Well, I've called quite a few things correctly in the past - the fall of Coco (at both 'Pool and Chavs), the fall of AVB and Sherwoodie at the Lane, the fate of Goofy, the desertions of Naz and Fab from the Gunners, etc, etc. I'm telling you, Kane is not a top 4 striker and never will be. Bentaleb may prove to be a top 4 midfielder, but he's not yet good enough to be guaranteed a start in a side that has any hope of attaining top 5, let alone top 4. Naughton is not a very good Prem player, but ought to excel in the Championship. Will Poch get the best out of these players. Undoubtedly, yes, but he cannot make silk purses out of pigs' ears. Of the three, Bentaleb may flourish under his stewardship, if he survives long enough to make any difference, and doesn't get the sack in order to disguise Levy's incompetence.
Power isn't suggesting Harry Kane is a top four striker, in terms of him being a player that would slot into any top four team, just like you wouldn't call Barry and Cleverly title midfielders, in terms of being players you sign to win the title but they posses title medals. Players like Kane aren't the issue as to finish top four we need to improve on our leading players, for example we need Eriksen, Adebayor to be outstanding and we need Lamela, Soldado and Paulinho to be great buys. Once you get a core nucleus that are of top quality then players like Bentaleb and Kane can fit in with the team or squad. But that's why we won't finish top four as we don't have outstanding players, too many signings of an average level who have been purchased to be leading players while our rivals buy true quality and aren't interested in value for money.
Agree, rival clubs buy players that will improve their squad and don't worry so much about age, sell on value and wages etc.
We're not going to get top 4 anyway. There's no point thinking ' we can make top 4 if we use last season's signings and they play as well as we dreamed they would play'. The fact of the matter is that they wont, because they are ****. Id rather bring our genunely talented youngsters on and build a proper decent team than a panini sticker album thanks.
Out of our rivals, only Chelsea and Arsenal have signed a player each who I deem "World Class" and of true quality - Fabregas and Sanchez. Cesc is already proven over here where as Sanchez is just a superb player whom I'm sure will set the place alight (unfortunately). The rest of the signings haven't impressed me in terms of value for money or quality or reputation. Liverpool: Lallana at £25m? We have Eriksen. Emre Can? Never heard of him. Markovic - Unproven in a major European league. Lambert - squad player. Chelsea: Felipe Luis had a great season for Atleti but £20m for a soon to be 29 year old LB is way OTT. Diego Costa - £32m... Last season was the first time he scored 20+ in a season, he also only got 3 more league goals than Soldado did in his final season in La Liga. I'm not saying he'll suffer the same first season as Soldado but just trying to put it into perspective. Arsenal: Debuchy - good player but not an upgrade on Sagna. City: Yet to buy someone who'll be a starter, Sagna, Fernando and Caballero will all play back up to Zabaleta, Yaya/ Fernandinho and Hart respectively, luckily for City they can afford to have this sort of talent sitting on the bench. Utd: Shaw for the £30m+ - fantastic young player but for £30m, Soton should be smiling all the way to the bank, for me LB shouldn't be a position that commands such a high transfer fee. Ander Herrera - £24m, be honest how many of you know anything about this lad? For the price paid you'd also expect a seasoned international... Oh wait, 0 caps for Spain. Everton: Barry - great player who's massively underrated by most but at 33, he's not going to be improving. They're my opinions on the business by rivals so far, I'm sure some of you may disagree with my evaluations but do we really have a reason to be so envious of our rivals at the moment? We strengthened massively last summer with big money buys, yes some haven't delivered but we all knew we wouldn't see another Summer like that, if we seal the Davies deal and add a CB, we've got a squad more than capable enough of doing serious damage if Poch can get them to reach their potential, find it hard how some fail to see that.
