My devil's advocate thought on transfers is: what if we more or less stand pat? You can make an argument we did great when we had our first team. If we have Sandro and Dembele to boss the midfield, Bale to score 25-30 playing striker all year, and Younes to pair with Vertonghen...
but every season there will be injuries RWAEB. if not those players you mention, then someone else. You have to have decent cover to deal with these situations. - that's the same for any club. Not only do we have first team positions that need strengthening, but we also need some more goal scorers in our squad and game changers on the bench too.
He's resisted United once already, he's a pretty grounded guy and he looks like he's staying. We showed the faith to sign him initially, through injury troubles and an awful run of PL games without a win and we've also been great for his development so far, that won't have gone unnoticed, I expect he'll be here for another season if not longer.
He resisted Utd when unproven- as a left back then - when his chances of being successful were unknown and he could have failed to make an impact - as was the case at Spurs for a few years. It's an entirely different ball game now. I don't doubt that he may stay for the reasons you've given, but he's at or near his peak now- and will be, if injury free, for the next half dozen years. This is the time for him to decide if his ambition is to help improve Spurs or move to a club where his chances of honours are much greater. The optimists might feel that he can win things at Spurs, but like RvP, the reality may be that a move is needed to bring that personal success. His cameo in the CL was two and a half years ago and he's not been back since. He has no medals of any kind. I don't believe that a player with his level of ability and obvious dedication will be happy with a 5th place finish - or even being runners-up. If he does decide that his future lies at Utd, would Spurs fans begrudge him that?
Absolutely, as to the cover idea. The idea here would be to start with last year's ideal healthy squad, maybe with the idea of working Carroll into the starting position, then use what money we have to make us able to rotate players--both to deal with injuries and to avoid them.
:QUOTE=littleDinosaurLuke;4770754]He resisted Utd when unproven- as a left back then - when his chances of being successful were unknown and he could have failed to make an impact - as was the case at Spurs for a few years. It's an entirely different ball game now. I don't doubt that he may stay for the reasons you've given, but he's at or near his peak now- and will be, if injury free, for the next half dozen years. This is the time for him to decide if his ambition is to help improve Spurs or move to a club where his chances of honours are much greater. The optimists might feel that he can win things at Spurs, but like RvP, the reality may be that a move is needed to bring that personal success. His cameo in the CL was two and a half years ago and he's not been back since. He has no medals of any kind. I don't believe that a player with his level of ability and obvious dedication will be happy with a 5th place finish - or even being runners-up. If he does decide that his future lies at Utd, would Spurs fans begrudge him that?[/QUOTE] In a word, yes. We're fed up with you lot nicking, or attempting to nick our best players. Well done for pinching RVP from the Goons though
No one at Spurs was. If he wants to leave it all depends on how he goes about it. He's a nice chap and if Levy told him he could leave next season I think he'd accept that and continue at Spurs until he was sold but then again lots of players quickly change their character once an agent gets in their ear. He owes us another year, this isn't like RVP who wasn't offered a new contract until he started scoring for fun and staying fit, we've showed Bale great loyalty in many ways, including giving him a big new contract every season. It's fairly clear that Bale values his free role at Spurs too and I'm not sure he'd get that elsewhere. Back when the Barca and Real rumours first started there was talk of moving him back to left back which wouldn't have suited him and he wouldn't have liked. I think it's similar with United, as much as you want him I think he'd be thought of as a winger and that's not what Bale wants anymore. I'm sure he wants to win trophies but I doubt he places that above his own progression to become the best player he can be at this stage in his career.
Nope, it's what Modric claimed happened though. Modric claimed all sorts of things to try and get a move.
Seriously, if Modric, and or his agent, were too stupid to have a release clause put into the new contract he signed, then that's hardly Levy's fault.
Does anyone else think there is even the slightest chance that Bale will come out and commit his future to us indefinitely, therefore elevating him to the status of immortality, something he would never be able to do anywhere else despite all the riches he might acquire playing football elsewhere? Because if he moves he'll always be just another brilliant player wherever he goes, but if he stays in that manner then he will be THE brilliant player. Because I had a dream he did and I woke up smiling. I know, I know, I need to calm down and go do something else. Anyway it's a very different situation to Modric at the moment. You can compare them if/when Bale starts handing in transfer requests and shooting his mouth off to the media, but I don't think thats going to happen.
All of us, but Levy in particular, thankfully. We're not Arsenal. Our chairman's sensible enough to know that selling to another Premier League club strengthens them and weakens us. If Bale decides that he wants to leave, then he can go to someone like Real Madrid. No. He was promised that acceptable bids would be looked at if we failed to qualify for the Champions League. Chelsea's bid wasn't acceptable.
Players look for honours and medals to decorate their careers and they want to play on the top stages which appears to be the Champions League. Fair enough if you accept that is true then what would a top player like Bale do. Going to Madrid or United would bring such medals based on recent years although the other side of the coin is that he may not play so much football and may not be the main man. On the other hand staying at Spurs, where he is the main man, there is a reasonable chance of a breakthrough for the team in the next couple of seasons. The glory of doing that would be far greater than being just another player at United or Madrid and winning another expected trophy. The attraction of doing these things with Spurs offers greater glory, it's worth another season to see if it looks possible. This transfer season will tell us how ambitious Spurs really are.
On May 23rd we play an exhibition game against Jamaica in The Bahamas. As we know, this is the home of a certain Mr Joe Lewis. It is said that Lewis, Levy & AVB will meet to discuss future plans. Let's hope that their ambition matches ours.
It appears that Moutinho's about to join Monaco. Can't say that I'm too bothered about it, to be honest. At least we won't spend the summer sniffing around him, again. We do need to sign a player of his ilk, though. Let's hope that our next target's a little less bogged down in ownership issues and signs nice and early.
http://metro.co.uk/2013/05/21/spurs-set-to-lose-joao-moutinho-to-monaco-in-59m-double-deal-3803128/ Moutinho is not worth this kind of money, and I don't think we need him either, he's another MFer with no goals, 7 in over 100 games over 3 seasons...no thanks.
