Christian Eriksen has been speaking to Sky on why players want to come to Spurs. Why does Ross Barkley turn down Chelsea? Maybe, he looks at the fact that he was obviously an Emenalo choice [along with Drinkwater, Salah, De Bruyne, etc, etc.] and the likelihood of Conte being there for any length of time and the odds of him getting a chance at a settled run in a side and thinks "Nah, I'll go to Spurs where I know that the manager wants me and will take the time to make me a better player." “He [Mauricio Pochettino] has given stability not only to me but to the whole club. That’s the main thing for a player. You feel comfortable, you feel aware of everything around you and you don’t think about anything other than football when you’re on the pitch. All the players have long-term contracts. They feel safe being here. It’s why you commit your future to a place like this. “He gives his players a lot of confidence and he trusts to let them play. I have played a lot of games under the manager now. He knows what I’m good for and what I’m not good for but he trusts me completely. You feel that trust and it makes you want to do everything for him.” Add in Loftus-Cheek's dad saying that Chelsea have held him back and he would have been better off with MP and things continue to move towards us being able to attract young hungry players, no matter that our wage structure is not set up to compete with clubs below us in the table. We have something much more valuable to offer - belief and trust.
and cheese (from august 2018) . On a related note, do we have any ITK on the links to that Citeh kid Sandro who went to Dortmund ?? The specifics I am interested in are : 1. Hack talk only (never any interest from Spurs) 2. Wage poisoned (Citeh paid too much, thought he should get similar etc) 3. Ego (making demands as to what his career roadmap should be - twas the reason he allegedly was quitting Citeh) 4. Citeh were never going to sell to us or put a silly money transfer fee (which would have required a <Standard> Liege etc)
I've heard that he wants a release clause of some sort in any new deal and that's just a no-no as far as we're concerned. We agreed to one that could only be activated 4 years into his current contract. That's fair enough but may punish us in 2019. Agreeing to one that could be activated in January 2018 or whenever he gets itchy feet would be the end of everything we're building. If Toby doesn't want to commit to us without the possibility to leave us in the lurch whenever he sees fit...........he can go in 2019 for £20m or whatever's written into his current contract as far as I'm concerned. As good as he is, he doesn't warrant us exposing ourselves to more player power, just when we need the opposite.
He had a brilliant U17 WC but got recalled to Dortmund so he could not play in the final. Hacks claim that it was at Citeh's request. Possibly down to Pep because England were playing Spain. He must be really pissed off. Class act, we would do well to get him on board.
Today's randoms... A few papers are linking us with Richarlison, although with him signing for Watford in the summer I can't see us registering a serious interest in him given Watford paid £11m for him a few months back and he's contracted until 2022, so no doubt they'd want a significant return on their investment if he were to move next summer, let alone in January (also, I can't help but think this is paper talk tied in to their insistence that Marco Silva will be headed to Everton) Further away from home, we're also being linked with Bilbao B striker Gorka Guruzeta, which (naturally...) devolved into "Llorente could be key to Spurs signing..." headlines, and it is worth noting that Guruzeta's style of play is pretty similar to Janssen's - and it is worth mentioning he's out of contract in the summer. On the other hand, though, there is the whiff of the agent about this one considering he's out of contract in the summer, and what better way to get a bumper new contract than suggest a move abroad?
Oguzhan Ozyakup, then? Former Arsenal youth player who has done well at Besiktas and is out of contract in the summer. We've been linked with him, as have the Goons.
City basically refused to release him to another Premier League team. There were also a load of restrictions because he was an academy player-so he couldn't play for our first team for at least a year.
With Dortmund a bit shaky at the moment, I wonder whether Spurs will go for him (if they were actually interested) .
It's very unlikely that he'll stay. Very few British players do make a go of it. As Ian Rush rightly said........ "Living in Italy was like being in a foreign country."
Complete Bollocks Watch Transfer Tavern are reporting that we'll sign Fiorentina defender German Pezzella in January - ignoring the fact that Pezzella is on a season-long loan from Betis, and no doubt hoping that nobody else would figure that out.