It's been a season of ups and downs for Tottenham Hotspur but form is starting to settle and the pursuit of Champions League qualification might just bear fruit.
That eventuality looked nailed-on in the early phase of the campaign, with new manager Ange Postecoglou breathing fresh life into the outfit and firing Spurs into the ascendancy.
Winter arrived and with it furious bleak clouds, a spate of injuries and suspensions sending Tottenham's Premier League progress into a nosedive; a lapse in fluency bringing title aspirations down to hopes of a top-four finish.
Now, with the campaign approaching the business end, Tottenham have been impressive and perch in fifth place, having closed the gap to three points on Aston Villa in fourth after an emphatic 4-0 win at Villa Park one week ago – and with a game still in hand.
Precise recruitment in the transfer market has been the centre of Tottenham's success, with Postecoglou's project marrying into Daniel Levy's system, but there will need to be further accuracy on that front if any promise from the 2023/24 campaign is to turn into the milk and honey of lasting success.
Tottenham have done a good job of shipping out the deadwood so far, with the likes of Davinson Sanchez, Hugo Lloris and Eric Dier some of the high-profile names cast away.
Some peripheral players still need to leave, with Ryan Sessegnon's time at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium surely running out.
Why Spurs signed Ryan Sessegnon
Having enjoyed something of a prodigious start to life on the senior stage with Fulham, Sessegnon signed for Tottenham in a £25m deal back in 2019, when he was just 19 years old.
The dynamic wideman, competent in any left-sided role, was remarked to be "one of the bright sparks" during Tottenham's 2019/20 campaign, his first at the club, but while he was young and lively he was also inexperienced and unrefined and so made just four starting appearances in the Premier League, albeit scoring in a 3-1 Champions League defeat against Bayern Munich.
Unfortunately, nearly five years after transferring to Tottenham the 23-year-old has completed just 57 fixtures for the club, with injuries and poor performances punctuating a once-promising career that has bitterly stagnated.
He's out of contract next summer and there is a sense that his Spurs career is at its end, especially given that he played just one match for the first team in 2023/24, coming off the bench against Burnley in the FA Cup third round in January.
Sessegnon's woes have of course been compounded by the injury issues that have derailed a promising start to life, having scored two goals and provided six assists during the 2018/19 Premier League season, his last with Fulham.
But there's no denying that he has flattered to deceive, with Spurs insider Jon Wenham even remarking that he looks like a "Championship player" when he does muster up enough fitness to grace the pitch.
That said, an endless recurrence of a hamstring problem such as Sessegnon has suffered would stifle even the most talented Premier League stars, and for this reason, he can't be considered in the same breath as some other recent Tottenham duds.
One such flop is Sergio Reguilon, who hasn't played for Spurs in nearly two years but remains on the books and must be axed to continue the revival under Postecoglou.
Why Sergio Reguilon has flopped at Spurs
Wenham has recently described Reguilon as "chaotic" after revealing that Levy is bound to make a "huge loss" on the Spaniard, who is currently marked with a paltry £5m worth, according to Football Transfers' valuation model.
This feeling of disappointment would not be so profound were the 27-year-old not at the centre of a £32m outlay, signing from Real Madrid with a weight of expectation in 2020 after being named the La Liga's best left-back in 2019/20 while on loan with Sevilla, winning the Europa League.
No doubt, he does have his qualities. Reguilon ranks among the top 7% of full-backs across Europe's top five leagues over the past year for tackles and the top 5% for blocks per 90, as per FBref, but it's been some time since he played in a Tottenham shirt competitively.
Indeed, after two years plying his trade for Tottenham, Reguilon completed a loan move back to his homeland and joined Atletico Madrid, though this was a woeful sojourn that provided him with a series of injuries and just two starts in La Liga.
Wenham – seemingly a vocal critic of this ace – has also remarked that he is the "worst of the bunch" when discussing the transfer activity under Jose Mourinho's management.
Not accounting for his £53k-per-week wages across the past two seasons, which might even have been covered by Tottenham, at least partially, Reguilon has bled the club over £37m, when combining his earnings across those first two years with his transfer fee.
Per appearance
£559,000
Per goal
£18.75m
Per assist
£4.2m
Per clean sheet
£1.7m
Per booking
£3.4m
Sessegnon is still relatively young and has been beset with a torrent of fitness problems, and while it hasn't been plain sailing on the injury front for Reguilon by any stretch, he cost more money and has had ample time to establish himself as a star down N17.
With Destiny Udogie performing so well in a Tottenham shirt, it's hardly likely that Reguilon will reclaim his place in the side any time soon, even if he is averaging 2.3 tackles per game in the Premier League this season (having spent the first half of the campaign on loan with Manchester United, switching for Brentford in January), as per Sofascore, also winning 58% of his duels.
Having signed a five-year contract in 2020, Reguilon is seemingly out of contract in 2025, and it's highly unlikely that his deal will be renewed.
