City have reinvested the Bazunu money from Southampton and bought... Palermo? They got promoted through the play-offs the other day and are now in Serie B. £12m? Bargain.
Number of journos reporting Bissouma’s completed his medical. Sticking with what I said and calling a Friday announcement. I’m going with 2pm.
Their story is actually really interesting. Their club went under after years of chaotic management mixed with some pretty notable young players passing through their doors, and what City have bought is the phoenix club. They’ve had a pretty remarkable promotion season this year.
Romano’s said both us and Brighton have signed off on the deal along with echoing that Bissouma’s completed his medical.
Remember when ENIC bought us and they had to sell their stakes in the other clubs they were involved with? Just asking, as Troyes, Girona, Lommel, Torque, Melbourne City, NYC FC, Yokohama F Marinos, Mumbai City and Sichuan Jiuniu might be needing new owners...
Seeing the utter carnage today of the fixtures for 2022-23, who are Spurs pursuing on the outright attacker front ?? Is Gabriel Jesus worth going in for, given Citeh now have Haaland ??
Richarlison mentioned but a loose cannon who might not want to be second fiddle to Kane. Jesus would be useful.
I’d prefer Jesus to Richarlison but I think he’ll go Arsenal as they’d be able offer a guarantee of him being their star attacker. With us he’d be in a similar situation as to what he is at City, will get plenty of games/ minutes but will never be the main man.
This mentality of "main man" IMHO has to end. If Jesus was signed, starting XI attacks of Kane/Son or Kane/Jesus or Son/Jesus, with the third being given a good 30 min stretch as sub, would be immense for both player health and forcing them to raise/maintain their game. This season is going to be brutal on the legs, and if like me you are setting an expectation of staying in the PL top 4 and reaching the QFs of all cup competitions, then build a squad accordingly.
It's not about mentality, it's about stature and calibre. We won't rotate the likes of Kane and Son like we probably will with our four CMs once Bissouma joins. The quality in CM is more even and therefore allows for rotation without a significant change in quality. Kane and Son are two of the best players in Europe, they'll start 90% of our games so long as they're fit because if they don't start Spurs will be weaker for it. Arsenal don't have a Kane or Son, so Jesus would join them and be that very guy who starts 90% of their games. You only have to look around the league and Europe to see that's how it is at other clubs too, Nunez and Haaland will be mainstays in the XI with Pool and City, just like Salah, Benzema, Lewandowski, Ronaldo, Messi, Mbappe, Neymar etc are at their clubs. Where Jesus or Richarlison will come in handy for us is that they can come off the bench in games to ideally give Kane or Son a rest, or they can start over Kulu at times, they'll very rarely start over Kane or Son though apart from lower priority matches.
I rate Richarlison as the better all-round footballer. He has a lot more to his game, not least of all his strength, aerial ability and willingness to run the channels. Jesus always struck me as a b-tech Defoe. Quick and tricky and with a good eye for goal, but more of a 'poacher' than anything else. It should speak volumes that Pep never really trusted him, even going an entire season without a recognised striker. He has never hit more than 15 league goals in a season and that's with the likes of David Silva, Bernardo, De Bruyne, Mahrez, Sterling and Foden as the supporting cast. Hell, you could put me up front for City and I'd probably hit double figures by the end of the season.
Richarlison and Jesus are both ok, I'm not excited about either. Neither will likely be starters, I don't understand why we don't sign Bale, he can play across the front 3. Happy not to start every game, plus allows us to give Scarlett some game time in the lesser competitions.
I think they'd both improve our squad quite considerably, I'd just prefer Jesus, think he's a tad better, comes from higher stock with better experience and won't piss me off too much with his diving. Prefer we loan Scarlett out though, he'll barely have any chances this season with us. 5-10 sporadic games will do nothing for his development just as it didn't for KWP or Skipp, they both needed loans to get them to start realising their potential. Try and find him a good loan like we done last season with Parrott, there'll be tons of clubs that'll want him, maybe even MK to replace Parrott who I imagine will play Championship football this coming season.
Yeah to me it seems like a no brainer to sign Bale as well as Eriksen. They’d add real quality and experience to the squad which will only help others. Imagine 20mins to go and Spurs need a goal and they’ve got the option of Bale to bring on (or Son or Kulu if Bale started) Bale, Eriksen, Pau Torres would be perfect for Spurs once the signings of Bissouma and Spence are complete
It sounds like the Bale decision is entirely in his own hands, with no shortage of clubs interested in his services. His main concern is to build up match sharpness ahead of the world cup, so joining us where it will be incredibly rare that he starts and completes 90mins. He could go to Cardiff and would start pretty much whenever he wants but there again - does playing in the Championship prepare a player for a world cup and the quality they'll face? I think going back to Southampton makes a lot of sense for him. They play attacking football, PL level and he'd get plenty of game time there.
I don’t rate Jesus that highly either and we’ve apparently put in a £50m bid for him today, which is ****ing obscene considering he’s not a starter for City, has 1 year left on his deal and has never hit more than 14 league goals in a season. My feelings toward Richarlison are similar. I’m sure Jesus would be better than Lacazette or Nketiah, but that’s not hard, as the bar isn’t exactly high there. On a separate note, we’ve agreed a €35m fee with Porto for midfielder Fabio Vieira. Never heard of the bloke or seen him play. Any of you lot know if he’s any good?
