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Have Your Say – “The Bar Hasn’t Been Set That High, To Be Honest” – The Right Back Issue At Spurs

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With Kieran Trippier’s departure from Tottenham Hotspur this summer to Atletico Madrid, we also have ongoing Serge Aurier talk with the European transfer window remaining open.

With Juan Foyth’s injury, notwithstanding his suspension from last season, youngster Kyle Walker-Peters took to the pitch in our opener with Aston Villa last weekend, and he took plenty of praise from the fans for his showing.

Vital Spurs regular, BelgianSpur, gave his thoughts on the right back spot and I thought it was deserving of a wider audience. Few will disagree, surely?

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To be honest, I am very comfortable with the idea of having KWP and Foyth rotating at RB. KWP is a natural RB by trade, and Foyth did well at RB in the Copa America.

Based on what we got from Aurier and Trippier in the last couple of seasons, we can’t really say that they were flawless, and I can’t imagine that a KWP/Foyth tandem would do significantly worse. Time will tell, but the bar hasn’t been set that high, to be honest.

For KWP, as said before, at least we’ll know what we’ve got. For Foyth, I think his future is at CB but it’s a good way for him to get minutes, and if he makes mistakes due to inexperience, they’ll hopefully be less costly on the flanks.

Given the uncertain futures of Toby and Jan, I expect Sanchez and Foyth (and Dier) to figure more prominently in future seasons. Anything we can do to get those 3 players minutes would be a good thing, for succession planning.

In the current squad, there really is no need to carry Aurier’s wages. The only scenario in which keeping Aurier would make sense was if he was the best RB at the club. But from what I’ve seen, he’s not the answer for us there and arguably a worse choice than KWP right now.

Worst case scenario is that the young tandem performs poorly, in which case it’ll be time to address the situation in future windows. KWP will be shipped out, Foyth will be moved back to CB exclusively and hopefully the club will bring in a starting-calibre RB in January or in the summer.

Best case scenario is the KWP makes the position his own, with Foyth an able deputy if need be. In that case, we’ve just saved a lot of money, which we can use to address other shortcomings.

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