We didnt strengthen massively last summer tho SOS. In fact the opposite is true, we weakened massively. Also, Man city are not our rivals, they are streets ahead of us, as are chelsea now. Chelsea have got players like oscar and willian who could barerly get in the team at times last season, and mourinho has just gone out and spent 80m quid. Do you really think they are going to be seeing us as rivals this season ? Come on. Man united have got van persie, rooney, mata, a rapidly improving yanuzaj, etc in attack, and a world class manager. Who cares if they paid too much for shaw ? That doesnt give us any advantage on them in the league. The fact is that theyve got him. Blimey, even fellani keeps our lads out of the belgium side. Arsenal have also got ramsey back now btw, and if memory serves they were top of the league last time hew as fit even without sanchez. I for one dont see us having a hope in hell of top 4 this season, and if by some miracle we get somewhere near close, it sure as hell wont be with paulinho and lamella imo.
Completely disagree with that first two sentences Rob. The loss of Bale naturally hit hard but we got in a bunch of very talented players to improve the squad massively. Two of the best young players playing in Europe, a potent forward, a Brazilian who'd come off the back of winning a Confeds Cup while picking up 3rd best player in the tournament, the Romanian captain, a box-to-box/ DM French international and a Belgian winger/ inside forward coming off the back of his best season. At the time there were barely - if any - complaints from Spurs fans once the window slammed shut, many saw it as an amazing window in that we were able to attract the calibre of players we did. Hindsight shows we may have been silly adding too much foreign talent and expecting all to adjust and gel immediately but our squad improved massively and I think with the right guidance, we'll see a huge improvement on last season now the new lads have got a full season behind them coupled with a manager who's done admirably in his time in England so far. Man City aren't our direct rivals but if we're a club with ambition then we have to look at them and hope to one day get on a similar status. What did RVP, Rooney and Mata do for Utd last season? They have Shaw but we'll hopefully soon have Davies, who certainly isn't worth £20m less ability-wise than Shaw, you can also argue that in terms of CURRENT ability, Shaw isn't as good Evra, no doubt in a season or two he will be and should progress to become far superior but as of right now, I think you'd have to say Evra is the better LB and thus have Utd immediately strengthened their first XI? Need to also remember Utd have lost a significant amount of experience this summer in Rio, Giggs and Vidic plus there's talk of Evra going too. Van Gaal is likely to improve them from last season's awful showing but it's not a given and I think everyone can see there's a lot of work to be done at Man Utd, they have a number of bang average players that Fergie somehow managed to make look very good and Moyes unfortunately got hit with the stark reality of how mediocre some are. Van Gaal is going to need an overhaul of players which will likely put them in a transitional period just like we were last season. In the summer of last season, Ramsay was a player Arsenal fans wanted out of the club for not being good enough, that alone should show that a player can have a complete turnaround of fortunes but also shows how quick fans are to forget their previous opinions on a player (hopefully you'll do the same down the line with Paulinho and Lamela). If you mention Ramsay's injury though, then what about us losing Sandro numerous times? What if we had Ade for the whole season? There's a lot of what ifs that can be thrown into the mix for all clubs, ranging from injuries, form, selection and managers. I'm not saying I expect or think we'll get into the top four but I'm certainly not ruling it out either like you and a good few others are.
