How is it a massive reach? Look at last season's stats Games Lo Celso missed through injury: 6 Games Kane missed through injury: 14 And let's look at the season before that, since we're here Games Lo Celso missed through injury: 1 Games Kane missed through injury: 16 So obviously that means that Harry Kane is made of glass and we'd best be rid of him Alternatively, maybe stop looking for a different lightning rod every month, it's abundantly clear that the issues with our team come from Aurier being incapable of playing in the role he's cast in and the players around him not being able to make up for his deficiencies - which are exacerbated by a manager who puts those deficiencies at the front of how we prepare for games rather than the team's strengths I think I just summed up the exact reasons it is not
Harry Kane: 24 goals and 2 assists last season. Lo Celso: 2 goals and 3 assists last season. Lamela: 4 goals and 5 assists last season. Ndombele: 2 goals and 2 assists last season. Kane combined goal and assist contribution - 26. The other three - 18. Harry Kane: 18 goals and 14 assists this season so far. Lo Celso: 5 goals and 1 assist this season so far. Lamela: 2 goals this season so far. Ndomebel: 3 goals and 3 assists this season so far. Kane combined goal and assist contribution so far: 32. The other three 14. Yeah, let's sell Kane
You're the one bringing up injuries as a reason to get rid of players, I'm just pointing our how ridiculous that is when our most important player is more injured than anyone else we have on the books Also, you're making the argument Chelsea fans were making when Uncle Roman tried lowballing us for Modric because he didn't get many goals or assists, which also means that Moussa Dembele must have been crap given his best seasons for us were 2012-13 (1 goal, 3 assists) and 2015-16 (3 goals, 1 assist) - yet he was vital to the football we were playing because, unlike fantasy football, football exists outside of goals and assists The point is that Lo Celso and Ndombele aren't the players scoring the goals or creating them, they're the player who releases the player who gets the assist in much the same way Dembele or Modric were useful to an actual team playing actual football - because let's be honest, with the combination of Sissoko not knowing what passing is and Lucas being the Bermuda Triangle on the right, it's usually one of those two who is getting us in positions that either end up in the back of the net or hitting the post that happens to be right next to it...or in Bergwijn's case, adding to the accumulator he surely has going to see if he can miss gilt-edged chances from every part of the opponent's penalty area over the course of a season
Fabrizio Romano has doubled down on reports linking us with Nicolas Gonzalez You know, the Nicolas Gonzalez who our manager flat rejected questions of our being interested in him at the other day's press conference... And yes, that is the same Fabrizio Romano who has been saying for the last three/four weeks that both Son and Kane are about to agree long-term contracts "any day now"... Anyone else suddenly get the feeling that Lamela's going to be leaving us on a free 18 months from now?
I'd say the person trying to make a point to sell Kane is much more ridiculous than any other person's suggestion to sell another player/ players. The level of contribution Kane has for Spurs, even when he misses spells, is still more than what most players in Europe could only ever dream of for their respective clubs.
Had a bit of an underwhelming time here. At one point it looked like he’d be a possible breakthrough player as he impressed in pre-season a few years back but he’s never really kicked on nor has he done much in loans away.
Of course you think it's ridiculous, because that's easier than realising that using a player's injury history as a barometer of their worth to the club has one glaring flaw in it But here's the counterpoint: Serge Aurier played more games than any outfield player last season, so by using injuries as a barometer of his worth he'd be a useful player - but in reality he's the player we need to jettison more than any other, because not only is he being targeted by opponents because they know he'll have at least one calamitous brainfart they can benefit from, but our team is being set up to protect him rather than play to the strengths of Kane and Son - or, for that matter, Lo Celso and Ndombele (although at the current rate, it has to be asked if there any player we are playing to the strengths of, since we're doing a fine job of exposing the weaknesses in Eric Dier's game right now?) Also, the talk of contribution has flaws, namely Lucas. Does he score goals? Yes, when he's on a hot streak, but how often are those? And do those hot streaks excuse the long periods where he's the Bermuda Triangle on our right flank where the ball goes in, never to be seen again, especially considering he's pretty much a fixture in the team too? And this is why I put Lucas so high on my To Sell list, because not only has he spent the last eighteen months being a Brazilian Andros Townsend with his new and innovative ways of wasting any buildup play we have, but to a section of our fanbase he's become a Brazilian Theo Walcott as the suggestion of moving him on is met with howls about his hat trick against Ajax, in much the same way calls to drop Theo Walcott from the England setup were met with howls about his hat trick against Croatia even though it was obvious that Aaron Lennon could down three cans of Special Brew before kickoff and still be more intelligent with the ball at his feet than Walcott ever was When the players who have played the most football for us since the beginning of last season are also the two most glaring weaknesses in the team, that's why using injuries as a barometer of a player's worth to the team doesn't work, while in Lucas' case it has to be said that, like Clint Dempsey and Nacer Chadli before him, goals aren't something players should be measured in if they're passengers in the team for the 89:55 when they aren't sticking the ball in the net without being prolific enough to justify their starting games
