Jan Vertonghen was asked whether he was worried about Mauricio Pochettino, Christian Eriksen or Danny Rose leaving Tottenham as there had been a lot of talk about the trio.
Eriksen put his Spurs future in doubt in an interview with Ekstra Bladet as he admitted he would “like to try something new”, while Rose seemed unsure whether he’d be at the club after being “linked with a move” in the media while talking to Sky Sports reporter Rob Dorsett.
However all the speculation about Pochettino’s future has mostly come from the media rather than him directly with the likes of Football Insider claiming there were doubts over the manager’s future.
Despite this it didn’t stop a reporter asking Vertonghen for his thoughts while he was away representing Belgian on international duty.
“There’s been a lot of talk about the manager, about Christian Eriksen, Danny Rose, is there a worry the team could split up or are you confident that ahead of next season that you’ll stay together and go again?” asked the Sky Sports reporter (16:48, Monday June 10th).
Vertonghen responded to share he hoped the trio weren’t leaving and shared his confidence as everyone stayed put last season despite the rumours.
“I hope so,” responded the Spurs defender.
“Obviously the transfer window has started and there are a lot of rumours but there were rumours last year and last year everyone stuck together so I’m hopeful.”
OPINION
While some will think Vertonghen is just saying the PR-friendly answer, it didn’t come across that way. The centre-back was all smiles while talking about Spurs and didn’t seem concerned that he was going to have to wave goodbye to Pochettino, Rose or Eriksen. While it’s likely that one of these three will leave, probably Eriksen, it’s hard to see them all going. This is especially the case with Pochettino as it’s hard to imagine the Tottenham boss throwing in the towel. If he was to leave then you would assume that it would be a result of the transfer budget Daniel Levy offered him being so ridiculously low even he couldn’t imagine working his magic. Spurs reached the Champions League final in their 2018/19 campaign and in order to go one better, clearly need new players to arrive. However it’s worth noting that if Spurs lose key members of their squad like Rose and Eriksen, then even more business will be required.