In what was first billed as a season of positivity under highly-touted Celtic boss Ange Postecoglou after his arrival in North London, Tottenham are back to asking questions as to how they are to move forward in their own project in North London.
With no European football on offer, Postecoglou will have a somewhat less strenuous bedding-in period in England, and at first glance, much of the summer business conducted by the club certainly showed promise. Deals for James Maddison, Pedro Porro, Dejan Kulusevski, Micky van de Ven, Guglielmo Vicario, and Manor Solomon offer a ton of quality across all areas of the pitch for a side that only has to contend with one fixture per week for the vast majority of the 2023-24 campaign. But then tragedy struck.
Seemingly leaning towards staying at Tottenham this season, the future of Harry Kane is now away from the capital as the England star completed the final steps before heading off to Bayern Munich, thrusting the question of how Spurs replace a near-irreplaceable goalscoring behemoth on such notice. The simple answer is, you can’t. So perhaps there was no better season to miss European football than this one, as Spurs now must come to grips with life without their record goalscorer while also sorting solutions in the near future.
Predicted XI
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Team News
Ange Postecoglou will begin life at Spurs in an official capacity on Saturday without star striker Harry Kane after the club and international goalscorer is on his way to German giants Bayern Munich, and should replace him with Brazilian international Richarlison to lead the line.
The former Celtic boss will also have to contend with a cadre of absentees on opening day, with Rodrigo Bentancur, Bryan Gil, Tanguy Ndombele, Ryan Sessegnon, and Fraser Forster all unfit for selection. As such, Postecoglou is in line to hand debuts to Destiny Udogie, Micky van de Ven, Guglielmo Vicario, and James Maddison for the visit to Brentford.
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