We're officially being linked with Layvin Kurzawa now, so here's what I said about him a month ago when it was just blogs spitballing that we maybe could be considering the possibility of having an interest in him https://not606.com/threads/transfer-thread-fact-and-fiction.343033/page-270#post-11580654 :::EDIT::: Having ballsed up a move for him last summer, we're once again being linked with a move for Ricardo Pereira. What stands out for me is the report implied this means Trippier's days may be numbered, but surely it bodes far worse for Aurier considering their games are far more similar?
Miguel Delaney has reported/guessed (delete as appropriate) that Poch will be given an £120m transfer budget this summer - although they show their hand by failing to address whether or not this will increase with sales. Delaney also shows their hand by going to the old hack standby, linking us with Jay Rodriguez...
So, here we are. Pretty much the end of the season, and there’s been some interesting comments from Poch in the post match interview after the cup semi final regarding the future of the club, and how we go forward. Reading into his comments, one could feel that as a club we need to become mentally stronger still, regardless of who the manager is. A belief that’s installed with in the club, period. On the other hand, it could be seen that Poch is doing all he can, and it’s a message to Levy to financially back him to get over the finish line so he’s not working with his hands tied behind his back. There’s no doubt that our ability to come back from losing positions has massively changed, and we have the belief to do so. In the past we’d have seen us crumble and concede 3,4 or 5 goals. However, in certain big games, we fail to turn up, regardless of whether we’ve gone behind or not. It could be the pressure of the occasion, and/or the niggling thought at the back of the players minds that we are needing that trophy we are so desperate for. Could be something else, but time and time again, we just fall short. However, presuming we are to achieve the target of qualifying for the CL next season, what do we need to do in order to attempt to complete the puzzle and give us the best chance of some silverware next season? Winning trophies isn’t easy. There’s only 3 domestic ones up for grabs, and 1 European one, with an even tougher group of teams contesting for it. Over the last few years there’s no doubt that Poch’s philosophy and coaching has improved us. We’ve also made some very good acquisitions that have improved the squad (in general). On the other hand, Poch still has his faults and is learning, and our business could have been better, with some wasteful signings thrown into that mix. Personally I watch us and feel often that we don’t seem to have much of a plan B throughout a match, we aren’t “nasty” enough, and instead we just seem to “play the Tottenham way” regardless and hope that footballing quality will always win the game. Most of the time it works for us, but what about the times is doesn’t? As for our transfer business, we’ve all mentioned that too much is left too late and wasted money. We go into a new stadium next season which is very exciting, and a new chapter for the club we can all look forward to. Our recent finishes in the league mean that we have to look at ourselves as a top side in this league now, and have our own plan that works for us in competing against other top teams. Yes, city will spend millions blah blah blah, but I feel this season being another where we’ve had a good cup run and a respectable CL campaign, we really need to sit down and work out what is the most cost effective strategy to keep up with these teams and how we get over that final hurdle. Every other piece of the puzzle is just about there. Yes, they can blow us out the water with wages and transfer fees, but we’ve proven that despite our financial constraints in the past, we’re still in the mix. IMO, we need to look at the squad and be totally honest about who is in need of moving on, and who we need to make a bold move on, to ensure they come and play for Spurs. We also need to stop ****ing about on the last couple of days leading up to deadline day. Interestingly enough, it’s before the PL starts this season, which could be a massive blessing in disguise for us, as we’ll no longer be 3 matches behind the other teams who have all made their signings. But even more importantly, we need to let Poch have who we wants (within reason), and who he feels are the players in world football that he can implement into this team to make HIS philosophy of football work. Despite not winning anything yet, he’s proven that he can continuously improve us, and I feel he’s earned that opportunity to get who he wants, as well as the common courtesy from Levy in getting that player early enough so he can work with them in plenty of time before the new season starts. There must be reasonable funds available, as we spent £42m on a new CB. I’m not sure who we bring in, but IMO the players that need to be improved upon in our current squad are: Reserve GK - vorm’s not got long left, and we never see Gazza. Time to make a decision there. Rose - dreadful this season, get the money whilst we can Llorente - didn’t work out. Need a shrewd purchase there to be genuine back up for Kane and will keep Kane on his toes. Sissoko - we can talk about how much he’s improved this season all we like, but he’s still not good enough. GKN - total