Mauricio Pochettino has called on Tottenham to make summer signings to ensure that his star players are under pressure for Premier League starts this season.
Tottenham are credited as having one of the best starting XIs in the top flight - with former director of football Damien Comolli stating that improving it would be "almost impossible" - but Spurs have struggled when key players are unavailable.
Vincent Janssen has struggled to step in for Harry Kane when the striker has been out injured, while Pochettino has also sold Clinton N'Jie after an underwhelming first year at White Hart Lane.
Spurs were also comprehensively beaten 3-0 by potential title rivals Manchester City on their US pre-season tour recently, with Kyle Walker impressing against his former club.
While not suggesting that Spurs change their current approach of careful spending and putting faith in their young players, Pochettino wants Daniel Levy to start making moves in the market so the likes of Kane, Dele Alli and Christian Eriksen are not too comfortable.
Spurs have yet to spend any money this summer, and Pochettino is quoted by The Guardian as saying: "How have Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea and different clubs tried to improve their season?
"Bringing players and trying to put more pressure on their star players, their key players - and for us we need to do that too."
Speaking more about competition for places, Pochettino said: "Right, now [I hear] we need to win some trophies, no? That is good, the pressure.
"I think it’s important to understand now that we need to be clever how we manage the expectation and how we need to put pressure on our own players.
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"We understand that Dele Alli, Harry Kane, Christian Eriksen, [Eric] Dier, [Toby] Alderweireld are really good players. They want to win but need to feel the pressure a little bit to improve every season.
"If there’s no competition in behind it’s normal to drop your motivation, it’s normal to drop everything that you do. And then it’s difficult to win."