That looks like the bare minimum, yet again. We also need: a striker (if Kane leaves, we'll need 2); another CB - either a LCB as a Davies upgrade or someone to replace/rotate with/cover for Dier; a LWB unless Sessegnon improves significantly; a back-up keeper. Without all of those places being filled, with quality signings, I just don't see us competing for a CL place.
A LWB (or two!) could become a serious necessity in the summer if Madrid activate the buyback clause for Reguilon, which is sounding increasingly likely. Sess’ future also looks bleak, he’s always been on the fringes since joining and in a rare start yesterday he’s taken off before 30 mins. It’s becoming tough to see a future for him here. Not exactly an abundance of top LBs/ LWBs about either. It’s why despite some doubters, I think losing Reguilon will be a huge blow if it happens. He’s considerably better than Sess and looking around the rest of the league I don’t really see too many better, statistically he’s not done too badly either. We’d be getting about £33m from Madrid via the clause I think, hard to see us getting a replacement for a similar amount that’ll be on par or better. I feel like I’ve long term RCL’d myself too as I said about 18 months ago our LB/ LWB position was great, we had Reguilon, Sess and Davies plus Cirkin as an upcoming prospect. We lost Cirkin last summer and this coming one we could end up with just Davies, who’s a better CB than LB (despite a couple of recent mistakes, uncharacteristic of him though).
Kessie Watch In the space of two weeks Franck Kessie has gone from "Oh yeah, he'll be joining Barca in the summer" (IIRC somebody helpfully updated his Wikipedia page a day or two after Deadline Day) to the latest update from Romano saying he's still to make his final choice Bale Pt.III Watch A Bola have outright stated that Gareth Bale has already signed a pre-contract agreement to finish up his career with us, definitely not making anything over the scenes of him, Lo Celso, Aurier and Foyth after the Villarreal/Los Ladrones match at the weekend (now who would do a thing like that...?) Left-Footed CB Watch Pete O'Rourke has linked us with Bayer Leverkusen's 20 year old Ecuadorian CB (who is left-footed, just so I can recycle the entire heading...) Piero Hincapie - although he's also on the radar of *deep breath* Sevilla, Atalanta, G Fuel Vienna, Brighton, Roma, Milan, Napoli and Zenit Probably agent talk, given he's recently broken into Bayer's team with a bog standard contract, but it has to be said that looking at Conte's system, he does seem to fit the Cahill/Skriniar role in our back three that Sanchez is keeping warm for somebody that can be compared to Cahill or Skriniar and taken seriously, which is enough reason to hope that Paratici is looking at him for similar reasons he moved heaven and earth to get Gil and Sarr tied up last summer
Kicker are linking us with a summer move for Alexander Nubel, who is currently on loan at Monaco from Bayern We could've got him for nothing a couple of seasons ago when he was at Schalke, but the siren's son from Munich obviously put paid to that one...
I can't see it happening. He'd basically be swapping into the same position. He was brought to Bayern to be Neuer's long-term replacement. Lloris is older, so he might see a quicker turnover there, but I'd expect him to want to start regularly. Done well at Monaco on loan too, by all reports.
He'd basically be in the same position Pau Lopez was when he was loaned in with an eye on being the longterm successor ...of course, there's an obvious disconnect between the terms "loaned in" and "longterm successor", and let's be honest if he did sign he'd have probably demanded out a season or two ago as he'd either not be playing or be loaned out a bunch to keep him sweet
depends if by then you have a settled system as then you just need to sign someone who fits your requirements rather than a "rated" LB / LWB for example we reputedly paid around £11.5m for Tsimikas who gives us a perfectly decent cover for Robertson and in fact many of us think the fact he had decent competition has led to Robertsons form improvement since earlier this season .
Meanwhile we signed Doherty under the impression that it would kick Aurier up the backside It did not work...
i was amazed you bought him tbh as his form at Wolves had dipped quite considerably in his last season . Tsimikas wasn't signed to pressure Robbo but to be backup instead of having to shove Milner back there .The improvement in Robertsons form was just a possible side effect or possibly coincidence tbf
Wasn't that the season here Wolves were without Jimenez was out for most of the season and the entire team fell apart as they had no focal point? On paper Doherty was a smart buy, after all Trippier kicked Walker up the backside while also giving us an option to rotate in case Aurier needed a rest - but instead Aurier's form remained brainfarty while Doherty flattered to deceive in his early games, then got Covid and was even worse for a stretch of games All of which continues to beg the question of why we bungled KWP's development so bad, as he'd have been a much better understudy who could be trusted when he came into the team while also helping our HG and CG quotas
couldn't understand Pochs treatment of KWP who seemed from outside to basically be written off after just a couple of poor matches .
The only poor matches I recall him having was at LB Realistically the issue was what we needed was a first-choice RB and a backup, which is exactly what we had with the Walker/Trippier setup - but signing Aurier meant we had both Aurier and Trippier expecting starts while KWP was basically consigned to cup games as a result when realistically we should have at least tried Trippier as first choice with KWP as the understudy for a season and gone from there, which would've saved us £23m on Aurier (that we never recouped a penny of) to invest elsewhere while potentially balancing out our squad for UEFA purposes
He looks ok at Southampton but at the time I don’t think it was a mistake to sell him. The issue has been the people signed in his position have been utter dogshit. Aurier, Doherty and now Emerson all aren’t up to the level that Spurs need to be at.
It was almost the opposite. He played well in a few games and Pochettino prevented him going out on loan. Got a hat-trick of assists after 35 minutes when we battered Bournemouth on Boxing Day in 2018: Made 8 starts and a couple of sub appearances, when he should've been playing regularly. Was similarly underused the previous season, starting 5 and coming on in 4. Should bring him back, as he's getting shifted about to accommodate Livramento.
yeah i knew he started well but thought he had a dip in form but that might just be i only saw him once he was being used every now and again which rarely helps anyone . I would assume he would cost you quite a bit now considering his form on both sides. He played on the left for all the victorious England U20 WC iirc so he isn't totally unused to it .
His versatility was one of the reasons Pochettino wanted him in reserve, despite having loads of options on both sides. Got shifted out to the left at the start of this season by Southampton, but has reverted to the right recently. Livramento's back from injury now though, so we'll see what happens. Perraud's looked decent since he slotted into the side, I believe, so someone's going to miss out.
Kessie Watch Milan Watch ...is that the sound of somebody tumbling headfirst down the tier staircase? Milan News claim we're at the front of the queue to sign Franck Kessie in the summer, which does beg the obvious question: why hasn't he signed a pre-contract, especially as Barca were apparently set to sign him a day or two after the transfer window shut?
If I remember he had a run of poor game , outstanding memory he got rinsed by Dembele at Barcelona then had a series of injuries (hamstring included)
De Vrij has come up as a summer target/freebie, albeit from an Inter blog Honestly not sure we need him, as Dier's playing his role for us and his absence is keenly felt. We need to sign a Cahill/Skriniar CB to balance out our back three, for the sake of argument Botman (who, while he is a yard of pace slower than Dier and Romero, is far more reliable than Sanchez) and also has the passing to fill in for Dier if he gets a knock