Thanks for the reply SOS. You make some interesting points. I agree that capoue and chadli were potentially useful, and that chiriches and eriksen look like good players. The problem of course is the big buys, which - even for a first season - were all huge dissapointments last year. I havent ruled out lamella coming good so soon, but personally i think ive reached the point where ive decided pretty much that what little ive seen of him is enough to concludethat he's not all that. I know baldini knows a hell of a lot more than i do about the game, and has watched him a hell of a lot more than me, but im just gng on what ive seen. Based on that, i dont see where the improvement can come from tbh. He just looks average to me, and if he had come out of our academy rather than being a huge money buy, im prety certain that everyone wouod already have been saying try to get rid of him in the livermore deal. Soldado might yet prove to be a useful player in some sort of capacity - he's got good technique and good vision - but he's mot a finisher. If anything he's like a less talented van der vaart, but without the goal scoring ability. Weve got several contenders for that number 10 role, so it's not a must have, but he could still join the likes of capoue and chadli as a useful player to have around. Paulinho on the other hand (and apologies if this offends anyone) is total dirt imo. Yes, i would gladly put my hand up nd say how happy i am to be wrong, but i dont see it in a million years tbh. He somehow put in one great performance against stoke, but equally put in the 2nd worst performance ive ever seen in a spursshirt against west ham, and was genuinely total dross for most of thw season. He's got no first touch and i reckon some players would have better vision than him blindfolded. He did seem to have an engine at least at the start of last season, but even that conked out after a few games. So yes, we've picked up some really useful bits and pieces. But an overall improvement on bale ???! No chance. It was abundantly clear last season that we were a vastly weaker side without him, in spite of these new extra squad players. Give poch the chance to swap those 7 for bale and he would bite your hand off. So, i respect your view, but for me, pauoinho lamella etc wont get us top 4, and i odnt think weve a hope in hell of top 4, but bringing it back to my original point here, i would much much rather watch the yung players who clearly do have talent (ceballos, falque, carroll, kane) develop and possibly build them (and remember theyve played togethor for years) into a team. Anyway, im looking forward to the new season, and the prospect of seeing some young spurs players coming through. Im not hugely optimistic about our league position, but at the end of the day im not too fussed about that. Just looking forward to seeing some footie tbh.
Likewise Rob I'll be the first to admit that the big money buys had a stinker of a season, the only player who truly done themselves justice and has already double/ tripled his value is Eriksen. Chiriches looked good on the ground but he's not strong aerially and I think Capoue looked to have settled well though injuries and the seemingly falling out situation with Sherwood ruined his season. The thing that I personally think is wrong with a lot of your points here mate is that your using and comparing the new foreign lad's first seasons in the Premier League to a player who was in his what, 6th or 7th season with us (?) and by that point had a whole team built around him. Bale showed promising signs in his early days with us even despite his losing streak jinx he still looked a good player in the making, no one quite expected him to become one of the best players in world football but that happened over the course of a number of years, I think it's harsh to write off some of our lads off in just their first. Individually none of them will likely ever reach the level Bale is at now but I really do believe that given time, we have enough talent to build a proper team that won't just need to rely on one player to "Bale" us out in every game like we did when Gareth was here. Lamela has that natural skill that can't be taught and also possesses decent finishing ability as well as good vision. I have massively high hopes for this kid and I think Poch will really help him out. Poch showed he loved his inside forwards at Soton; Rodriguez and Lallana (and Ramirez when fit) all featured on the sides where they'd be cutting inside onto their stronger foot to produce the business and it worked out brilliantly for the club. Lets also not forget both AVB and Sherwood didn't seem to show much faith in the lad, up until his season ending injury in late December, he was in and out the side like a yo-yo, a player can't be expected to improve when he's not getting a proper run of games and doesn't seem to have the faith of a manager. This proved right with Eriksen, under AVB he was rotated a lot with Gylfi and Holtby, yet when Tim came in, Eriksen began to shine due to his consistent starts and showed just what an amazing player he is, I really hope and I do believe Lamela can follow suit given time. Soldado I think is a great finisher yet suffering from a severe lack of confidence, if Poch can find a way of getting him to believe in himself again I think we'll have a great number 9 on our hands. 131 goals in 276 league games in Spanish league football is an impressive stat to have and most strikers would be extremely enviable of that. Paulinho struggled big time but I've mentioned in a few posts before that he may have been severely struggling with fatigue. Since the start of his final season with Corinthians, Paulinho amassed the equivalent of something like 72 games with very little resting time - going from Corinthians to the Confed Cup to joining us to then playing in the World Cup. In reality, fatigue shouldn't be an excuse for professional sportsman but it is and I think he's suffered badly from it. His first month or so with us looked really promising, he was MOTM on his debut vs Palace, got a goal against Tbilisi looked fine in games against Swansea and Arsenal but as the season moved on he started to fade... And fade badly. Yet despite a shocking season, he still managed 6 league goals which isn't such a bad return on a CM who's struggled with life in the Prem. If he can replicate his performances for Corinthians and Brazil (Confed Cup!) then we've got one of the best box-to-box players in football. A big IF but you have to believe in him. I think we should judge these guys at the end of this season, they'd have had 2 years in England by then, a good amount of time to acclimatise and adapt to the demands of the Premier League and they would have had a manager who will hopefully play them in a system they should be able to flourish in. If they've not produced the goods by then, sell them... We wouldn't have lost out on anything anyway (bar a bit of pride and money) as many don't see us getting top 4 so it's not like we would've failed miserably when it comes to reaching targets/ expectations. IF they become the players I believe they can be then I think 2014-2015 can become a very interesting and exciting season for Spurs and the league in general. *fingers crossed eh?!* Lol.
