We really should’ve chucked a couple £m at Exeter for Ollie Watkins when I said he was looking like a baller. We really should’ve chucked £28m at Brentford when Watkins was showing he was a baller. We really should’ve chucked the £60m we threw at Everton to Villa for Watkins instead when it became clear he was a very good baller.
Rocky Blue will be shouting from up in the heavens about how he said about him too! He wanted Eze as well - as did we all in fairness.
Had a certain Harry Kane then though. Watkins wouldn’t got much game time until Harry left. This summer was the first time you could argue he would been ideal for Spurs but even then I’d rather see the club go for Toney.
Similar can be said for Callum Wilson, who we reportedly had an interest in when he was at Coventry while we were still labouring with Soldado & Adebayor ...coincidentally, guess which tactical genius picked Callum Wilson over Ollie Watkins in their fantasy team this week? ****
Definite shot-stopper. To improve on Lloris we need to see : 1. accurate passing / long ball out, under pressure or nor 2. not getting beaten at his near post
Imo he covers his near post far better than Lloris did in the last 3 or 4 years. Think lloris was one of the best shot stoppers we've had in my time as a spur but he very good. His distribution is a massive improvement on lloris'. Lloris has had an appalling defence for the past 4 seasons so I can see how he found things difficult. The best keeper we've had since Clemence imo.
I think it’s just better to judge him on his performances rather than what he may or may not do that Lloris done. Comparing players to those of yesteryear can be harsh and also possibly come with a prejudice. It’d be harsh to compare any striker with Kane, or a winger with Bale, or a midfielder with Modric for instance and similar applies to Lloris, who in his prime was world class in my opinion. What I just personally look for are capable players good enough to fit into the bracket of being a “Top Six” player, as that’s the level we should expect at Spurs. So far all new boys are certainly looking at meeting those expectations but we’ve got a long season ahead where performances can alter that opinion, for better or worse.
Lloris has set a benchmark. So his successor should at least be at competent in everything Lloris is/was, and seek to be better in everything Lloris is/was not.
Lloris in his latter era wasn't reaching the benchmark he initially set, so the first thing we needed to do was simply sign someone better than the current Lloris, which so far Vicario seems to be. The benchmark essentially for Vicario is to be one of the top six keepers in the Premier League, with the hope/ aim of becoming one of the top four or better. The same applies to every one of our first XI players. On current performances he looks well on course to be as such but there's a long way to go yet.
Al Ittihad are trying to jettison Jota to free up an overseas spot, with him not being registered due to somebody at Al Ittihad lost count of how many spots they had when signing the likes of Benzema and Kante in the summer, and Graeme Bailey claims we are monitoring the situation what with Ange working with him at Celtic Now, if we signed him and this helped them prise Salah out of Waaaaaaaaaaaahnfield...
I wonder if he’ll be an option in January. I don’t think winger is a priority position, we just have a lot of players injured/returning in those positions right now. In the coming weeks we should see Gil and Johnson coming back into the picture. But he knows Ange’s football well. Same thing with Hatate in January if we sell Hojbjerg, though we might end up looking for more of a 6 depending on how Ange sees Bentancur. We’ll almost certainly want a CB too so there’ll need to be some squad balancing going on with the HG numbers.
I can certainly see us going back in for either Lloyd Kelly or Adarabioyo in January, especially if neither of them have signed a contract extension by then Have to say Kelly looks more likely, as Adarabioyo seemed far keener to join Monaco in the summer and isn't playing much for Fulham RN
I can see us going for both or possibly Chalobah from Chelsea, especially if Dier goes. Getting in a couple of discounted centre-backs and getting them up to speed for next season. We need depth and we'll need even more if we qualify for Europe again.
Realistically are Chalobah, Tosin or Kelly a genuine step up from Dier? Even if they are it wouldn't be a significant one, Kelly probably being the best of a mediocre bunch. Most of our rivals have at least 3 good CBs on the books and I think we need to aim for similar. Over recent eras we’ve tried having multiple good CBs too, so it shouldn’t be any different now. We paid £40m for Sanchez despite having Jan and Toby (plus Dier). We also at one point had King, Woodgate, Dawson, Gallas, Kaboul and Bassong all at the club, though that was partly down to the injury situation.
They can pass the ball forwards accurately, which is an improvement on Dier from last season Victor Nelsson at Galatasaray would be a good like-for-like swap for Dier, if that's what we're looking for as it does seem we're signing and using players to guard the near and far posts for set pieces given Richarlison was being used for that against the Crybabies...although I get the feeling they might not want to deal with us after foisting Ndombele on them
They’re all bottom half calibre defenders though, we’ve had enough of that with Dier and Sanchez over the years. If any of those had to step in long term for Romero or van de Ven it wouldn’t be too dissimilar from Richarlison starting over Son or Lo Celso for Maddison. The quality gap needs to be closer, our depth is what lets us down at the moment, we shouldn’t be adding more mediocrity to it.
