Tottenham Hotspur begin their pre-season tour of Japan and South Korea on Saturday, with a fixture against reigning J League champions, Vissel Kobe.
By the end of the tour, which comes a week later in Seoul against Bayern Munich, Ange Postecoglou should have a reasonable idea as to how his squad are shaping up for the new Premier League season, which begins in just over three weeks time.
The North Londoners fell away at the back end of the 2023/24 season, and a few late reverses ensured that they failed to qualify for the Champions League, with Aston Villa nipping in to take their place.
Postecoglou will arguably look at himself first and foremost and wonder if he could’ve done anything better or differently which may have changed the dynamic at the business end.
A thorough and intensive look at the squad as a whole would surely have followed, and allowed the Australian to make a few decisions for the good of the team.
Though those clubs expected to be around them during the new Premier League season will have also strengthened during the summer, Spurs need to produce the type of form that they showed at the start of last season for the entirety of the 2024/25 campaign.
Bringing in quality players will help them to do just that, and Ipswich Town have inadvertently given them a helping hand in that regard.
Tottenham will benefit from Ipswich’s purchase of Jack Clarke
According to i sport (subscription required), they have offered Sunderland £18m for Jack Clarke, and given that Tottenham negotiated a 40% sell-on clause when they sold him to the Black Cats, they stand to make millions from the transfer.
That money is likely to go straight into club coffers, and gives Postecoglou and Daniel Levy a little more breathing space in terms of Financial Fair Play where transfers are concerned.