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Premier League experience is considered amongst the most valuable commodities for any prospective new signing – that is if you are a club residing within England’s top-flight of, course. The obsession with signing players who have already sampled their talent within the division derives from an arrogance and artificially inflated sense of self-importance that champions the Premier League as the world’s best division.
Only the most complete players can do it on a cold, rainy, Tuesday night in Stoke. Even in the absence of the Bet365 Stadium the theory which champions England’s top-flight as the most challenging in world football still holds perennial truth for an overwhelming majority of supporters.
That commonly accepted opinion has filtered into the minds of the decision-makers who are exposed to overwhelming pressures from expectant fans on social media. Supporters want to see new signings arrive every summer, especially those who have successfully auditioned for a Premier League role and been given the green light by Simon Cowell and his contingent of equally insufferable judges.
This criminal fallacy of the division’s relative competitiveness to Europe’s other top-divisions could inadvertently be corrupting the recruitment process in some of England’s top clubs.
Tottenham Hotspur, for example, have already been linked with summer moves for Michael Keane and Ryan Fraser. The Daily Express – albeit not renowned for their transfer story to confirmed transfer strike rate – report that Pochettino has identified Keane as a player he wants, while the Daily Mirror believe the Lilywhites have been scouting Bournemouth’s Ryan Fraser.
Let’s be clear on who we’re dealing with here. Keane, despite Everton’s decision to part with £30 million for his services and his recent England call-up, has been inconsistent since leaving Burnley in 2017 and is not a unanimous first-choice for Everton supporters.
Meanwhile, Fraser, who cost just £432k in 2013, has been a scuttling, jet-heeled menace for the Cherries this season, cutting a demeanour of a supercharged bulldog with every rapid stride forward. His reward has been six goals and ten assists in the league – an outstanding record which most top-six wingers would scoop deserved acclaim for. Last season, though, he was not a guaranteed starter for the entirety of the season and he is yet to prove himself over an extended period of time.
It’s important to remember that there are some players who are tailor-made to thrive within a mid-table club and, equally, destined to fail after taking a major step up in class.
Differing styles of football naturally offer differing levels of compatibility for the players who operate within them. Riyad Mahrez has fallen victim to that intrinsic problem at Manchester City, Christian Benteke endured a similar career pattern at Liverpool and Morgan Schneiderlin epitomised mediocrity after swapping Southampton for Manchester United.
While the argument here is certainly not to complete undermine the importance of experience in England’s top-flight, there is ample evidence from transfers during the 2018/19 season that prove it’s a factor which is fundamentally facile and blindly overstated.
According to an article published by The Guardian, Whoscored.com’s head of content, Martin Laurence, has revealed that Ricardo Pereira, Raul Jimenez, Joao Moutinho, James Maddison, Lucas Digne, Fabian Schar, Jannik Vestergaard and Felipe Anderson are, statistically speaking, all contenders for signing of the season; not a single one of the aforementioned players had set foot in the Premier League prior to their summer arrival.
Youri Tielemans, another signing who has thrived on his maiden campaign in England’s top-tier, is omitted from the list due to his transient stay in the top-flight, but a place amongst the signing of the season contenders would surely have been cemented if Leicester City had landed him in the summer of 2018.
A player’s suitability to a particular football club should be judged based on an accumulation of factors and if Premier League experience falls into that profile then that should be regarded as nothing more than a bonus.
Fraser is a poor-man’s Son Heung-min, but he is excelling at the right level for a player of his calibre. Keane is lacking the technical prowess to suit the demands of Pochettino’s system, yet he is a solid central defender for a Europa League standard side.
These pertinent acknowledgements which lie so clearly in plain sight should not be ignored simply because both players have performed to a decent standard in the division which Tottenham possess ambitions of winning.
Players with greater potential to become key cogs in the Tottenham machine are waiting across Europe and beyond.
Fraser and Keane have, quite simply, found their level.