Transfer thread for 2016-17 season

IMO, its pie in the sky nonsense.

Like Spurf, I still wait to be really impressed by Barkley. He looks to me like his attitude is all wrong and I can't see that being the type of player who would interest M.P. He shows glimpses of the undoubted talent he has, but all too rarely.

The original story, iirc, was a swap deal of some sort with Sissoko going to Everton. Probably join the dots journalism as they tried to buy him last summer.

 

£35m for Barkley would be a massive gamble and would eclipse the ludicrousness of us paying £30m for Sissoko. He's never shown consistency at any stage of his career and hasn't shown flashes real quality for some time either IMO. I'd take a gamble for £10 - 15m but if we're in the market for a player in that price bracket then I'd rather we go back to Sig as we know he'll improve the squad (sorry).

General consensus is that what we really need though is a player who can improve the 1st XI and we all know that unless we strike it lucky with another Alli or a VdV then we're looking at an outlay of £35m+ for someone of that calibre - Barkley ain't that player. I'm not even sure I'd swap Sissoko for him as the Frenchman is starting to show a little bit of quality and bringing in Barkley in Jan at his expense would be going back to square 1 mid-season.

 

Barkley is a 'no thanks' for me. We'll be dealing with every inflation under the sun:

- Once upon a time I put on an England shirt VAT
- January window VAT
- The media have already pronounced me 'the next Gazza' VAT
- Rival club VAT

The fee would be at least £30-35m, which as others say is a massive gamble to take. I've been equally as impressed by Zaha as I have been by Barkley (i.e. not particularly), and he would cost half the fee and half the wages. If we've seriously found another wad of cash that size down the back of Levy's sofa (which I doubt), our primary target surely has to be Isco?

I've been mildly pessimistic throughout the season so far, but with Sissoko starting to really turn up and Lamela on his way back from injury, as well as GKN busy running the club's social media accounts, an improvement on the 6 players (six!) fighting for a spot in those '3' will have to be immediate and noticeable. We haven't got the time, resources or indeed even the need to sign another 'promising young talent' and wait patiently for it to flourish. We have a relatively healthy league position, won't have CL demands the other side of the new year, and can really build a head of steam in reeling in the top 4 and, dare I say it, Chelsea, IF we make a sensible decision for ONCE.

Put it this way: sign someone like Barkley or Zaha and I can still see us finishing 5th. So why bother signing them? Sign someone like Isco and you are potentially talking 3rd or 4th. There is no point shelling out in January unless there are tangible gains. Hence the busiest teams in January are invariably those with an injury crisis or in a relegation scrap - both are desperate for an instant impact.

 

I'd love to have Isco.class act!

We can dream, I suppose!....

 

Fair enough, **** Barkley.

 

I tend to agree with this. In addition, with Lamela coming back soon and GKN who must be close to being "ready" to play after his 5 month training period at the club, that'll be like 2 new singings anyway. There's just absolutely no point in another squad player or youngster, as you say.

Over the last few days poch spoke in an interview about how we may sign someone, but it will be late if we do and that person would have to be special. - He doesn't say much, but those are encouraging words. At least he's thinking of an upgrade to the squad and not just another number. It also indicates that leaving it so late means that it's someone special, or no one at all. Which to me, is the right decision in this window.

If we don't end up with anyone, we should then be spending the period before the summer transfer window trying to identify who that Coutinho/Hazard/Sanchez type of player is that we can sign in the next window. Could cost, £5mill, could cost £40mill, but we should be looking for a player with that type of skill set that our rivals have and we sadly don't.

 

If - and it a big 'if' as the rumours of his imminent departure from Madrid are as tenuous as all other rumours - we could secure Isco for €40-50m then that is the one transfer worth considering.
£35m / £80k a week for an unproven and underperforming MF whose current attitude would only potentially disturb the squad mentality is a no-no for me.

 

Surely simply not buying him is enough

 

Whatever floats his boat!

 

Turkish media outlet Sporx are claiming we've had a £17m bid rejected for Gala winger, Bruma.

Another Turkish outlet - Hurriyet - is claiming Bruma is refusing to sign a new deal and trying to push through a move.

Not sure he's a player we need, we already have GKN who has the pace and skill factor and yet he can't get a look-in at the moment, I feel the same would apply to Bruma.

 

Los Ladrones are willing to let us have Gareth Bale for nothing and pay his wages for the remainder of his contract

...what, we're not allowed to make up stories about us signing their players?

 

GKN's had his chance. Just like NJie.

Replacement's well overdue by now.

 

Come on, Rob, it's clearly a yearly switch-up, not six-monthly!

GKN has until the summer to sort out his loan move and then Bruma can come in to replace him for his much needed five, fifteen minute cameos for the 17/18 season

 

Does Bruma have good social media skills though? Very important!

 

Bruma will have to legally add an apostrophe to his surname before we can sign him.

 

There's two very good reasons we shouldn't touch Bruma with a barge pole:
i.) He let his contract run down at Sporting and kicked up an almighty fuss when the club triggered an automatic renewal
ii.) Galatasaray are learning that he realised that if you're going to kick up an almighty fuss to get out of another contract, you do so when there's eighteen months on it rather than a few weeks

Trying to flounce his way to the big time not once but twice in the space of three years doesn't make him sound like a player who'd want to stick around if Sky Sports or Marca turned his head - and that's a damn good reason to leave him on the banks of the Bosphorus.

And let's be brutally honest here: when he was in Sporting's ranks there were whispers of a new Ribery or Oily Rat in the making (although how many times have we heard those phrases in the past decade?), yet if he had such world class potential how comes he wound up at Galatasaray instead of somewhere much higher up the food chain? It's also worth noting that he's 22 yet still hasn't been called up to the Portugal squad yet Gelson Martins and Andre Silva have been, and the fact is they're both younger than Bruma and play in his position.

 

Will the money be coming out of the cash for selling Kane to United or Dele to Madrid or Rose to Citeh? Alternatively, it could come out of the Wimmer to Germany pot...or......

Despite the new contracts and the obvious fact that these players aren't for sale, we seem to attracting rumours at a Southampton-like rate. Strangely, at some point within the articles there is a bit which says "of course, Spurs aren't going to sell the player" but why would one let that get in the way of the usual nonsense?

 

...or, more likely, the ad revenue that such obvious clickbait headlines generate.

I give it a week before Sky Sports' top headline is EXPERIMENT Glowing 1000 degree KNIFE VS FIFA '17

 

Can't say I've ever seen him play but reading this I don't want too. We seem to have a real grounded bunch of lads who all seem level headed without any big egos, someone like Bruma could upset the apple-cart.

Considering he's played in two of Europe's "lesser" leagues, his stats are hardly impressive to warrant a move elsewhere. Think someone needs to get their head down and actually perform like a star player before acting like one.

 

One of the spurs fan accounts has tweeted saying The daily mirror are claiming that we're monitoring Bayer Leverkusen young winger Julian Brandt.

He was decent when we played and caused us a few problems, even though he came off the bench and didn't actually get many minutes. Looks like a tidy player. Could be an interesting addition if the rumours are true.