Tottenham have rarely played better football than they did under Mauricio Pochettino in the late 2010s. In two of those seasons they were serious contenders in the Sky Bet Premier League winner market, and four attacking players were the reason. Harry Kane, Son Heung-min, Dele Alli and Christian Eriksen never won a trophy together, and their careers have since gone in very different directions.
The Pochettino years
Pochettino was appointed on 27 May 2014. Eriksen had arrived from Ajax the previous summer for £11m, and Kane was coming through the academy. Dele joined from MK Dons in February 2015 for an initial £5m, and Son followed from Bayer Leverkusen that August for £22m.
Spurs finished third in 2015-16, then second in 2016-17 on 86 points, still their best Premier League total. They were third in 2017-18 and fourth in 2018-19. Kane won the Golden Boot in 2015-16 and 2016-17, and Dele was named PFA Young Player of the Year in both of those seasons.
The peak was the 2019 Champions League final, the club’s first, which they lost 2-0 to Liverpool in Madrid. The only other final of the era, the 2015 League Cup, ended in a 2-0 defeat to Chelsea. Pochettino was sacked in November 2019 with Spurs 14th.
Harry Kane
Kane left as Tottenham’s record scorer, with 280 goals in 435 appearances, and joined Bayern Munich in August 2023 for a Bundesliga record fee. He won the league title in 2024-25. The 2025-26 season brought a domestic double, 36 Bundesliga goals and the European Golden Shoe.
He also finished as the Bundesliga’s top scorer for a third straight season, the first player to win it in each of his first three Bundesliga seasons. After his historic season, he is one of the favourites to win the Ballon D’Or 2026.
Son Heung-min
Son stayed longest. He scored 173 goals in 454 games, shared the 2021-22 Golden Boot with 23 goals and won the Puskas award for his solo goal against Burnley in December 2019. He and Kane set a Premier League record of 47 goal combinations.
He was made captain in August 2023 and lifted the Europa League in Bilbao on 21 May 2025, after a 1-0 win over Manchester United. That made him the only one of the four to win a trophy at Tottenham. He joined Los Angeles FC in August 2025 for $26.5m, an MLS record.
Christian Eriksen
Eriksen made 305 appearances for Spurs and scored 69 goals before joining Inter in January 2020 for £16.9m. He won Serie A in his first full season. On 12 June 2021 he suffered a cardiac arrest playing for Denmark against Finland at Euro 2020, and was fitted with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator.
He returned with Brentford in 2022, spent three seasons at Manchester United and joined Wolfsburg in September 2025. On 7 June 2026 he collapsed again during a Denmark friendly against Ukraine in Odense. His device restored consciousness. Wolfsburg ended his contract by mutual consent on 23 September 2026, and he is recovering in Denmark.
Dele Alli
Dele scored 67 goals in 269 games for Spurs. His game time fell sharply after Pochettino left, and he moved to Everton in January 2022 on a free transfer with add-ons.
He signed for Como in January 2025 and made one appearance, a debut against AC Milan in March that ended in a red card. The club ended his contract that September. He is still without a club, and in October 2026 he was training with eighth-tier Windsor and Eton to keep fit.
What the era left behind
None of the four is still playing in England. Pochettino now coaches the United States and is under contract until 2030.
Tottenham’s Premier League odds are now built around a different squad. The 86 points of 2016-17 remain the club’s Premier League high.
