In this article, we present to you our top 5 picks for the best defenders that have represented Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League (PL) era.
Jan Vertonghen
We might as well put Vertonghen and Toby Alderweireld in the same section on how inseparable they were in their prime for both Spurs and Belgium.
Vertonghen arrived at Spurs in 2012, a few years earlier than Alderweireld, and quickly established himself as a cool, composed presence at the back, going on to become one the most complete defenders the Premier League would ever see with not just his defensive acumen but also his ability on the ball.
Vertonghen represented Tottenham 315 times, and his 157 caps for the Belgium national team remain a record.
Toby Alderweireld
One can say Spurs played quite the trick by pairing two of Belgium’s finest centre-backs ever together at club level. Spurs spent merely €16 million in bringing Alderweireld to White Hart Lane from Madrid in 2015, €13 million of which they recouped when they sold him to Al-Duhail three years ago. Talk about value for money.
Also a good-on-the-ball operator at the back, Alderweireld helped Vertonghen establish one of the most solid Premier League defences in the last decade at the height of Mauricio Pochettino’s powers at Tottenham.
Ledley King
One-club man. A career spanning three decades. Over 300 appearances for Tottenham, and is the last club captain to lift a trophy. King will always be remembered as a legend in and around Tottenham. He also spent time in the Spurs dugout a few years back as an assistant coach.
Michael Dawson
Michael Dawson is very much an outlier of the “January signings don’t work out in the long term” rule. One can also safely say that the prime of his 20-year career arrived during Spurs’ peak during the Harry Redknapp years.
Dawson joined Spurs from Nottingham Forest at the end of the January transfer window of ’05 for €7 million. Spurs recouped €4.4 million of this fee when they moved him on to Hull nine and a half years later, Dawson having delivered them 324 appearances, 10 goals, and 5 assists.
Kyle Walker
Walker’s time at Spurs overlapped with both the centre-back pairings of King-Dawson and Vertonghen-Alderweireld, and through all that time he has remained a pacey operator capable of terrorising offences in the final third wide while also remaining a cheat code in defensive transitions, having also added a few more arrows to his quiver under Pep Guardiola.
At Tottenham, Walker was exciting. At City, he became invincible. For the Premier League, he is set to go down as one of its greatest-ever fullbacks.
What do you think of our picks here? Do you think someone else should have made the cut? Let us know in the comments below.
