think anyone is suggesting that mangers don't mean anything, but by placing so much emphasis on squads and signings, we are perhaps underestimating the importance and potential for managers to achieve the unexpected.
