Transfer Rumours transfer thread fact and fiction

Nobody asks such questions when Liverpool get Diaz or Man City add Grealish to their growing number of positionally similar players.

We need to move through and beyond having a great first eleven, but falling short as a squad.

Two top players for each position is not surplus to requirements.

 

Salah and Mane are both letting their contracts tick down and are very publicly playing silly buggers

The Sheikh Mansour Team overspent on Grealish because they very publicly had their asses slapped by us and wanted to change the subject

No sensible manager would sign Martinez and Dybala in the same window and only play one or the other - as best demonstrated by The Sheikh Mansour Team splurging on Jovetic and Negredo when they had Aguero and Dzeko there, and to the surprise of absolutely nobody Jovetic and Negredo never played (although given we made a bid for Negredo earlier that window, that was likely the point...)

 

Agree with this. A squad of 20 good outfield players is a necessity these days. Plus signing Dybala and Martinez would mean outgoings anyway.

All of this is moot anyway as not a chance Spurs get both.

 

Seriously, have people forgotten the season where we had Keane, Berbatov, Defoe and Bent?

Oh sure, we had three good strikers (and somebody who could play upfront) for two positions - but only for a very short period as Defoe wanted out due to the lack of game time he was getting as Keane & Berbatov were (rightly) first choice while we also had to justify Comolli spunking away so much money on Barren Dent by giving him the minutes when one of them was rested

If we can't balance having four first team-worthy strikers in a season, and The Sheikh Mansour Team have demonstrated that they can't balance having four first team-worthy strikers in a season, where is this belief that having Kane, Martinez and Dybala for effectively one position is going to be anything other than a colossal arseache?

 

Spurs aren’t getting both so it doesn’t matter. Although let’s just say they did, maybe Conte would go with 2 up top and then it wouldn’t be such an issue.

 

I doubt very much we'd get both, plus we didn't have CL football then did we? We were too hollow in the middle to win consistently. That was the crime of the ages.

I'd much rather we have an embarrassment of footballing riches that score goals than be stuck when Kane gets injured, again, and be over reliant on Son in his absence, only for him to get injured, again.

Seriously, how many times do we need to see this nonsense play out?

With how many different managers?

I'd rather Conte has the arseache you describe, plus a chance to actually compete on different fronts, maybe even win some titles despite injuries hitting.

 

Liverpool and The Sheikh Mansour Team are both currently challenging for the league title, plus the CL.

Do we think it's just pure coincidence that the teams that do this also have multiple options especially in key scoring positions?

 

I'm still waiting for someone to name the four strikers that City have

 

He’s on about years ago when they had Aguero, Dzeko, Jovetic and Negredo.

 

Players that can play in forward positions they are pretty well stocked - Jesus, Stirling, Mahrez, Foden, Grealish, Silva.

 

Strength in breadth and depth is why Citeh have been
winning the League cup so many times in addition to the PL.
Few PL clubs also involved in UEFA land can avoid
fielding their strongest sides enough to reach the final,
unless they have the luck of the draw.

The finalists this season :

Two of three such clubs.
Both currently in the PL top 3 and CL last 16.
One is PL champion elect.

 

Yes, it is a pure coincidence considering the minor fact that The Sheikh Mansour Team don't line up with a striker in their team most weeks after letting Sergio Aguero leave in the summer without replacing him nor trusting Gabriel Jesus to carry the load

Similar can be said for Saltypool, who at the weekend lined up with three wingers and no strikers up top

Okay, so if we play two up top, where does Son play? LWB?

None of which are strikers...

And here's the problem: an embarrassment of footballing riches soon becomes an embarrassment, because when you're juggling too many players at once it's inevitable that one player always gets left on the sidelines either due to one player being in good form or to try and justify the fee paid for another, which is why signing Player X and Player Y to cover for Player A is never a good idea because football isn't Pornhub, and three into one doesn't go

And this is the thing, how many times have we seen the nonsense play out of signing too many players for a squad? We've seen it with us at least twice, first when Comolli had us playing with four strikers expecting regular football and secondly when Baldini signed half a team in the space of a week, we've seen it at the Mansourites when they signed Negredo and Jovetic when their system was already leaning towards Aguero with Dzeko as backup, and we've seen it at Chelsea whenever they stockpile players and never use them (most notably in the cases of De Bruyne, Salah and Lukaku's first stint)

And what tends to happen to managers who have an arseache like that? The P45, given the team never gets settled due to the amount of chopping and changing meaning it never really gets settled

 

A couple of interesting headlines today...

Marca are linking us with Unai Simon, who will cost a pretty penny given he's contracted until 2025, but that would cover us at GK for a good 4-5 years easily

Meanwhile, Bild are linking us with Serge Gnabry, who has a little over a year left on his Bayern deal - so expect a mass outpouring of neuroses from Woolwich anytime now...

 

But you said Spurs didn’t need a keeper so why would anyone be linked

 

Define a striker, the 6 players I listed are forward players who score goals ( 4 of them at a better rate than most traditional 'strikers' )

 

Somebody who plays as a centre forward, as opposed to a winger or attacking midfielder who gets pressed into action as a CF due to not having any strikers in the squad due to injury, suspension, or letting Sergio Aguero leave in the summer and not feeling that Gabriel Jesus is up to the task

 

You;re going to be really upset when I point out that Unai Simon is going to cost a lot more than the £30m that some berk at the MEN says we need to spend on a keeper...while continuing to live in denial that they;re actually talking about David De Gea, not Hugo Lloris

 

I’ll be honest, I don’t know follow Bilbao at all so know very little about Unai Simon. Glad to see the club is looking at replacement for Lloris though.

 

Simon's the first-choice for the Spain team, if that helps

 

Yeah I know that but that doesn’t mean he’s anything special as Spurs aren’t limited to picking keepers of just one nationality