Trying to figure out what the plan is is certainly interesting. I had thought Nuno would be looking for a young Moutinho-type deep lying playmaker, and that does seem to be the missing piece in the current set up. Yet I don't hear much about Spurs going for Eriksen- or Moutinho-types. It seems to be mostly fast, dribbly players. So that's interesting. The Man City match gave some indication that there's something to the fast, dribbly player approach. My opinion is that Spurs highest priority should be building a team that can challenge for big trophies in about three years. All the king's horses aren't going to pull the pieces together for Spurs to finish in the top four this year, and probably not next year either. Sixth would be decent this year. Fifth would be a major accomplishment. The talent just isn't there. Last year Spurs had four players in the top 44 in the WhoScored ratings for the Premiere league (yeah, but at least it's a metric), at numbers 1, 10 (Bale), 12 and 40. Bale is gone, Kane may be sold. Son seems to have some kind of a hamstring issue. Aurier wants to leave. Most want him to leave, despite Spurs needing a pacy RB, and him being one. The next one down the list was Hojbjerg at 63. While I agree Spurs need a midfield creator, my biggest concern is goals. Last year, Spurs had four players who were extraordinary at goal involvements. One may be sold, one seems to have a hamstring issue, one went back to Real Madrid, and Spurs decided the last one, the only one under 28, wasn't worth 40 million. Now they seem to be trying and failing to pay twice that for players who may or may not check all the boxes Vinicius checked (around a goal involvement a game, good hold up player, good technically, athletic). So I'm wondering, are we sure he wasn't worth 40 million? And is the striker of the future going to be Scarlett or Parrot, or is there some other plan?
I think it's just the difficulty of identifying top strikers and when they are obvious they are all now 100 million players. Once again I fear it's the Portuguese method that we seem to value so highly. Defend in depth and break quickly, it is as I said earlier just a fancy route one method. To be fair I think Nuno is slightly more attack minded than Jose but the essence is there and of course it has enjoyed considerable success with some teams. The trouble is we don't produce the highly skilled players like the Portuguese do or not in quantity anyway. All of this means we often bypass midfield. However we do have a DOF with lots of Italian influence and in may ways Italy is the home of creative midfielders. It will be interesting to see what happens and how Spurs end up playing in the next 2 seasons.
Reports that Pare Sarr was signing for 18 to 20 million and a season loan back now he could be 25 to 30 million , could he be the messiah we have been looking for going straight in the squad or just a naughty boy
He's also included in the Team of the Week, though I'm not sure he had that much to do, to be honest. Made one excellent save from Traore, but they didn't test him too much other than that.
Looks like we’ll be visiting our most recent opponents in the near future, drawn away there in the League Cup.
Regardless of the result, I hope we can go toe to toe this time. Not sure our victory was much deserved. A lot of their threat (all unfulfilled) came from Traore - rumour has it that the next game might have a shift on that.
He was a threat to Tanganga but not the rest of the defence or keeper which is generally the story of his footballing life - beats FB in race but then wastes possession. He’d be cup tied if he joined us anyway, came on as a late sub for them the other night.
His pace took him to a one on one with Hugo, when he should have scored. That seems a threat to the whole defence to me. Cup tied or not, I think their biggest threat (albeit flawed) would be removed if he signed. My point is that I didn't see a lot coming from elsewhere so it'll be a different game without him in gold.
We can thank Dier for that though, that chance should’ve never happened - and the fact it did, it showed how poor Traore is in front of goal, done the same thing the game before against Leicester but didn’t even force the keeper into making a save that time. His end product is so, so poor. Bergwijn probably had a fraction as many runs as Traore did yet forced Sa into a good save and should’ve had an assist for Kane. A Bergwijn with full confidence is comfortably better than Traore in my opinion and he's about 3 years younger, yet if we sign Traore it’ll likely come at the expense of Bergwijn. Think the club is making a big mistake chasing him.
I was trying to make a point about the impact on Wolves, rather than whether he would improve us. As we are on the subject though, if you appoint a manager and he strongly fancies a player to come in that he has worked with in the past, you have to believe he knows what he is doing. I wouldn't pay £39m for him, especially at a cost of a playmaker or backup striker but Nuno will live or die by any decision to sign him.
Yeah I get that but just pointing out that him not playing for Wolves likely means because he’ll have signed for us. The fact Nuno’s worked with him in the past is also the concern for me. He’s had 3 years with Traore and gotten little out of him. We’ve wasted so much money in the last 5 years and I can’t help but feel we’d be doing so again if we spend £40m on a guy who’s basically just a speed merchant that does very little in terms of deciding the outcome of a game. If we want an upgrade on Lucas/ Bergwijn, no problem but Traore isn’t that guy, at least in my eyes.
We've got wingers and wide forwards in Son, Bryan, Lucas and Bergwijn. Do we really need another when Nuno might have to keep picking Doherty....Winks.....Sissoko.....Dier? Buying Traore would be ****ing stupid....even if he was twice the player he is.
