Tottenham Hotspur appear to have streamlined their recruitment since the door of the 2022/23 campaign was closed, locked – the key thrown away – with Ange Postecoglou lifting the club back toward a period of promise.
It's nice that Spurs have improved their Premier League standing under new management, and it's impressive that progress has been made despite having to sell Harry Kane to Bayern Munich in August, but the real measure of development is found in that transfer business.
Postecoglou's free-flowing, interchangeable brand of football has won over a fanbase craving success, and indeed the Australian is in a good position to qualify for the Champions League, fifth in the table heading into the final stretch and nine points above Manchester United in sixth.
But this stylistic set-up owes much to the £43m summer signing of Micky van de Ven from Wolfsburg, whose rangy manner, immense strength and speed and dribbling skills have supercharged Postecoglou's hard-running team.
Van de Ven has forged a formidable partnership with Cristian Romero, with this steely and dynamic new axis a far cry from the woes of the 2022/23 campaign, where Eric Dier and Clement Lenglet played prominent roles in a team which shipped 63 Premier League goals – more than every team bar newly-promoted Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest and the three relegated teams.
Why Spurs signed Clement Lenglet
Lenglet joined on a season-long loan from Barcelona but he flattered to deceive in the English capital, with his performances under Antonio Conte and then interim manager Ryan Mason leading journalist Jonathan Johnson to brand him as "a complete & utter liability of a defender."
But he had arrived to provide Conte – who had just led Tottenham to a top-four Premier League finish and joyed in the schadenfreude of Arsenal's late-season collapse – with extra defensive cover, having fallen down the pecking order at Barcelona, behind Ronald Araujo, Gerard Pique and Eric Garcia.
Left-footed, Lenglet arrived to add depth and shape to the backline, but he left Tottenham with his tail between his legs after falling by the wayside in his efforts to install some mettle.
Clement Lenglet's 2022/23 season in numbers
Tottenham's eighth-place finish in the English top-flight last season was a real low and made Kane's wish to leave more than understandable, if bitter all the same.
It was these dreadful displays that corroborated past criticisms from reporter Roy Nemur, who branded Lenglet a "defensive liability" during his time in Catalonia.
The fact of the matter is that the Frenchman is a ball-playing defender, purportedly suitable for a team challenging for a place at the top end of the Premier League, currently ranking among the top 19% of centre-backs across Europe's top five leagues over the past year for assists, the top 16% for shot-creating actions, the top 2% for progressive carries and the top 13% for successful take-ons per 90, as per FBref.
Matches played
26
Matches started
24
Clean sheets
1
Pass completion
87%
Tackles per game
1.5
Clearances per game
2.6
Duels won per game
4.0 (56%)
Errors led to shot
1
Errors led to goal
1
The fact that Lenglet kept just one clean sheet across 26 Premier League appearances last season says it all regarding his effectiveness down the N17, with Romero, who featured 27 times last season, keeping six clean sheets.
There's a case that Lenglet was the worst outfield performer in the defensive third last season, even more so than Dier, who at least was trusted to start 31 matches in the Premier League kept nine clean sheets and was more accurate and commanding in the duel, winning 62% of his battles.
It certainly seems that every time Lenglet was not fielded, Tottenham's chances of stopping the ball from bypassing Hugo Lloris' net shot up tenfold.
While there were murmurings that Tottenham might return for Lenglet on a permanent deal last summer, at the dawn of Postecoglou's era, it was always unlikely that the club would invest funds into signing him, with resources instead placed in landing Van de Ven. Hardly a bad decision.
But the mere fact that Lenglet spent a campaign at the club and contributed to a nosedive that proved fatal for boss Conte, who was sacked in acrimonious circumstances, paints the full picture: Tottenham had meandered off course.
Spurs barely speaking to club despite rumours of deal being all but agreed
The Lilywhites have their focus elsewhere as it stands.
It's an exciting time to be a Tottenham supporter and there's every hope internally that, with Postecoglou at the helm and wedded to Levy's way of life, things could start to look up.
But in order to ensure that the current campaign's improvements are not fleeting, an ephemeral burst of optimism, past deals such as that of Lenglet must be avoided like the most crunching of tackles.