waste of time and money. Then we come onto players that we need to have a long hard think about. Toby - if we aren’t gonna give him a new contract, we need to make a seriously good find out there to replace him. Dembele - injuries and age to consider now. Aurier - terrible first season, do we twist or stick? When it comes to these new signings, we can’t just be signing “potential”. One or two up and coming youngsters like the signing of Sanchez, is fine. But we need a balance amongst our signings that gives us some general experience, leadership qualities, existing premier league experience. This summer could be our most important one yet. I feel if we don’t get it right this summer, once the novelty of the new stadium has worn off, with the wages that aren’t competitive, and lack of silverware, this project that our manager has built could come to an abrupt end. It could be bye bye Poch, and many of our players will follow suits
A few days back (I think it was in the Brighton match thread, but don't quote me on that) somebody brought up how it might be time to consider transitioning from the current core of players to the next one, to which I brought up how the German team for the 2006 World Cup was supposed to be the core to take the team forward yet the majority of that team had been phased out of the team by the 2010 tournament, let alone when they actually won the World Cup in 2014 with only Klose, Lahm and Podolski in the squad. Then it struck me: we're actually in that second phase, but we didn't actually notice the first phase because it was badly bungled for a couple of seasons. Looking back the first phase of Levy's grand vision came when LAdPCeV-B was coach, where the plan was to use some existing players from Harry Redknapp's time (notably Bale, Walker and Sandro), bring in some key players who would be there long-term (Verts, Dembele, probably Sigurdsson, and I'm sure somebody thought Holtby would be another Gotze) and there was obviously a plan to bring through youngsters, with Caulker getting a run of games in AVB's first season, Rose being loaned to Sunderland to prepare him for his starting role at left back, and Townsend getting a loan to QPR, and I think we all remember the high hopes we had for Tom Carroll at the time. The reason I bring up the youth is because I distinctly remember the press release after AVB's hiring specifically mentioning the youth team, and IIRC one of the kit launches featured either Luongo or Falque even though they had yet to feature in the first team at that point. Of course then we were hit by the combination of Bale's departure and The Baldini Splurge bloating the squad while pissing away a ton of cash on players that were ill-suited to what they were supposed to do, and the project got set back at least a season. Yet what's noticeable is that when Sherwood was dropped into the dugout he very quickly began to use the youth team that AVB seemed to forget about, with Kane and Bentaleb quickly being drafted into the team. That's the point where you realise that the next point in the process, Poch's appointment, was four years ago now and for everything we've done on the pitch and the players who have come in, it's clear that the foundation of the team needs to be rebuilt. Dembele - as great as he's been for us in the past couple of seasons, this season he's shown he can't play as regularly as we'd hope as the injuries and the mileage are catching up to him, and Sissoko simply isn't the player to replace him Rose - has been unfit and overweight all season long, which are two very good reasons to keep throwing that interview he gave last August back at him Vertonghen - don't get me wrong he's arguably been our best player this season, but here's the problem: his 31st birthday is in a couple of days so we need to consider his successor sooner rather than later Alderweireld - with him seemingly reduced to repeating the sentence "Liverpool pay Van Dijk that amount" it's obvious his tenure isn't going to be much longer and, for as good as Sanchez has been this season, the likelihood is we'll need to consider signing two centre backs this summer to play alongside Sanchez in the near future Aurier - the fact we've recently been linked with another move for Ricardo Pereira only goes to underscore that, for all the initial promise he showed, Aurier appears to have regressed throughout the season to the point that most fans are actively in favour of tripper starting most games, and this is a major thing to look at in the summer New Striker - oh boy, this one, but there's a reason it keeps coming up: for the past couple of seasons our options up front are Harry Kane and nobody else or Harry Kane and an understudy that's failed to deliver, and we seriously need to find someone both capable of carrying the load and reliable enough when brought in On the face of it that's anywhere between two and four players who will go into the first team, plus one bench option and a player who needs to be ready a season or two from now. As summer shopping lists go, that's one hell of a test - and also one hell of an incentive to drag the team up by the short and curlies and make damn sure we secure Champions League qualification to give us the best possible chance of securing those targets as we need to be quick, ruthlessly efficient and show an almost fanatical devotion to The Pope in order to get things sorted out with the World Cup and the transfer window shutting early to contend with.
