Vertonghen in talks to stay
Spurs defender could sign new two-year deal with club
Tottenham Hotspur have reopened contract talks with Jan Vertonghen and the central defender believes he can keep playing for the club for at least two years.
Vertonghen is one of the trio of Spurs players, along with Christian Eriksen and Toby Alderweireld, who have entered the final 12 months of their deals.
Moussa Sissoko, who had just under two years remaining on his previous deal, last week signed a new four-year contract and Spurs are now in talks with Vertonghen.
Tottenham last year took up their option to extend Vertonghen’s contract by a year through to the end of this campaign.
It remains to be seen, however, whether the club are willing to offer the 32-year-old any more than another one-year extension, with the Belgian clearly believing he could go on at Spurs for longer.
Ahead of Tottenham’s Champions League Group B game against Bayern Munich tonight, Vertonghen said: “I’m very aware of my age. I feel fairly young and it [the contract situation] doesn’t distract me. I want to play as many games as I can at the highest possible level. That’s what we are doing now and that’s what we are doing tomorrow.
“I’m very ambitious and I feel I’ve got a couple of good years left in me. I hope I can help the team as long as I can.”
Asked whether he was in contract talks with Spurs, Vertonghen replied: “I prefer not to go too deep into that, but there’s always some movement everywhere.” He added: “It’s my eighth season now, I had a great past, I’m feeling great at the moment in every single way here.”
Just as with Sissoko, Mauricio Pochettino, the manager, made it clear that any decision on Vertonghen’s future would be made by Daniel Levy, the Spurs chairman.
“I am open to everything,” Pochettino said. “But that is like I said before about Moussa Sissoko. That is a deal between the club, him [Vertonghen] and his agent. We’ll see what happens because there are two different parties in all the deals.
“I think Jan, after five years that we are all together, this is the sixth season, and he was always an important part of my project and my decisions in football. That feeling is not going to change.”
Vertonghen reiterated that his contract situation had not contributed to a slow start to the season for him and Tottenham. Having not featured in the first three games of the campaign, he returned to the starting XI for the 2-2 draw at Arsenal and was at fault for both goals in Tottenham’s opening Champions League draw against Olympiakos.
“I didn’t play the first three games, that is a decision; we can only have 11 on the pitch and seven on the bench, and I wasn’t there,” Vertonghen said. “I want to play every game, in that way I was disappointed. You’re not a player if you are not disappointed when you don’t play. That shows I am ambitious and I want to play every game.
“The last couple of games I did play, and I want to work and do everything to play as many games this season as possible. That depends on my performances. Performances this season? Probably a couple of good ones and a couple where I could have done better.”
Pochettino last week referenced the “different agendas” within his squad while trying to explain why results had not been good.
But Vertonghen insisted that the Premier League victory over Southampton, in which Spurs were reduced to 10 men, proved that the spirit within the squad was good. “The mood at this point is good, it was a good win for us on Saturday,” Vertonghen said. “We fought, we stuck together. There was a great buzz after the game because we wanted to show who we are and show that we can fight and want to fight. If you see after the final whistle how happy we were.
“We can dominate games, but we can fight as well. That was a good feeling to see that those 10 players on the pitch were ready to fight for everyone and everyone in the dressing room, the staff and the fans in the stadium.”
One of the players Vertonghen and the rest of the Tottenham defence will need to stop tonight is former Arsenal winger Serge Gnabry.
Gnabry, though, attempted to downplay his Arsenal links by saying: “I know the history but, either way, I want to win. I’ve played with Arsenal, but I’m here with Bayern Munich now. I will give my best.”