Rio Ferdinand has claimed that Mauricio Pochettino should be demanding Daniel Levy to give him more money to spend in the transfer window after Tottenham reached the Champions League final on Wednesday night.
Lucas Moura scored at second-half hat-trick at the Johan Cruyff Arena as Spurs over-turned a three-goal deficit to win on away goals against Ajax.
The Brazilian forward was the last player that Tottenham signed when he swapped Paris Saint-Germain for North London in January 2018.
And Ferdinand has pointed out that if Pochettino’s signings are doing things like that, then Levy will have no choice but to back him financially.
“I tell you what, if he goes to Daniel Levy and says ‘listen the last player you gave me money for 18 months ago was Lucas Moura. So I’m good at it, give me some more’,” said Ferdinand on BT Sport 2 after the match on Wednesday night [10:10pm].
“More than anything today, we can talk about the quality of the players and the quality of the goals. Sometimes heart gets you through in situations. And they way that they dug deep, the way they didn’t give up.”
OPINION
It’s a very good point by Ferdinand but the chances are that Tottenham were bound to make quite a few signings in the summer regardless of whether they reached the Champions League final or not. There is a lot of speculation surrounding the futures of Toby Alderweireld and Christian Eriksen while fringe players like Vincent Janssen, Fernando Llorente and Michel Vorm could all also be off in the summer. Levy was always going to let Pochettino replace those players if they do go and after the sale of Moussa Dembele in January, adding a new central-midfielder to the squad was always inevitable. Lucas’ hat-trick against Ajax just proves that Pochettino needs to be trusted to sign players and give them time to settle in. Lucas wasn’t firing on all cylinders straight away while Moussa Sissoko took two years to settle down at Tottenham and look at him now. He’s a player of the season contender for them. Tottenham are a perfect example of what patience can get you in football.