Kevin Kilbane has revealed that he believes Tottenham will be unable to hold on to some of their most talented players unless they break their pay structure to keep them.
The BBC pundit shared that he worried about the futures of Harry Kane, Dele Alli, Christian Eriksen and Toby Alderweireld as from an outsider’s perspective they could all leave in the summer.
“The biggest clubs in Europe are undoubtedly going to be chasing Harry Kane’s signature this summer,” said Kilbane in his column for Boyle Sports.
“He has continuously said that he doesn’t want to leave, that he wants to become the all-time leading goalscorer at Tottenham, but overall, this deal is all about Tottenham, it’s about the wages they are willing to pay.
“They’ve got to be challenging for the Premier League, they’ve got to break the bank to keep him there essentially.
“Then you’re looking at the likes of Dele Alli, Christian Eriksen, Toby Alderweireld.
“Alderweireld look as though he could be leaving, is he going to be the first one to leave with a queue behind him?
“That’s the way you feel as an outsider looking into the Spurs setup, they’ve got to seriously break their pay structure to keep all these players.”
Kilbane continued referring to the struggles he claimed Spurs would face in order to keep the four players he named, and shared that history suggests the club will sell them.
“If Real Madrid came in and tested Tottenham with a £150million bid, would Tottenham be liable to sell him?” questioned Kilbane.
“We’ve seen over the last 10 or 15 years that they have been a selling club, we’ll see if that’s still the case when a Madrid or Barcelona or PSG or any club of that size come knocking.”
OPINION
As soon as Tottenham were knocked out of the Champions League by Juventus on Wednesday, pundits were going to start saying they were worried about the club losing their star players. While Kilbane is right to suggest that Spurs may have trouble turning down a £150million bid, but name a team who wouldn’t. Even the richest clubs in the game would consider selling key players if a ridiculous offer was tabled, they would be stupid not to. Out of the players Kilbane mentions, only Alderweireld looks destined for the exit door due to his highly published contract issues. However that could all soon be resolved and the next thing you know the defender is signalling his intent to stay at the club for the foreseeable future.