Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Chelsea

I don't think Sissoko was a major target until the last few days of the window, he only really caught club's attentions during the Euros and at the time Spurs were only seemingly focusing on strengthening two positions - CF and DM - which we done early on with Janssen and Wanyama.

Other signings I think were then seen as bonuses because based on the previous campaign, the squad was in good shape and no one could have anticipated the injury crisis we were set to endure. Sissoko is potentially proving a very costly bonus though, depending on whether you want to believe we paid £30m or £6m-a-year for every year he's with us, if the latter then it's great because the way things are looking, he probably won't be here at the end of the coming summer window and we can cut our losses and potentially make that £6m back (and some) knowing Levy.

On the experience front it really is the one main thing I think this squad truly lacks, we've not had a natural leader since the likes of King, Parker and Dawson left, all guys were massively influential both on and off the pitch. The problem we face though is that our system is more suited to a young, fresh-legged player, Parker and Dawson would be massively exposed in this set up, so it's a case of finding an older experienced head who's just basically happy to play a maximum of 5-10 games a season with the hope of passing knowledge and experience onto the players to help achieve some form of success. Funnily enough, despite at the time it didn't go down well with some fans, it'd be ideal if we could bring in a Saha & Nelsen type deal in January.

 

We should've paid the asking price or jogged on, just like we very sensibly did when the Palace chairman told us to kindly **** off when we went for Zaha. Why waste months of a window pursuing targets?

As for your point about Sissoko, I mean no harm when I say this but I actually laughed. Better to have Sissoko instead of £30m in the bank?! There's no way you mean that PS.

 

Well this has erupted into a full-blown debate bloody hell! Haven't seen a thread this electric since the news broke that Arsenal87 was actually HIAG.

Great stuff lads - easily the best and most thought-provoking board on the forum

 

I've seen no evidence that Sissoko is worth anything near £30m but that doesn't mean it was necessarily a mistake, particularly if the rumours about the £6m a year are true. Even if it was a mistake, **** happens!

 

I didn't want Sissoko and don't think that he'll work out, but he's not being used where he can be effective.
Playing him in Dembele's role against CSKA might be a start.
Looks unlikely though, going by Pochettino's comments.

 

Big difference, Defoe is a known goalscorer, and he will always have defenders thinking about where he's going to move.

Obviously Defoe as a main striker isn't going to work because he doesn't play in the same way as Kane or Jansen, but when you are desperate for a goal and the opposition aren't interested in attacking and just defending, you don't need another big lump to win and hold up the ball, you need someone to make those clever runs and finish any decent

I can understand PowerSpurs thinking at the time, better to spend the money than keep it in the bank if you think it gives you a better chance of a season if this was a the basis of signing sissoko. It's been a terrible signing so far and for a guy who was shocking at Newcastle for a number of seasons and is basically a brute but one that doesn't even have the disciplinary brain like wanyama, he's a terrible signing which poch has said as such

 

PS, an opinion of yours that I've always respected is how you emphasise the importance of squad chemistry. But by defending the signing of a player as overrated and volatile as Sissoko you've undermined that. He is turning into the next Adebayor; overpaid bilge who will do nought but disrupt the squad. Just look at HBIC's post regarding Poch throwing him under a bus...did the manager not see this coming?! What exactly to he expect from Sissoko that 70,000 Toon fans hadn't told us already?!

We cannot afford to take risks like that, which is why doing so is farcical.

 

We have become too obsessed with sell on values. Maybe we should at times have an attitude like for e.g United fans. Don't care what we pay, give us success. Don't care if it's the next big thing or a 35 year old. Give us success on the pitch.

I know we have to care about what we spend but ultimately it should be to create a balanced squad and no squad is balanced without experience. It's so logical it baffles me that at Spurs they don't see it. To get the best out of these lads we are going to need players now...here...for the next game(impossible I know). No point dreaming about in 3 years when we in the new stadium etc etc. Most of them will have gotten into a rut or moved on or like Walcott still with potential. It's like an indoctrinated mindset we need to overcome.

Toooo much caution...give these lads some help. There is serious talent and I fear it going to waste.

 

One downside with someone like Poch is that he is liable to think that he can get the best out of players like Sissoko who have been wasting their talent. That is why I prefer a DoF so that there is someone to say 'no'.

 

There are some signings or non-signings that most of us generally agree and that is not in hindsight.
Most of us didn't want Sisokou and most of us were willing to re-buy Defoe at the right price.
An attitude like United fans-no thank you.
Since Fergie left they have been trying to buy their way and it doesn't work. It is not that simple. Their success was built around a manager who in his first years struggled.
When City first had the money, it wasn't that easy for them to buy the right players. They were splashing it around ,but the top players weren't interested until they had proven themselves.
Who would have been willing to spend £50mil on Stones or Sterling?

