Tottenham Hotspur have six more matches to play in the Premier League until the curtain is draped on Ange Postecoglou's first term at the helm, and where the Lilyewhites will end up is anyone's guess.
Spurs are six points off Aston Villa in the top four with two games in hand, but face Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City before the end of the campaign and will need to hit a rich vein of form to secure a place among Europe's elite next year.
Will that happen? Does it even really matter? These are pertinent questions and, truthfully, there is more than enough promise to have sprouted from the roots of a new era this year – next season, wherever the football shall be contested, will be a better measure of where Postecoglou's project is at.
Of course, he will need to make some signings to continue the progress, and while Champions League football would help sign the best around, Spurs have demonstrated their scope for success over this past year.
Spurs in pole position for Premier League star
According to a recent report from Football Transfers, Tottenham are in pole position to sign Crystal Palace star Eberechi Eze, who is attracting attention from some of the Premier League's behemoths after his work in south London.
Manchester City are also interested in the two-cap England star but his preference is to remain in London, which leaves Spurs in a great position.
It's claimed that a figure of €64m (about £55m) would be needed to convince Oliver Glasner's side to part with their mercurial talent, but Postecoglou is said to have been granted a war chest ahead of a summer spending spree, hopes that the right moves will narrow the canyon to those at the front of the pack.
Eberechi Eze's Crystal Palace career so far
Palace signed Eze from Queens Park Rangers for a fee rising to £20m in 2020 after the young midfielder had attracted attention for his high-class performances in the Championship.
Across 121 appearances for the Selhurst Park side, Eze has scored 23 goals and supplied 16 assists, with an upswing in his clinical edge becoming clear following his recent progress.
The midfielder has been afflicted by injury on more than one occasion. His severely disrupted 2021/22 campaign likely seeped into last year's exploits, where he failed to find a lasting run of potency until the latter stage. From that point, in fairness, he flourished and demonstrated what can be achieved when at the apex of his game.
Indeed, scoring six goals and adding one assist across the final nine top-flight matches of the 2022/23 season, Eze planted the seeds that allowed his talent to flower this year, where he has been the linchpin of Crystal Palace's attacking efforts, nourished by Glasner's succession of Roy Hodgson in February, two months ago.
Matches played
24
Matches started
21
Goals
8
Assists
3
Pass completion
83%
Touches per game
53.5
Shots per game
3.0
Key passes per game
2.0
Dribbles per game
2.5
Ball recoveries per game
4.9
Duels won per game
6.0
Tackles per game
1.2
Take a look at the table. This is a polished and many-angled skill set, with an inborn tenacity and an ever-improving prolificness in key attacking phases marking Eze as a true star in the making, a star of quality that Tottenham would lap up.
His goalscoring prowess has been a thing to marvel at this season; his surgical flow of creativity speaks of selflessness, of an eagerness for peers to flourish.
Eze was described as "magical to watch" as a youngster by coach Paul Hall, gripping and giddying with the ball at his feet. This boyish avidity has remained intrinsic to Eze's style even now, carefree and unpredictable in his movements, compelled to perform as his side's showman.
Tottenham would only improve with Eze in the mix. Postecoglou must ensure all the stops are pulled in securing his signature.
How Eberechi Eze would fit in at Spurs
Eze's penchant for goals of the spectacular kind makes him an instant crowd-pleaser, and Spurs could make good use of such quality as they prepare for a return to European football next season.
As per FBref, the £100k-per-week ace ranks among the top 15% of attacking midfielders and wingers across Europe's top five leagues over the past year for goals, the top 5% for shots taken and the top 16% for successful take-ons per 90, highlighting his threat in the final third and his ball-carrying means of arriving at such windows of opportunity.
Central midfield
12
5
0
Attacking midfielder
11
4
1
Left winger
6
0
2
Left midfield
5
1
1
An attacking midfielder, Eze would likely be in competition with James Maddison for the star spot at No. 10, but his tactical versatility suggests he could be deployed across a range of roles. Still, he might even prove to surpass his playmaking countryman in suitability under Postecoglou.
Maddison is the locus of Tottenham's creativity, signed from Leicester City for £40m last year, winning the Premier League's Player of the Month award in August and producing awesome results before an ankle injury in November disrupted his, and Tottenham's flow. That fluency still hasn't been recovered, probably.
Still, Maddison is one of the division's elite ball-playing stars, ranking among the top 8% of attacking midfielders and wingers across Europe's top five leagues over the past year for assists, the top 6% for passes attempted and the top 1% for shot-creating actions and progressive passes per 90.
Spurs were rinsed by £12m flop who earned as much as Kane
This centre-forward only scored twice in the Premier League for Tottenham.
ByAngus Sinclair Apr 26, 2024
Eze's striking success in an outfit such as Crystal Palace suggests that he could be the main man at Tottenham, and while Maddison is indeed superior creatively, averaging 2.5 key passes per game in the Premier League, creating nine big chances and placing seven assists from 22 matches as a Lilywhite, the Eagles star isn't exactly poor in that regard.
Eze is, without question, one of the Premier League's finest players to feature below an outfit chasing European football, and Tottenham could pull a blinder in bringing him across London, down N17.