Johan Lange insists he never feared for his job as Tottenham sporting director as the club flirted with relegation last season.
Lange joined the Tottenham hierarchy in late 2023 and has overseen some turbulent years. His tenure has seen the club celebrate Europa League glory in Bilbao, and also twice finish 17th in the Premier League.
The 2025/26 campaign was particularly fraught. Spurs blew through three managers and left it until the final day of the campaign to secure their safety in the top flight.
In a bid to avoid repeating that feat, Spurs spent heavily this summer to overhaul Roberto De Zerbi’s squad. They invested well over £300m to sign eight first-team players including Sandro Tonali, Mateus Fernandes, Savio and Jan Paul van Hecke. Each player signed came from within the Premier League except Fernandes, who moved from relegated West Ham.
Spurs’ expensive approach to the market was a departure from the growing trend of buying high-potential young players from lesser leagues as investments, the strategy preferred by the likes of Brighton and Brentford.
But Lange was adamant Spurs did not overpay for any of their summer targets, and waved away the idea the club was under more pressure to impress as a result of their outlay.
“Well, the prices. To a certain extent, you get used to them,” he explained in an interview with Danish magazine Borsen Pleasure.
Johan Lange has overseen three dramatic years at Tottenham
Getty
“After all, these are the same amounts that competitors pay. All clubs’ scouting networks are so good these days that finding a player that others have overlooked, in a league that no one has heard of, for a tenth of the price – that race is over.
“(The money spent) certainly raises expectations. But it’s not because I think about it every day. I think all clubs think it’s hard to find good players.
“For people who aren’t into football, it might sound completely insane that there aren’t a lot of players to choose from when you have £80m. But how many players have the quality to justify such an investment?
“For every player you buy, you might have three or five clubs you talk to. If we need a right winger, we might be talking about five different players, five clubs, five agents. That’s a lot of balls to keep in the air at the same time.”
Lange continued, revealing he never considered the prospect of losing his job as Spurs flirted with the drop last season.
“I actually didn’t. Our CEO, the owners and the board could see that Tottenham had ended up here because of something that had happened over many years.
“And they agreed with the strategy and could see that we were on the right track in several areas. So no, I never felt insecure in my job.”