Ivan Rakitic to Tottenham: Why Barcelona midfielder would be a risk for Jose Mourinho

Tottenham are reportedly looking for midfield reinforcements this summer, with Barcelona's Ivan Rakitic the latest name linked.

Amid doubts over the future of Tanguy Ndombele, and Barcelona's reported interest, Jose Mourinho may soon find himself a little light in the middle.

Eric Dier, Harry Winks and Moussa Sissoko have all struggled for form and fitness of late, while loanee Gedson Fernandes continues to find his feet in England.

Rakitic would bring experience to a squad in need of such.

So, how would the Croatian get on at Tottenham? We loaded up Football Manager 2020 to find out.

Football Manager 2020

As expected, Ivan Rakitic slots straight into Jose Mourinho's starting XI, sitting alongside Giovani Lo Celso. He racks up 44 appearances across all competitions, the fourth-highest in the squad.

However, Rakitic flatters to deceive. An average rating of 6.93 is the 10th-best in the squad for players who have made at least 10 starts.

Not great for their highest-paid player on £230,000 a week.

Moussa Sissoko is pushed out of contention and is forced to mainly settle for substitute appearances, despite scoring six goals and supplying five assists in 13 Premier League starts. Harry Winks gets a worse crack of the whip, with just five starts.

Rakitic's experience does help in the Champions League, being instrumental to big wins over Benfica in the group stage but cannot prevent a 2-1 aggregate loss to Lyon in the last-16 stage.

Spurs end the season empty-handed, losing to Manchester City in the FA Cup quarter-finals and Scunthorpe in the League Cup third round.

Mourinho does, though, guide Spurs to fourth in the Premier League despite losing 10 games, finshing five points ahead of Manchester United and six ahead of Chelsea. City win the title.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in