Gary Lineker tips Spurs to finish above Gunners after spending spree.
Former Tottenham star Gary Lineker believes his former club can finish above arch-rivals Arsenal this season.
Spurs have not finished ahead of the Gunners since the inception of the Premier League but the clubs have been finishing closer and close together, with the battle for fourth place going down to the final day of last season.
Arsenal clinched a Champions League place by one point last term and spent big on playmaker Mesut Ozil this summer, while Spurs splashed more than £100m on seven new additions but sold star man Gareth Bale to Real Madrid.
The North London rivals are currently joint top of the league after each winning four out of five games so far but former England captain Lineker thinks Spurs new signings have given them the edge.
“I think they’ll probably finish above Arsenal,” Lineker told Absolute Radio’s Rock ‘N’ Roll Football Show.
“Well, the interesting thing is that normally clubs… if they sell a huge player, they always say, oh, we’ll spend the money, we’ll put it back in the team but they invariably don’t, whereas at least you can say for Spurs they’ve had a plan and they’ve spent that money – and they’ve spent it actually before they got it really – so I think actually they’ve bought pretty well on the whole.”
Among the arrivals at White Hart Lane are midfielders Paulinho and Christian Eriksen, and Lineker believes the duo will prove pivotal to Spurs’ success.
“You know, not all of them are going to be successes but I think Eriksen is going to be a terrific player, Paulinho is a force to be reckoned with…he’s all over the place.”
Lineker played in Spain for Barcelona during his career so can empathise with Roberto Soldado, who joined Tottenham from Valencia for £28m this summer,
The Match of the Day presenter believes the Spaniard may take a while to adapt to English football.
“I think a lot will depend on how Soldado adapts; he’s sort of feeling his way at the moment as we saw with Giroud at Arsenal last season he struggled, this season he’s looked a different player altogether; sometimes it takes them a while but you know, they’ve got the nucleus of a decent looking team there. And you know, even Arsenal having a go in the transfer market these days – what’s going on?”
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