John Wenham predicts Micky van de Ven to be a success at Tottenham, he is ‘suited’ to the system
Tottenham News is delighted to welcome John Wenham of Lilywhite Rose as our exclusive columnist. Each week, he’ll be giving his expert insight on the biggest talking points at Spurs…
Tottenham should sign Micky van de Ven instead of fellow Bundesliga defender Edmond Tapsoba as he is “better suited” to the system, according to John Wenham.
Spurs are desperate for a new central defender after conceding 63 goals in the Premier League last season, the sixth-most of any side in the division.
And it appears as if, although it has taken some time, Tottenham are now finally close to completing the signing of long-term target van de Ven from Wolfsburg, according to David Ornstein, who shared the update via Twitter (4 August).
And Wenham believes that this is the right signing to make, and the club only need to sign one centre-back due to the size of the current squad.
Speaking exclusively to Tottenham News, Wenham said “With a squad of currently 36 first-team players, I cannot see them adding two centre-backs, unless significant progress is made on the outgoings.
“I’m obviously delighted Clement Lenglet will not be returning. It’s nothing personal against Clement, I think he did a decent job for Tottenham and popped up with some good headers at Marseille and Bournemouth, but the simple reality is, he’s not better than Ben Davies.
“Last summer he was signed as a stopgap with it abundantly clear, that this is a stopgap, and we will be going for a top left-sided centre back the coming summer, which would have been a Josko Gvardiol or Alessandro Bastoni.
“Neither of those has happened and now it seems that van de Ven has been identified.
“Being left-footed, being a tall physical centre-back that could also play, he would be my choice over Tapsoba, I just think he’s better suited to the system we’re going to play this year.
“I think him next to Romero, we’re not playing with a three at the back anymore, we’re playing with two as we’ve seen in the pre-season games, so we do not need six centre-backs as we had last year.
“I think you can move forward for the season with Romero and van de Ven as the starting two.”
In other Tottenham news, a medical for their potential new centre-back could be just ‘days away.’