Spurs strike gold with ‘titanium’ Conte signing £60m star in the making

It has been almost a year and a half since then Andze Postecoglou was appointed its director Tottenham.

The Australian has undoubtedly had his problems in North London, but it would be fair to say that he has successfully reintroduced attacking football to N17 after Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte subjected the fans to terrible displays for years that were no more successful.

However, while the majority of fans were happy to see the back of the latter last year, he was at least responsible for some successful signings, including one that is now being compared to a £60m superstar.

Conte’s other signing

So before we get to the player in question, let’s look at another of Conte’s best signings he made while at Spurs, Dejan Kulusevski.

The Sweden international has joined the Lilywhites on an initial 18-month loan deal purchase obligation in January 2022which was made permanent in the summer of 2023.

However, it was under the Italian manager that the prodigious talent first made his way to North London, and while there were a few hiccups along the way, it would be unfair to describe his time at the club as anything but a resounding success. .

All in all, the former Juve gem has done well 116 appearances for the clubin which he has scored 17 goals and provided 26 assists, which equates to being involved in a goal every 2.69 games, and based on his form this season, we wouldn’t be surprised to see that average continue to improve.

We say this because, despite being a key player throughout his time at the club, Postecoglou’s decision to move more regularly into midfield this year has effectively seen him not drop.

For example, of the nine goals he has been involved in this season, seven of them came when he plays in attacking or central midfield and it was in the middle of the park that he became the first away from home from 03/04 season to create nine chances from open play at Old Trafford.

All in all, signing Kulusevski was undoubtedly one of the best things Conte did while at Spurs.

However, signing another champion, now compared to one of the best in his position, was a close second.

The Spurs superstar in the making

So the player in question is right-back Pedro Porro, who, like Kulusevski, originally joined Tottenham on loan under Conte, only this time it was in January 2023 and the deal included purchase obligation of £40m.

The Spaniard did not get much playing time with the former Chelsea boss as he left that Marchbut still enjoyed a reasonable first half in London, making 17 appearances, scoring three goals and providing three assists.

Fortunately, Postecoglou opted to keep the ‘titanic’ defender, as dubbed by Former Spurs Athletic Correspondent Charlie Ecclesharein his team, and in all competitions last season the dynamo born in Don Benito made 37 appearancesin which he collected a very impressive tally of four goals and seven assists.

It’s more of the same this year as, in just 16 games, the 25-year-old has already scored twice and provided two assistswhich is the kind that draws his comparison to the impressively talented Trent Alexander Arnold, who has one Career tally of 102 goal appearancesnot surprising.

Yes, according to FBrefwhich compares players in similar positions across Europe’s top five leagues, the Champions League and Europa League, then creates a list of the ten most comparable players for each, and in this case, concluded that the Englishman is the most similar back to Spanish in the last 365 days.

While their incredible attacking prowess is already a huge similarity between the pair, we can better understand how FBref has come to its conclusion by looking at the underlying metrics in which the pair rank closely, such as forward passes and carries, assists, passes live and passes attempted and shot creation actions, all per 90.

Now, to see one of your starters compared to someone widely regarded as one of the best in their position is already reason enough for Spurs to celebrate, but it also suggests that the former Sporting ace could be worth a small fortune .

For example, according to FOTmobthe Liverpool star is currently worth around €72m, which is around £60m, and if Poro is the same age, plays a similar role and produces incredibly similar underlying numbers, why shouldn’t he be worth the same?

Ultimately, while Conte made plenty of mistakes during his time at Tottenham, signing the Spanish full-back was not one of them, and if the club ever sell him for a huge profit, they may owe him a thank you.

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