“Gimme, gimme, gimme, a ginger from Sweden,” came the chant, the one based on the Abba song, but adopted by the Tottenham Hotspur faithful for a player already proving himself to be one of the club’s most important signings in years.
Dejan Kulusevski had just come off the bench this time, making his long-awaited return in November from a niggling hamstring injury, and with his team 2-0 down against Liverpool. Barely 90 seconds had passed before Kulusevski made the pass nobody else in a Spurs shirt would make in 90 minutes. Harry Kane gratefully finished and Tottenham had the chance of a comeback.
Much is rightly made of Antonio Conte’s leading role in Tottenham’s transformation last season. After the Italian’s appointment as head coach, they surged from ninth to fourth, bypassing Arsenal and Manchester United en route, and clinching Champions League qualification by two points on the final day. But it is hard to imagine that Spurs could have done any of it without Kulusevski.
In the 11 months since joining from Juventus on the last day of the January transfer window, Kulusevski has the most assists (13) of any Tottenham player and he is behind only Kane and Son Heung-min for goals and chances created.
When Kulusevski plays, Spurs are nearly 10 per cent more likely to win and, with him in the team, they score almost twice as many goals a game. At the start of this season his nine assists since moving to north London was the second most of any player across the “big five” leagues in Europe, second only to Barcelona’s Ousmane Dembélé.
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Most of the players who missed the World Cup were, logically, not their team’s most important ones. But there were a handful of outliers, of Premier League superstars whose countries had failed to qualify and who now, with six weeks’ rest in the bank, could be the game-changers in the second half of the season. The likes of Erling Haaland for Manchester City, Martin Odegaard for Arsenal, Mohamed Salah for Liverpool and, for Tottenham, Kulusevski.
With Son struggling for form, Richarlison injured again and Kane needing support, if not time off, after his traumatic World Cup, Kulusevski’s role at Spurs has perhaps never felt more definitive. It is no exaggeration to say that the 22-year-old winger could be the difference between success and failure in the next six months.
When Tottenham’s director of football, Fabio Paratici, signed Kulusevski and Rodrigo Bentancur together from Juventus almost a year ago, many thought the moves smacked of desperation. A new executive buying two out-of-favour players, at the last minute, and from his former club, hardly looked like a carefully planned act.
But figures close to the negotiations insist Paratici, who had taken Kulusevski to Juventus from Atalanta, always believed in the youngster from Stockholm, even as his career in Turin stalled. “Fabio always believed Dejan was a special player, and he was right,” said a source close to Paratici in Italy. “He was convinced Juventus would soon see it as a robbery.”
Conte was also a big admirer of Kulusevski, whom he had tried to sign while in charge at Inter Milan. A strong carrier of the ball, with a will to win, good height, a hardy frame and, crucially, con motore (a big engine) Kulusevski was a perfect fit for Conte’s playing style.
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And yet Tottenham would not have been able to pay only £10 million to take a Juventus player on loan for 18 months, with the option to make the deal permanent for a further £35 million, if there weren’t significant doubts. Spurs have indicated that option will be taken up on July 1, with a total outlay of £45 million looking a snip. Arsenal are expected to pay almost double that for Shakhtar Donetsk’s Mykhailo Mudryk this month.
At Juventus, the manager, Max Allegri, thought Kulusevski was too soft and that he had started to believe his own hype. Allegri’s predecessor, Andrea Pirlo, was unsure of Kulusevski’s best position. At Parma and Atalanta, Kulusevski had thrived by establishing combinations in a collective, his dribbling and running standing out in teams that, like Conte’s Tottenham, favoured the counterattack. At Juventus, he struggled in a strategy that centred around building pressure slowly and passing to Cristiano Ronaldo.
“I came to Tottenham to get my life back, my hunger back and my love of the game back,” he said last week. “All of that had flown away.”
The Kulusevski the Spurs fans sing Abba for is unrecognisable from the one Juventus thought they were selling. Tottenham have found someone as valued for his aggression and intensity as his craft and flair. With Kane and Son entering their thirties, there is room even to think Kulusevski could be a bridge to the future, an elite player to carry this team forward when one or both of that duo are gone. For now, it is about his freshness and fitness, and the hope for another mid-season boost that can make the difference again.
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