Remembering Tottenham Hotspur’s top five Barclaysmen

Social media can be a hellscape at times, but the recent trend of Barclaysman compilation videos on Twitter/X has proven there is still some good to come from the platform.

Just to be clear, a Barclaysman is a player who featured in the Premier League between the years 2001-2016 (give or take), when the banking group was the primary sponsor of the division.

The caveat, though, is that these players are not necessarily world-class, elite stars. No, they are cult heroes; fairly decent players who produced magic at times, and who embodied the spirit of the era with their performances on the pitch.

Whether it be banging screamers into the top corner, pulling out ludicrous skills, putting in full-blooded challenges, or simply having immaculate vibes, these are our top 5 Barclaysmen for Spurs.

Frederic Kanoute

Born in France but representing Mali at international level, Freddie Kanoute joined Spurs in August 2003 from West Ham and spent two years in North London. He scored 22 goals in 73 games for the Lilywhites; not a bad return, but his impact was far deeper than that.

Kanoute played with flair, grace, and a smile on his face. At a time when everybody raved about Thierry Henry, Spurs got the budget version, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. He also looked incredibly cool in those glorious Kappa kits, which is a bonus.

Pascal Chimbonda

Wigan are one of the ultimate Barclaysman teams, and they seemed to have a real habit of unearthing these unlikely heroes at right-back (see also Emerson Boyce). Spurs took Pascal Chimbonda off their hands in 2006, sold him to Sunderland two years later, and then were given him straight back six months after that.

He eventually left Tottenham for good in the summer of 2009, but he left behind incredible memories. Chimbonda racked up over 100 appearances for the Lilywhites, entertaining fans with his marauding runs down the wing, his enthusiastic challenges, and those iconic gloves.

Heurelho Gomes

Goalkeepers are a crazy bunch, aren’t they? In 2008, Spurs looked to replace Paul Robinson, a brilliant number one, with PSV Eindhoven’s Heurelho Gomes. That plan didn’t really work out, by and large, with the Brazilian making a number of errors during his time in North London, but Gomes did endear himself to the Tottenham faithful and earn Barclaysman status with his erratic behaviour.

Credit where credit’s due, Gomes was good, sometimes. And, no matter what, he was always committed. He loved to take the ball at his feet, he was chaotic at commanding his area, and watching him could give you a heart attack at times, but you can’t say it wasn’t fun.

Roman Pavlyuchenko

Tottenham have had their fair share of brilliant strikers. They’ve also had their fair share of absolute stinkers. Roman Pavlyuchenko, however, was definitely on the right side of that line. The Russian didn’t exactly set the world alight when he arrived in England in 2008, but throughout his four-year stay with Spurs, he delivered some genuinely top-class moments.

The lean, languid forward bagged 42 goals in 113 games for Spurs. A lot of them were tap-ins or the standard headers you’d expect from a 6ft2in target man. But, every now and then, Super Pav would absolutely thunder the ball into the back of the net to remind us all that he was actually a very decent striker.

Niko Kranjcar

Spurs had a really good run when it came to signing Croatians in the late 2000s. Between Luka Modric, Vedran Corluka, and Niko Kranjcar, Harry Redknapp may as well have taken the national team job for the Baltic nation. The latter of those players Redknapp really loved — so much so that he brought him to Spurs from Portsmouth when he took over as manager.

Maybe it’s because of how good Modric was that Kranjcar has never quite been remembered as a top Premier League player, but there’s no denying the playmaker had tonnes of skill, incredible vision, and the kind of panache that cements you the status as one of the ultimate Barclaysmen.

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