I've literally shown you that the contribution Kane has shows why he shouldn't be sold solely based on injury history. The other three haven't contributed anywhere near enough, especially with regards to expectations for what we paid for them. That said, I also haven't said Ndombele should be sold but that he needs to seriously sort his fitness out, it's beyond a joke that a professional footballer looks leggy after 50 minutes. Lamela should absolutely have been sold a while a go whilst I wouldn't lose any sleep if Lo Celso was sold tomorrow. Lo Celso's overall contribution to Spurs has been minimal, he's a good player that isn't producing anywhere near enough of what we need and he's picking up too many injuries too. As for Lucas/ Aurier, I'm really not sure what you're getting at because just about everyone has said they'd happily sell them, myself included. Just as I would Winks and at least two of our three senior CBs. There's a load of dross in this squad - as I literally mentioned in my latest post on the Fulham thread - that needs to be binned. Not everyone is injury prone, some are just **** but both types need to have their futures assessed because ultimately they all have similar contributions to the team - which is next to nothing. To make it easier - Two of Dier/ Toby/ Sanchez, Aurier, Rose, Winks, Lamela and Lucas should absolutely be up for sale. Lo Celso wouldn't be massively missed either, likewise Dele. Edit - and to further clarify, naturally a few of these would need replacements ideally beforehand or immediately after their departures.
Yet you ignore other player's contributions as you've made your mind up that they need to go Well how about this telling statistic about Lo Celso Newcastle - subbed off in the 77th minute Palace - subbed off in the 67th minute He's the one of the few midfielders who offer bite to our team, yet he keeps getting hooked in games where we have narrow leads where he'd be bloody useful and we pay the price soon after Also, it might have been you who said it about Ndombele in another thread, but whoever it was hit on Lo Celso's absences this season: he gets hit with some heavy challenges as that's the only way player's can reliably get the ball off him in much the same way Ndombele does, but as Lo Celso plays as a CM he gets hacked down far more regularly - and since one of his absences this season was caused by rushing him back from a knock and it getting aggravated by another clattering, that is hinting far more about defective coaching that anything else And this is the thing: we need to replace not players who work for a few games then miss a few games, we need to replace players who simply don't work as they're undermining everything the rest of the team does, for example a competent RB would see our back line moved 10-20 yards up the pitch and far less of the sitting back on slender leads, which in turn would stop burning out some players and leaving others open for clattering
Too early to tell if Lo Celso is injury prone yet. Very hard to get a better player without spending 60m.
You've literally ignored the best player at our club's contributions by suggesting he should also be sold, that's far worse than me making my mind up on a player who statistically isn't offering much and isn't being readily available enough to make a sufficient impact whether statistically or not, having cost the club around £45m. As value for money goes, we've paid for a mansion and gotten a shed so far. It's been worse for us knowing we had the chance to sign Fernandes instead for a similar fee. One's elevated his team tenfold - albeit heavily stat padded thanks to penalties - whilst the other really hasn't lived up to the initial hype and has found himself on the sidelines a lot more than he should be. Players get hacked down all over the pitch, especially the more skilful ones. I fully appreciate Lo Celso is a very good player but it's somewhat pointless being a very good player if you're on the sidelines a lot of the time. Grealish has been one of the most fouled players in the Prem for the last 18 months if I remember rightly yet he's not constantly missing games for Villa. We need to replace both the poor and those who aren't readily available enough to be called upon. We're not a charity and we're not a hospital.
Romano reckons Eriksen would be interested in a return. Also reckons that Leipzig want to keep Sabitzer til the summer... Knew I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up .
Also sounds like Dele is trying to push for the PSG move but Levy doesn't want him to go in fear of being short. Can see this going to the wire, wouldn't be surprised if it happens (loan with option to buy I'd imagine) though would likely depend on someone coming in.
