At the end of the season, Tottenham may find themselves in the unfathomable position of being without Jan Vertonghen and Toby Alderweireld.
The Belgian duo have been incredible over the last three seasons at White Hart Lane and Wembley, and have been the rocks at the back in which Mauricio Pochettino has built his team upon. To be without them would spell disaster for Spurs.
While it seems more than likely that Alderweireld will leave at some point, whether in January or for free in the summer, Vertonghen expects Tottenham to activate his contract extension and keep him in London for another year. From Tottenham’s perspective, it would be absurd not to keep the two-time PFA Team of the Season member.
The Belgian is currently the Tottenham Player of the Year, and is a mainstay under Pochettino, and was for the Belgian team during the World Cup. Although he is injured now, the majority of fans expect him to walk back into The Lilywhites. But Tottenham may question how many good years they may have left in the player, and that is the genius of this contract extension.
Come the end of the season, Vertonghen will be 32, yet surely has at least another season playing at this standard. Obviously, he will be 33 in the summer of 2020, and his days may be up.
It seems very unlikely that he would be given another contract at that age, and the question would be if he is sold in the January of next season for a fee, or whether Tottenham let him go for free at the end of the season. It’s hard to speculate where the player will go, but a return to the Eredivise, where he had many successful days with Ajax could well be a destination.
Either way, the club can say that they got their money’s worth for the £12m signing in 2012.