 

Their success was also built from building a team around a core of established, experienced players. The 'Class of 92' came of age with the likes of Bruce, Pallister, Irwin, Cantona and Robson to learn from. Same for Arsenal under Wenger: he kept that vastly experienced back line together and built from there; took him almost a decade to get the formula right again by building around the experience of Campbell, Vieira and Bergkamp. It's been over a decade since then and nothing. He has a squad full of players who seem locked in the 'he has potential' category like Walcott, Gibbs, Ramsey, Wilshere and Oxlade as Spurlock pointed out. None of them are much better now than they were 2-3 years ago, yet they still linger.

 

Especially when neither player was worth more than £25m imo.
Sterling has no end product, and you will only get a handful of decent performances from him every season.
Stones, I rate slightly more, but £50m? A joke.

 

Stones is terrible. I always thought this although he did have a purple spell at the beginning of last year. He might grow into a very good centre half but theres always a mistake in him. When Rio first hit the scene, concentration was an issue but rio was a beast of a player. Stones on the other hand, isn't outstandingly fast or strong and his positioning is suspect along with his decision making. The only thing is that technically he's pretty good and he's young. That is literally it

 

Well yeah, i rate him more than Sterling, who is basically a younger version of Theo Walcott.
But Stones was worth £20-25m MAX, based on pure potential alone (plus he is English and you always pay a premium for English players these days).
£50m was pathetic.

 

Neither of those was as bad as United spending £90m on Pogba though
The **** were they thinking!?
No one should ever cost that much unless he is guaranteed to get you 25-30 + goals per season (ie Messi, Ronaldo, Suarez, maybe Bale).

 

...And should also be good enough to slot right into the team and start doing the business, as Ronaldo and Bale did at Madrid, Neymar and Suarez at Barca.

The likes of City have invented a new category of VAT added to a players' value - their (largely imagined by newspapers and pundits) 'potential'. It's what pissed us all off about Lamela: you'd think that £30m and you'd have a player who would start justifying his price tag from day one. But apparently it's completely normal nowadays to spend a fortune on the faint hope that they'll come good 2-3 years down the line.

 

Well City and Chelsea haven't helped matters.
But the ones really to blame is Sky TV mate.
They are the ones flooding the PL with all this cash.
The PL negotiated another monster deal to sell PL matches abroad, another £850m that will be distributed amongst PL clubs now.

 

Utd's recruitment under SAF was based on a tried and tested plan.

Firstly, emphasis was placed on bringing young players through. Secondly, there was a strong scouting network in place to ensure that good, up and coming players in the UK and around the world were on the radar (think Irwin, Evra and Vidic). These players were often recruited relatively cheaply when they were young (22, 23 or so) and ready for first team selection, but with scope for improvement as they developed. Thirdly, there were marquee signings, but they were usually players who were on the up - 23 or 24 years old with 8-10 years ahead in the first team and a resale value if they were moved on.

It was rare for SAF to splash the cash without any thought for whether that player was really right for the team or disregarded his age or lack of resale value. RvP was an indulgence given the fee, his age and injury record - but it proved to be a masterstroke. On some occasions, his transfers did prove to be a waste of money - but it was down to either a misjudgement about the player or the player himself not performing as he should; it was never because the club frittered money away on whoever was available, irrespective of whether they were the right player or worth the money (which is sadly what seems to have happened since SAF left).

The three point plan referred to above works. It's not a quick fix; it's a sensible transfer policy to ensure continuity.

 

I was going more along the lines of most don't care that the club purchased 90 million Pogba or pay a 34 year old a kings ransom. I'm basing it on the views of a lot of the United fans on the PL board. We spend a lot of time doing the accounts

 

The thing with the Sissoko signing is that it comes across as that most ill thought-out of modern football transfers: The Big Signing.

Certain clubs have this pressure put upon them to sign at least one player that cost £20m during the summer as if it's a statement of intent, as if having a player that costs £20m+ gives the club a five point head start in the league table or makes Premier League referees competent for the first time in their careers. It's been an issue since Los Ladrones had their Galacticos period - even though history clearly proves that the Galacticos were a failure, one Champions League win and three La Liga titles in the seven years is a piss poor return on their colossal investment.

It's not just players, either, as there's plenty of managerial Big Signings that may sound good in practice but in reality are anything but - in Spurs' case we've made this mistake twice, first when Levy ignored Arnesen's suggestion to hire Martin Jol and instead went for Jacques Santini as manager in spite of Santini being responsible for turgid football and being a psycho hose beast, and secondly when Comolli was adamant that Juande Ramos would raise us to the pantheon of great football teams. Neither of those managers lasted a full season.

Similar can be said for players that were our Big Signings: Modric and Lamela came good while Son has performed in fits and bursts, yet on the other hand there's Paulinho, Soldado, Barren Dent and now Sissoko demonstrating that you can't literally buy goals. Same can be said for a bunch of other clubs, like Shevchenko and Torres at Chelsea, Benteke and Carroll at Liverpool, Mangala and Stones at City, etc etc