This is the first summer window in a while where I think we will see some wholesale changes - and I think it's needed. I think we've gone a bit stale. The squad is good, arguably great but it's just short of being the required quality to see us get over the line. We need to freshen it up with some genuine quality. With a new stadium, hopefully CL football (we better secure that now after yesterday's shambles) and a supposed war-chest to spend, we should be a very attractive proposition for big players. I think there's a strong possibility we could see Toby, Rose, Dembele, Vorm, Sissoko, Aurier, Llorente, Janssen and Nkoudou all leave. I even have a slight suspicion Lamela may also go, there isn't loads left on his contract which we're due to activate an extension on and there's been interest from clubs in Serie A, I think he'd love a return back there if it guatanteed more regular starts. In terms of ins, I haven't got too many names in mind at the moment but would love to see the club really go for it, use the reported war-chest + money from sales for players that the likes of City/ Utd/ Arsenal/ Chelsea/ Pool would all go for.
We need to match the wages or we will be signing middle of the road players with potential...even though we rarely see that potential.
Very true, the new stadium looks impressive (really enjoy that thread) but people don't choose their employer by how nice their company building is. To attract top players you need to first pay top wages (or at last average) and then show them intent of future glory, playing nice football in good surroundings is not what the top players want to tell their grandkids about.
You sir, are a plank. Why the **** do your team keep playing Hart, What happened to the guy that was better than de Gea (Adrian?) or the Irish lad Randolf, both miles better than Hart?
Whilst I don’t disagree with any of those names you mention, the thought of going through another “magnificent 7” transfer window is terrifying. Even if we did want to make a giant leap and bring in new signings to replace those names, I can’t see levy getting that much business done, especially with the World Cup. He’d prioritise players who have contracts running down and ones that have kicked up a bit of a stink/Poch now no longer wants. I.e Rose & Toby. And the problem with this is that they are 2 of the better players that we have to find quality replacements for, still leaving us with many of those names that do bugger all. (GKN, Janssen, Llorente, Sissoko, who also all massively eat into the wage bill). This will be the first summer transfer window in a long time where we’ll see if there’s a well constructed plan in place. I would hope that there would be, not because Levy wants to do the business early, but perhaps because his hand will be forced into doing so. I just can’t see how we’re gonna get away with leaving it late this time, as Poch will need the players for preseason, there’s a World Cup, and the transfer window closes before the season starts. I think this is what Poch is alluding to, to be honest.
Tell that to the New York employees of Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines and the Croatian National Tourist Board...
I wouldn't be mad at a 'magnificent 7' window with Poch personally (or at least 5), as long as it's the deadwood, some on which you mentioned, that goes. It's time for a real statement of intent from Levy. The question is, in Levy's masterplan when does this phase, of getting into the top four being good enough, end and the next phase, of demanding that we compete to win in all competitions, begin? The semi-final highlighted, for me, the reason why Bale would be a good very signing. When teams like United defend deep and seek to close out the game, we need someone who presents a real goal threat from distance. Other than that, it's the same old story, not enough solid cover for key positions. No trusted alternative to Dembele or Eriksen. Bring in Seri (or Seri and Modric in Dembele goes), keep Toby and add serious competitor/cover to Jan. Relying on Kane even when he isn't 100% makes no sense. May as well be putting Janssen on. Bring in Sessegnon from Fulham and Dembele from Celtic. Lose the deadwood. Win stuff.
Adrian is, Randolph was more of a Hart. As for De Gea if he'd been in goal for West Ham last season he would've conceeded just as many, as he did against MK dons.
