Gary Neville believes Tottenham Hotspur are the only team capable of challenging last season's Premier League top two in the upcoming season.
Spurs finished a distant fourth last term, 22 points behind champions Manchester City and 21 behind Liverpool. Pep Guardiola's City pipped the Reds to the title on the final day, coming from 2-0 down to get the win they needed against Aston Villa.
While Tottenham are a number of challengers to strengthen this summer, they can also benefit from a full pre-season under Antonio Conte after the Italian led them into the top four. Conte has made a number of additions to his squad, and pundit Neville is expecting big things.
"I’ve got Tottenham Hotspur finishing third in my head," said Neville, speaking on the Overlap, in partnership with Sky Bet. "Because of [Ivan] Perišić, Yves Bissouma and Richarlison added into [the mix of] what they’ve already got.”
“They have already got Harry Kane, Heung-Min Son who are world class. They have two world class players up top, and they’ve now added to it with Perišić and Richarlison.
"I think Tottenham are the only club who could challenge, they won’t finish above Liverpool, but they could if somehow Liverpool wobble or get an injury to Virgil Van Dijk, then Tottenham could [challenge]. They are the only club who could potentially."
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Perisic, Bissouma and Richarlison are just a handful of the new signings made by Conte this summer. Backup goalkeeper Fraser Forster has joined from Southampton, with Clement Lenglet bolstering the back line after his loan arrival from Barcelona, while the London side continued their preparations with the addition of Djed Spence in mid-July.
Spurs might not be finished just yet. Talks have reportedly begun over a move for Roma's Nicolo Zaniolo, while Mohammed Kudus of Ajax remains on their radar.
There has also been a new contract for Ben Davies, while others could follow in that sense. Conte opened up on the topic earlier in the summer, telling football.london about his hopes after a match against Roma in Haifa.
"Yeah first of all Ben Davies deserved to sign a new contract because last season he played in an outstanding way and he's a really good guy," Conte said. "He's always positive and to have a player like him in your starting XI or on the bench at this level I think is important.
"Then for sure the club will want to try to renew the contract of their best players. You know very well that Harry [Kane] is for us is an important player, but I see him very happy. I see him happy. His feelings are positive but at the same time we have to understand that if we want to reach something important we have to fight in every game and tonight they showed yeah we played football but the opponent won."
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