There’s a lot of Tottenham Hotspur news this morning, but let’s start with the quick and obvious stuff. This morning, Spurs announced that four senior players have left the club at the conclusion of their contracts — Ivan Perisic, Eric Dier, Ryan Sessegnon, and Japhet Tanganga.
We can confirm the departures of Japhet Tanganga, Ryan Sessegnon, Eric Dier and Ivan Perisic following the conclusion of their contracts.
We thank Japhet, Ryan, Eric and Ivan for their service to the Club and wish them all the very best for the future
Perisic and Dier we knew already, even though it wasn’t officially official. Both of them were loaned to their current club — Hajduk Split for Perisic,Bayern Munich for Dier — with the expectation that they would sign for their new clubs as free agents as soon as their Tottenham contracts expire.
Tottenham had options to extend the contracts of both Sessegnon and Tanganga, but chose not to exercise those options, which means both players’ contracts are now expired and they can leave the club on free transfers. With Sessegnon, it’s simply the right thing to do — he’s spent much of the past two seasons injured, his value to Spurs has declined precipitously, and he just needs a fresh start at a new club. It’s sad, but it’s also understandable.
Tanganga feels like the only real miss by the club, and it feels pretty ridiculous to let him go on a free when we likely could’ve gotten high single digit millions for him a couple of years back. While we should acknowledge that Japhet was offered several moves in recent offseasons that he turned down for various reasons, Spurs also pretty badly botched his development. Tanganga is an academy graduate and very likely a lower-Premier League level professional footballer, making him literally the cream of the academy crop in recent seasons. Letting him go for nothing feels like a huge whiff. It wouldn’t surprise me if he lands with a promoted or bottom-half team before the window closes.
In addition to the above, Spurs also announced the departures of several academy and scholarship players. The biggest name on this list is likely Charlie Sayers, a talented central defender, has had some rotten injury luck that has kept him from developing in the way the club hoped. But he’s a solid player and it’s likely he’ll land somewhere in the football league or conference without too much issue.
From our Development Squad, we can confirm the departures of Charlie Sayers following the conclusion of his contract and Billy Heaps following the conclusion of his third-year scholarship. Under-18s players Kieran Morgan and Han Willhoft-King have also departed following the conclusion of their scholarships. They have been in our Academy system since the Under-8s and Under-7s respectively.