I'm saying that when you look at somebody's injury history as the primary motivator of whether a player should remain or be sold there's a glaring omission at the heart of that, namely how Harry Kane's missed more football than anyone else in the team in the last 18 months while Aurier's missed the least The problem with Ndombele and Lo Celso getting hacked down ultimately comes back to our idiotic tactics, because if we moved the ball faster the opponents would be on the back foot which would mean Ndombele and Lo Celso had that extra half second to either get past them or, at the very least, offload the ball - instead our current setup where we charitably let the opponents run midfield for the second half is guaranteed to see both of them hacked down as that leaves our player isolated and the opponents able to swarm upon them to get the ball back Going back to Dembele for a moment, he was a physical wreck at various points in Poch's time with us (terminally in the end) but the point is that it was more due to wear and tear so we were somewhat able to manage it for a year or so before it was obvious we needed to replace him, and the reason for that was because opponents weren't hacking him down left and right as we were on the front foot On the subject of Ndombele, this also has me wondering as he was able to play 90 minutes for Lyon consistently, rather than how it works with us that when he actually managed to play 90 minutes a few games back it led to a lot of sarky comments on here, and how much that had to do with Lyon playing on the front foot that meant the opponents were focusing their efforts elsewhere (mainly Depay and Dembele) while he also had Troussard and Aouar to help out with the defensive load, while for us he's more of a target due to our low block coupled with him having to spend 45+ minutes chasing down the ball as we're sitting back - and given how knackered some of the other players look come the 80th minute, notably Kane and Son, it's looking a lot more like our tactical approach is actively making our players susceptible to injury because if they're not getting clattered due to the second half of games looking like a game of British Bulldogs, they're getting knackered from having to do far too much work due to us surrendering midfield And this is the point: if we're going to get on the front foot, the only players we need to upgrade are Aurier and Sissoko, the former being a no brainer at this point (pun not intended) the latter because if we had, for the sake of argument, a prime Sandro or Wanyama in midfield we wouldn't be playing these counterproductive low block tactics as we'd have a mid block that would take a lot of pressure off our back line and enable us to control matches we were leading in rather than hoping we can cling onto a lead until we inevitably fail to do so due to the usual foul in the right quadrant and cackhanded set piece defence that follows And will selling Lamela in the summer fix that? Nope, if anything we'd have sold the player best suited to covering Aurier in our entire squad
Was never going to happen this window anyway I think mate, the HG/non-HG mix in the squad probably makes it tricky. Easier to offload non-HG squad players come the summer when hopefully we’re starting to look at crowds coming back due to vaccinations etc.
It's the primary motivator because it outweighs what they actually bring to the team. Kane's relatively injury prone as we all know, often because both managers have been intent on running him into the ground but his overall output is still phenomenal and far outweighs the negative aspect of his injury history. Lo Celso so far hasn't done that. Whether you judge by statistics or by general play, there just hasn't been enough from him. He's looked great in spells and anonymous in others whilst his injuries seem to be stacking up. For the money we paid, he's so far been a huge flop. Lamela's overstayed his time here by about two years. Like Lo Celso, for the money we paid for him we haven't gotten value for money, we can say we've gotten longevity out of him seeing as he's been here 7 and a half years but he's missed around 3 and a half years of football so essentially we haven't even got proper longevity if we subtract the time he's been out of action. Ultimately when it comes to players at the club, it generally comes down to pros and cons for me. If a player's pros outweighs their con's then they're obviously worth keeping, if it's the other way round then we should be considering offloading them. It's why on the flip side to someone injury prone like Lamela, we have Winks who's available most weeks yet an absolutely terrible player, therefore his lack of ability outweighs the fact he remains fit and thus isn't someone we should keep at this club. Every player's situation is different and right now Spurs have a number of players in which their cons outweigh their pros.
The thing with pros and cons is that, in spite of his injury record, Lamela's somewhere in the middle for me Lucas and Aurier are certainly players whose cons greatly outweigh their pros (I may have mentioned this, not entirely sure...) Sissoko's getting that way, although given it seems to be a tactical decision to not play the ball out of defence to him (as the same is true when Winks or Lo Celso play in his role) that may buy him a certain stay of execution, but he needs an upgrade desperately Dier's certainly not doing himself any favours, given how easily bullied off the ball he is at set pieces Hart's looking like a Football Manager signing, somebody you sign to mentor youth/regen keepers and play in cup games if you think he'll make for a decent GK coach - but this isn't reality, but the amount of times he's beaten from distance is starting to get alarming Sanchez simply isn't suited for our current system, because while he has the pace to cover Aurier and is reasonably good in the air he has a mistake in him, which is not what you want to hear when Aurier is prone to catastrophic errors of his own As a result, I'd say the main areas that need to be looked at are Immediately Replace Aurier Upgrade Sissoko Upgrade Dier Strongly Consider Sell Lucas (we have Bergwijn and Bale available right now, plus Clarke in the wings) Upgrade Sanchez, or sell him and use Tanganga or Rodon as the upgrade/replacement Long-term GK Under Consideration Doherty - either use him like he was at Wolves, or admit we misjudged it