Some of the summer moves are, at least on paper, pretty straightforward Sessegnon to replace Rose Seri to shadow/replace Dembele At least one of Diop/De Ligt/Lascelles/Evans/Mawson/Pavard/Tah/Mee/Mukiele (or Papadopoulos, come on!!!) to fill the Alderweireld-shaped gap in defence Some other unfortunate victim to replace Llorente and/or Janssen Problem is that there's a whole bunch of potential spanners in the works... We probably missed the boat on Sessegnon last summer While it's not out of the question to sign Seri, given his release clause isn't sky high, at least half a dozen clubs are having the same idea Most of the centre backs we're linked with won't come cheap, with Tah, Lascelles and Pavard signing new contracts in the past six months, Ajax are clearly prepared to play hardball in negotiations for De Ligt, and Toulouse are pretty likely to try and do with Diop what Marseilles did with Batshuayi a couple of summers back On the plus side we already upgraded on GKN, so there's not going to be any problems with offloading him in the summer.
Will be nothing like the magnificent 7, mate. They were all signed with the intention to go straight into the XI as key players which in hindsight was just a horror show waiting to happen, especially with AVB as manager. This summer, like with most others in recent years, we only primarily need to improve the squad quality (with the exception of a first choice CM), although this time around we need a good few squad options, not just one or two. A marquee signing would also be great, as to who I have no idea, some in previous months have said a Modric/ Bale return and that would certainly get people talking but someone that could just raise the roof would be fantastic. A rough idea of what I'd like would be: Seri, De Ligt, Grimaldo, Pereira (if KWP isn't deemed ready), Sessegnon, Maddison, Watkins, *marquee signing*. Do I think we'll get all of those? Course not, especially as we haven't been linked with some but that'd be an ideal looking window for me if we could do something similar. Bear in mind in recent years I've often only felt we've needed one or two guys, this is a big deal for me to be suggesting such a change-up but I feel the squad needs to be refreshed, too many have not contributed enough in their chances and if we're to really kick on to that final next level that sees us winning stuff, we need to ship out deadwood and revitalise the squad with fresh and hungry faces. Of all those I mentioned, only Seri and *marquee signing* would make the XI from the outset. De Ligt will compete with Jan, Dave and CCV/ Foyth, with the aim of becoming Jan's long term successor and rekindling his CB partnership with Dave. Grimaldo with Ben. Pereira with Tripps. Sessegnon with Son. Maddison with Eriksen. Watkins with Kane. It's a massive longshot to want such an extensive list but this summer is unique for us, we'll likely not have another window where we can say "hey, come join us in our brand spanking new stadium" for about another 100 years.
Wages shouldn't be a massive issue in the coming seasons. Reports already said that about 6 or 7 of the current first team will be offered new deals while if we're to believe the reports of the big transfer kitty this summer then there shouldn't be too many out of our reach. Also worth noting that our bonus structure is regarded as the best in the Prem and so likely sees players earning far more than what's disclosed and I think that's a better way to go about things. Wanna earn more? Do the business and you will.
Random Headline Watch Marca are reporting that Llorente is considering a return to Athletic Bilbao this summer, which would be a reasonably good move for him while also giving Vincent Janssen hope that he might be given a second chance with us next season. O Jogo are the latest to report that we're having another look at Porto right back Ricardo Pereira, claiming that we had scouts watching him in Porto's match with Benfica at the weekend - although it's worth pointing out A Bola are reporting that we were actually looking at Benfica winger Andrija Zivkovic. Danish sources BT (not that one) and Ekstra Bladet are once again linking us with Nordsjaelland midfielder Mathias Jensen and are keenly talking about how he's available for £6m. I have to say that's it's refreshing to see a transfer story involving Spurs coming from the Danish press that doesn't involve the words "Eriksen" and "Barcelona" like every single other Spurs transfer story in the Danish press. Over in France, Mercato365 report that we had scouts watching Dijon's winger Kwon Chang-Hoon, which has led to the domino effect of assuming we're looking to sign him after giving up on Malcom - somehow forgetting we signed Lucas back in January, so realistically we're fine with wingers right now (unless we want to recreate the Gerry Francis era of addressing Anderton's injury problems by stockpiling every bang average winger in the Premier League in one season) Lastly, FootballDotLondon have reported a list of strikers they think might be replacing Llorente next season as if that's an actual headline, with a combination of strikers on the club's books (Janssen, Sterling), players we have that aren't necessarily strikers (Son, Moura), players we've been linked with throughout the season (Arp, Martial) and a borderline meme at this point (Jay Rodriguez)
