Tottenham's Premier League Struggles: The Case for Keeping Micky van de Ven

Tottenham’s slide from the Premier League’s top table has not been sudden. It has been slow, awkward and increasingly painful to watch.

Back-to-back 17th-place finishes have stripped away any illusions in north London. Ange Postecoglou briefly broke the gloom, delivering Europa League glory and ending a 17-year wait for major silverware, but that triumph felt like a bright light in an otherwise dim corridor. The league form never truly recovered, and the cracks he covered have since widened.

Thomas Frank and Igor Tudor came and went without leaving anything resembling a legacy at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Neither shifted the mood, neither shifted the dial. Only when Roberto De Zerbi arrived did the club finally find a manager capable of steadying the listing ship and dragging it away from the rocks.

Even then, survival came with a sting.

Spurs clung to safety on the final day, celebrating the bare minimum while, across north London, Arsenal hoisted the Premier League trophy. One club hanging on, the other climbing to the summit. The contrast could hardly have been sharper, and the gap between the rivals has rarely felt wider.

Now comes the hard part. Awakening a sleeping giant is one thing; doing it while your best players eye the exit is another.

This summer promises movement. A lot of it. High-profile departures, fresh faces, a churned squad trying to rediscover its identity. Among the names linked with the door is Dutch defender Micky van de Ven, a rare success story in a turbulent period and a player who has quickly attracted attention from Liverpool.

Alan Hutton, the former Spurs full-back, believes that is exactly the kind of sale Tottenham cannot afford to make.

Speaking to GOAL, Hutton was emphatic: Van de Ven, in his view, is non-negotiable.

"That's one guy that I think they have to keep, in my opinion," he said, stressing that any serious rebuild must be built around the 23-year-old. For Hutton, Van de Ven is more than a promising centre-half. He is a leader in waiting.

If Cristian Romero departs, as Hutton suspects he might, the Dutchman becomes the natural cornerstone of the defence. Strip him out as well and Spurs are back at square one, searching for another rare blend of pace, power and composure in a market that rarely offers such profiles at a reasonable price.

"If you did cash in on him and he goes to another Premier League team or whatever, you have to replace that guy and that's not going to be easy," Hutton warned. The dilemma is obvious. Players of Van de Ven’s calibre want the highest stage, and Tottenham are no longer on it. Reaching that level again, Hutton believes, will take “a number of windows”.

That is precisely why he argues they must hold firm now. Lose Van de Ven and the climb back towards the elite grows steeper still.

The attraction for others is clear. Linked with Anfield, the defender has impressed with his blend of physical dominance and technical assurance. Hutton did not hide his admiration when asked about the Liverpool rumours.

"He'd be an outstanding signing. I really like him as a player," he said. The praise came thick and detailed: strength, running power, speed, even the goals he has chipped in with. Those surging runs from deep, the recovery sprints, the calm in possession – they all feed into a profile that, in Hutton’s words, “literally ticks all the boxes”.

In his eyes, Van de Ven belongs in the Champions League. That is the level he should be playing at. For Tottenham, that reality cuts both ways: his talent underlines what they stand to lose, and what they must become again if they want to keep footballers of his stature.

Hutton is clear. Making Van de Ven the centrepiece of the project is not a luxury. It is a priority.

The wider question is more uncomfortable. Are Spurs still part of the Premier League’s so‑called “Big Six”?

On the balance sheet, you can make an argument. On the pitch, Hutton does not.

"I don't think so, if I'm totally honest," he said. His reasoning is blunt. A Big Six club competes regularly at the top end of the table. It imposes itself, season after season. Tottenham have not done that. Not recently. Not consistently.

"Probably if you look at the finances and money that's coming into the club, you'd say the business side of it has been run really well," Hutton acknowledged. The stadium is full, the commercial deals flow, the infrastructure screams ambition. Yet that prosperity has not translated into performances. The team has “really struggled”, and the badge alone no longer guarantees a place among the elite.

"So at this moment in time," he concluded, "I don't see them as a ‘Big Six’ team."

That is the backdrop to this summer: a club fighting to reclaim its status, a squad in flux, and a defender in Van de Ven who embodies both the problem and the solution. Keep him, build around him, and Spurs have a foundation for the climb. Lose him, and the question becomes starker:

How long before Tottenham stop being a sleeping giant and simply become a club that used to belong at the top?