Steven Bergwijn may have just played his way out of a transfer to Ajax

It’s safe to say that yesterday’s heroics at the King Power Stadium may have just solidified Steven Bergwijn’s position at Tottenham Hotspur. A late substitute for Tottenham Hotspur in their match against Leicester last night, Bergwijn scored two incredible last gasp injury time goals to lead Spurs to the club’s most electrifying and improbable win since the Miracle in Amsterdam.

Once strongly tipped to be sold this month with Eredivisie club Ajax extremely interested in his signature, now it looks like his Tottenham future has been secured, with the club reportedly no longer interested in offloading him. The strongest evidence of that is that Ajax now appears to be looking elsewhere for their David Neres replacement, with Fabrizio Romano stating they are close to a loan deal for Juventus’ Dutch midfielder Mohamed Ihatteren.

Bergwijn’s tenure at Spurs has been dogged by unfortunate injuries that have kept him sidelined for what feels like more often than not since joining from PSV last January. He hit the ground running, scoring on his debut in a win over Manchester City, but has struggled since then. Already this season he had an ankle injury that saw him miss about a month in September, and is only now coming back into fitness from a calf injury sustained during Tottenham’s Boxing Day win over Crystal Palace.

But it’s hard to argue with his potential after last night’s heroics — he had a pretty amazing 0.9 xG rating from just two shots — and Antonio Conte seems to agree. Conte has suggested in the past that Stevie could serve as an effective backup option to Harry Kane, and after the match last night he was clear that Bergwijn is still very much in his plans.

“In the past when someone asks me about Steven Bergwijn I was very clear. I said that for me he is an important player because he has characteristics that in our squad we don’t have many creative players.

“He is very good in one vs one, good to beat the man. He can play striker, he can play number 10 and for us, for me, he is an important player and we have to try to improve, to become stronger, not to lose a player and become less strong.

“Steven is a player that if he’s in good physical condition and he has good fitness he can start the games or he can come in and change the game. For me I think he’s an important player and you know very well the player has to be happy and I think the player is happy to stay with us and play for Tottenham.”

Conte has been pretty consistently happy with Bergwijn, so it’s curious why there were such strong links with him leaving this month. There have been murmurs that he was considering returning to the Netherlands for personal reasons, and there’s a chance that Conte and Fabio Paratici had differing views on his potential at Spurs. That no longer seems to matter. There are still 11 days left in the transfer window and as we’ve seen anything can happen, but these are all strong indications that, contrary to everyone’s thoughts even a week ago, Bergwijn’s future now most likely remains in North London.