Cheers mate, though Chadli doesn't need defending SD, he's world class! Lol. Joking aside the same does apply though to him, Capoue and Vlad. Another season in England with a manager who'll play a system that will hopefully suit them and we could see the "real" player(s) come through and shine. Only mentioned the other 3 lads in detail as they were the big money buys, not that I'd want to lose money on any player but Nacer's, Vlad's and Etienne's fees combined doesn't equate to Soldado's or Lamela's alone (I think?), we'd pretty much make our money back on them if need be at the end of the season too.
The problem is that we are never going to be able to sign a world class player like Bale or Modric until we are established in the CL. Indeed we will rarely be able to sign players in the world's top twenty in any position as there are more than ten clubs richer than us and they have two or three players in each position. So we have to make our own! So we need to beef up or youth policy and somehow sign the players in the next tier down who will develop into the best. This is a really hard act to pull off but short of creating money out of thin air I can't see an alternative. I think players in the range 20-50 in the world are all much of a muchness so to that extent RobSpur is right that signing 7 players not much better than the six we already had can't make up for Bale's loss. But if we got two players out of the seven who might become World Class then they were very good signings. But this strategy creates other problems, related to HIAG's coments. It's all very well to have players with potential but that doesn't mean they are good enough to get us top 4 now. The only real way to turn the potential into actual is to give them game time which is inevitably going to have short term affects on performance. I think we've got the balance about right though. I think Lloris, Walker, Rose, Chirches, Capoue, Sandro, Eriksen, Holtby, Lamela, Townsend and Chadli are all good enough to play now and have potential to get a lot better. Kaboul, Vertonghen, Paulinho, Dembele, Lennon, Soldado and Ade are solid performers already and any of Archer, Fryers, Bentaleb, Carroll, Pritchard, Ceballos, Falque and Kane could turn into something really great. If Poch can get the right selection of this lot on the pitch we can have a good season and build for the future too
...or Naughton, Kane, Bentaleb, LOLdado, Holtby, etc. We are massively under-strength compared with the likes of United and 'Pool, let alone £ity, Chavs and Arsenal. 6th is the best we should expect, if Poch turns out to be a top manager. My fear, of course, is that 6th (as great an achievement as that would be for Poch with the current squad) will not appease Levy, and that Poch will be sacked this time next season. God forbid that Poch gets off to a slow start, because he could be gone by as soon as the New Year.
You are not being consistent HIAG. Poch currently has exactly the same squad that finished 6th last season where we had two managers you thought were idiots. You've claimed in many places that Liverpool are much weaker. Whey should 6th be harder now? There is also no evidence that Levy makes sacking decisions based on league positions.
Liverpool maybe be weaker, but weaker by the amount they finished above us in the league? Doubt it. Man Utd should also be stronger. So 6th would be a better achievement this year
There is no inconsistency with what I have said. Why should certain scenarios be mutually exclusive? There is no logic in that. Yes, 'Pool are weaker than they were last season, but so are we - we've got a new manager to shoe-horn into the club. There is absolutely no guarantee that Poch is going to be a success. At the moment, I think it's even-stevens between us and 'Pool for 5th/6th, with one choice signing able to make the difference. I don't see us signing anyone of note, so I rather fear that 'Pool will finish above us, again. And you truly believe that Levy doesn't sack on league position? Really? So, you believe that if Sherwoodie had got us top 4, he would still have been sacked? I don't.
