I'm not sad to see him go, I'm glad he's gone. Deserves better than to be sat at home watching the game every weekend but ultimately never proved reliable enough to hold down a first team place after the errors returned to his game. Fantastic reaction 'keeper and a good character but with the bizarre ability to utterly panic when the ball's heading straight into his gloves.
Apparently We're keen on signing Michy Batshuayi. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michy_Batshuayi Good record for a young lad. The striker situation is a difficult one. We splashed on Soldado and he hasn't particularly impressed (not his fault IMO), so what does the club do now?! We got our wish of a "marquee striker", yet isolated him up front in a league that was new to him. If Poch is to be the new manager, the formation is likely to be the same as AVB, but perhaps without being so defensive. So, will this same formation work for Soldado under newmanagement? Or, if the rumours of a £20mill bid from Atletico are true, do we sell him due to what we witnessed under AVB? I'd love to keep Soldado as I think he's got tonnes to offer when you play to his strengths. Players don't score 20+ goals a season consecutively over 4 seasons, if they are crap. However, playing a 4231 doesn't give me confidence that it'll "click" for Soldado next season either. In some ways, getting the £20mill (if true) would make more financial sense, bearing in mind his age. And unfortunately, It'll probably leave a bitter taste with Levy and the knock on effect is that it'll be a long time before we see us splash out that sort of money on a striker again.
I said about sticking a bid in for Batshuayi last summer, looks a real decent prospect. Soldado's a tricky one, obviously last season was dreadful for him, first off we made excuses of him having no service for his lack of goals but as time went on, he missed some absolute sitters. There's no doubting that he's a great finisher who's just found it very tough in first season here at the Lane, question we're posed with is he going to improve/ adapt and is also going to play? The last few months his playing chances were pretty limited, Ade lead the line well for the most part and Soldado ended up (rightfully I must add) behind Kane who had a good end to the season. If rumours of the £20m Atleti bid is true, it puts us in a difficult position. On the one hand, it'll be sods law that he'll go back to Spain and tear it up, showing us what we could have had but on the other, we'd "only" be making a £6m loss on a soon to be 29 year old striker who failed miserably in his first season in English football after high expectations. I really don't know what I want, I think whatever the club decides will no doubt turn out to be the wrong choice anyway, it's just typical Spursy. We all really want him to succeed but I think deepdown many of us do have our worries that he just may not be suited to the EPL.
The reason I would want to keep him is the difficulty of getting top strikers. We all know how long we have been cracking on about 'New Striker' then when he arrives, zilch! We all know that scoring goals depends on the slightest of factors falling into place. Soldado could easily have had a decent strike rate if those chances he had towrds the end of the season had gone in. With each miss it gets harder and it looms larger in your mind and to score goals you need NO thoughts in the head, you just need to rely on instincts. The clear head should not be underestimated in sport, as soon as you start to 'think' it becomes much harder. I have seen enough of Soldado and some sweet touches combined with an instinct to be in the right place to make me believe that there is good season coming up. Keep him.
Sorry I haven't updated the OP. Been v busy prepping for Taekwondo grading that I haven't been able to get onto the PC! Ta YV for updating
Very good analysis: Given that he is a year older and has had a poor season, the buyers must still think he is about as good as when we bought him. I'd rather keep him personally as we've had enough newcomers but its a close call if we can get £20m
I'm quite interested in Chadli too. I'm wondering what the phone number of his agent is cos I'm 37, not that good at football and have never played professionally but wonder if he can engineer me a multi-million pound move too. Surely he could get me something. (To be fair I'm mostly still judging him on his absolutely horrendous first few games for us when he showed the touch of a traction engine and the brain of a Sinclair ZX-81. I mean - he's not really done much to enhance his reputation but his crapness later in the season was tempered by how crap absolutely everyone else looked too. I thought he was getting better in the middle but then realised that this thought was mainly due to my expectations and standards hitting rock bottom).
AS in Spain are reporting that Betis will accept a 10m euro bid from us for Alvaro Vadillo. (winger) Whilst i don't think it's a top priority to buy another midfield type of player, I do think it'd be a good idea that we upgrade on Townsend and Lennon. Is this 19 year old the right man?
certainly for one of the positions, yes. could Lamela be on his bike? - It's strange/coindidental that we've been linked with Konoplyanka and now Vadillo in recent months, when we're not short of midfielders.
"To be fair I'm mostly still judging him on his absolutely horrendous first few games for us when he showed the touch of a traction engine and the brain of a Sinclair ZX-81" Would that be a ZX81 where the 16K RAM pack keeps falling out of the back ??
Lennon's been linked with a move away and I think I read that there was interest in Townsend a week or so back so maybe it's replacements for them? (hopefully not, would prefer to keep the English lads, even though both need a kick up the arse form-wise). Vadillo doesn't excite me to be honest, from what I've seen - admittedly very little - he's like a quicker version of Taarabt, bags of skill but no end product. Konoplyanka would be a good signing, I still maintain that I think Chadli can become a very good player but Kono looked very good against us and whenever I've seen him play he's looked a handful. I'm happy with our current midfield though and wouldn't be fussed if we didn't add to it, it's the strongest area of our squad alongside the keeper in my opinion, lots of internationals who on their day can play in 95% of Europe's top sides. Just need a manager to get them to work well as a unit while also showcasing their individual talent, Eriksen has already begun to do that (Roo, time for a "we told you so" moment, don't you think? ) though the likes of Lamela, Chadli, Paulinho, Capoue need more work. The defence needs working with, Rose isn't good enough, ALL of our CB's have had some shocking games this season and Walker, while he improved on last season's form, still isn't convincing defensively for me, he's very blessed to have the lightening pace he does as it's bailed him out on many occasions. I wouldn't mind seeing us bid for Micah Richards, think he's a fantastic defender who just unfortunately has the league's best RB in front of him. Although I like Kyle, I think I'd prefer a fit Richards in our starting XI than him and wouldn't mind toying with the idea of a potential swap with City if it was of interest to both parties. Striking position may need tweaking with too. You never know which Ade will turn up, while Soldado has an air of uncertainty over him if Atleti do decide they want him to replace the possibly departing Costa. Kane has proved he's definitely good enough for our squad, it's nice knowing he's from the academy and we haven't had to pay around £6m-£8m for a player who'd play the sort of back up/ 2nd/ 3rd choice role. Though maybe a marquee signing - one that we thought Soldado would be - is required. There aren't too many players around though, some options could be Lukaku or Martinez, though I wouldn't mind seeing bids made for Bony or Remy either, even if the latter has been prone to injuries. Yet again, I seem to say this every season but it could be an interesting Summer, most importantly though, we need to ensure the right man is appointed first of all as otherwise the rest is pointless.
We need some English players - sorry home grown to be precise - we are quite near our minimum already. Sell Lennon and Townsend and we'd probably not be able to replace with 2 foreign players anyway.
for those who paid attention: did tommy carroll do enough at qpr to show he might have a future at Spurs?
Didn't see a single game of QPR this season, only highlights from the FL Show. I think some said he showed his quality at times but didn't take control of the game enough and was too lightweight.
we don't need all these players,for a start we need a manager,he will have his own favorites,hopefully he will go with what we have,with just a few tweeks here and there,they have had a season to adapt now,so i hope they can do better this coming season,keep making wholesale changes and what happened last season will carry on
