Toby Alderweireld wants to earn as much as Harry Kane, and he should

Toby Alderweireld is perhaps now in the minority as a Tottenham Hotspur player who has not yet received a contract extension in the past season and a half. But there are few Spurs players who deserve it more. Today, the London Evening Standard is reporting that Alderweireld is holding contract talks with Tottenham, but is holding out with hopes that he will join Harry Kane and Hugo Lloris at the top of Spurs’ wage scale.

Toby is currently on a deal that pays him £50,000/wk, which was highish for a Tottenham Hotspur player up until recently, but well below the £100k/wk-plus being earned by Kane and Lloris. Spurs are trying to lock him down to a new deal that will erase the £25m release clause in his contract when he turns 30, and also keep him at the club for the bulk of his prime playing years.

Honestly, Toby is a player worth way more than £100k/wk and this should be a no-brainer contract extension for Spurs. Alderweireld has proven himself to be not only Spurs’ best defender, but also one of (if not the) best central defender in the Premier League. It’s a bit shocking that he’s not already being targeted by bigger clubs that could pay him obscene amounts of money to jump ship.

Toby seems quite happy at Tottenham Hotspur, but while that gives the club a little bit of leverage, he’s one of the three or four best players at Tottenham along with Kane, Lloris, and Christian Eriksen. The Standard report feels right, and fair.

Negotiations are negotiations and I suspect this may take a little bit of time to to settle, but at the end of the process I expect to see Toby up there earning wages along with the other top Spurs players, even if it’s not close to what he’s actually worth.