Doherty wasn’t much cheaper so I can’t see why the financial side would have played any part, plus Castagne is 24 so if you thinking about resell value etc, he would work out the better deal. The Jorge Mendes factor is a different matter though. But I still think it was to do with Home Grown status
The Mirror (lol) saying we might make a move for Will Hughes for £13m. Liked him at Derby, looked a top prospect. Stalled at Watford though.
correct, if it's a saving of a few million, castagne is definitely the levy buy compared to doherty who is 28. On the otherhand, this might be a good thing because this is more of a mourinho signing, a safe solid performer who knows the pl already and so levy is actually going going with his manager choices.
13m is cheap for a squad player (although maybe not in this market!). I'm not sure he will add that much depth to you boys. He's tidy, occasionally has moments of magic and is hard working but i don't really see what he would offer over your existing players. I suppose at 25 he's still young and can play in the CM role but you already have winks, sissoko and lo celso for that (provided allis taking the am but arguably could be cm too). I'd probably have paid the extra 7m for doucoure.
I don't particularly think we should sign him tbh, nor do I think Doucoure is what we need any more either, used to be well on the 'Doucoure to Spurs' train but we're in need of some genuine creativity. Winks and Sissoko could both be sold tomorrow for all I care whilst I've more or less lost patience with Dele too. Lo Celso is the only player that offers creativity right now and similar to how when we had Eriksen, if he/ Lo Celso are injured or having a bad game, the whole team struggles, plus right now Lo Celso isn't as good as Eriksen either, so we need someone to ease that burden. Would be great if Ndombele could but I'm losing more and more faith each week. Would be great if we could bring in a creative player but I'm struggling to see who that could be.
Van De Beek or Havertz would have been ideal for Spurs, again (like Bruno Fernandes) I think they are the sort of signings which help get CL football and again they’ve gone to direct rivals
We’re never affording Havertz in this window and realistically if we tried competing with Utd for Donny we’d get blown out the water on the wages side of things.
I think it won't be long before "Why didn't we sign _________ instead of Ndombele?" will be a well-worn trope among Spurs fans
I know that, I didn’t mean the club should or could have got them, more commenting on what the club is up against. The stadium (Post Covid) will close the gap a bit but somehow (don’t know what) the club needs to close it even more to truly compete properly
I'm getting worried now ,its a week before the premier league starts and still no striker signed,if kane gets injured or catches the virus while on england duty were ****ed. New players need time to settle in and get used to our playing style and yesterday's game at Watford proved we miss kane badly toothless up front and no clue as to why we are playing the wingers out of position. Signing a striker was no 1 priority over the past few seasons and theres no excuse us not having one in by now . We need to hit ground running this season otherwise were not qualifying for the champions league unless we win the ropey .
Signing a striker hasn't been our number one priority for six years A DM and a RB who isn't Andros Townsend going forward and Gilberto while defending were our top priorities this summer
On a serious note the last 2 seasons we should have learnt our lesson or are we waiting for our harry to get injured again
Reluctant Nicko is reliable with football league stuff too. Pretty sure it was him who broke the Alfie Devine news long before it happened and he’s gotten loads of other stuff with different clubs correct. Must. Remain. Calm.
Donny van der Beek claims that Stevie B texted him asking if he wanted to join him at Spurs If only he did a video chat during the Skywalk and said something along the lines of how DvdB could join him and they'd both be looking down on Man Utd together...