I think we are building for the title but its a lot slower process than one season. If every year we can sell a one or two players for £10m more than they are worth and buy one or two for £10m less than they are worth then that creates £20m of squad value a year which is more than our new stadium will do. But it will still take a few years to catch Chelsea, City and Utd.
A club like us has much deeper issues when challenging for the title, under lined by the fact we haven't won the title since the 60's even with us having some fabulous teams along the way, just sadly we're no longer a cup team as we sort of made up for the lack of league success by being a cup team. Now its neither! I'm all for building for the title but lets see if we can cement ourselves as a top four team first and a established champions league club.
The problem is that you have to be solid and consistent as well as fabulous to win the title and no Spurs manager has achieved that since Nicholson. Every time one tries he gets lambasted for not playing the Spurs way! We don't win the cups because the managers stake everything on getting into the CL and don't take them seriously enough. You are right that the next step is getting back into the CL and then staying there both of which require the right mix of solidity, consistency and flair.
Southampton's chairman has just told SSN that Schneiderlin and Rodriguez are going nowhere in this window, completely contradicting all of the reports that they're due to sign for us. It'll be interesting to see how this turns out, as he'll look like a complete idiot if they go now.
I hope he's right. Bringing in players just because the manager has worked with them before is completely pointless in my opinion. Let Poch work like any non-football manager and get the best out of the team he has inherited rather than bringing his mates in
Schneiderlein is a weird one for me, i don't know enough about him to have an opinion but the fee is massive. I'd take a punt on JRod if we can get him for a good price though, even though he's out. Good player and we need goal scoring options.
An odd time to bolt the gate, given most of the horses have already legged it down the M40 or the M3.
Schneiderlin and rodriguez not coming...I can't help thinking "thank **** for that"... between £40 - £50m for these 2...no thanks imo
On balance I'm glad if we don't get them. I'd be happier to hear a couple of our players going. But...Rodriguez is actually a good fit, if we could have gotten him at a decent price. We need another possibility as a leading scorer, since of the three we have, Ade is up one year, down the next, Soldado lost his scoring touch last year, and Kane is very inexperienced, even though he's looked good in his few starts. To have someone who can also play on the wing, where he might work out well if one or more of those three plays as well as can be hoped, would be ideal. But 50 million for both? Let's hope they can keep that gate bolted.
I've thought this too. The only one I truly believe belongs at the top level is Shaw, the rest have had decent seasons but imo aren't good enough for any side that wants CL football.
Schneiderlin's most recent Twitter contribution may suggest a u-turn by the Saints: https://twitter.com/SchneiderlinMo4/status/494177493155606528 Morgan SchneiderlinVerified account ‏@SchneiderlinMo4 6 years of an amazing journey #saintsfc DESTROYED in 1 hour !!! Doesn't sound very happy, whatever he's referring to. Transfer request incoming, I think. Edit: Posts on the Southampton board suggest that it was all on, then he was told over the weekend that they'd changed their mind. Went in today with his representatives and put in a request, but was still told no. Stormed off and posted the above on Twitter.
Kinghotspur As a season ticket holder at St. Mary's I think your assessment is well wide of the mark. Shaw has matured in to the best English left back in the country after coming from nowhere in the space of two years. Lallana has been recognised a technically accomplished since we were playing in Division One and has made strides every season whilst consistently being out most creative player. Again, he is easily the most creative English midfield player at the moment and is probably the one player we had who could be guaranteed to transform a match. In my opinion, both players were worth what was paid. Both Shaw and Lallana will be England regulars and probably represent out best players to have emerged since the days of Gareth Bale. Lovren effectively shored up a pretty variable defence and was instrumental in ensuring that Saints did not crumble whereas we would have crumbled in earlier seasons. As for Chambers, I would agree and think arsenal have paid over the odds for our second choice RB albeit he seems to have a lot of potential. Almost as big a loss is Pochettino. I feel that he will radically transform Spurs from a team that tends to under-achieve in the PL to genuine contenders. You will be staggered at the improvement in your squad if he performs the same kind of revelations that saw Nigel Adkins' saints team look like relegation candidates to one which has probably paid the best football in the EPL for the last 18 months. It is a massive coup for Spurs. As far a MS is concerned, he appears to have posted comments on twitter this evening contradicting the earlier statement issued by Ralph Krueger and is suggestive that he is looking to quit Saints. Again, he is a flare player with exceptional vision and distribution albeit his goal scoring record is woeful. He also doesn't mess around with his tackles. J-Rod is someone who has blossomed under Poch and looks likely to improve albeit we have only had his services one season and tends to use his pace to reek havoc. I would tend to prefer Lambert but I still think there are few English forwards as good as him . Lambert was been an exceptional talent and I would have to argue is the most improved English footballer of the last ten years. An amazing talent. It's funny how the larger clubs tend to belittle Saints yet , as an aggregate, we have probably had the best collection of British players within our ranks since Man Utd's Class of '92. (Walcott, Oxlade Chamberlain, Bale, Lallana, Lambert, Shaw, Ward- Prowse, Chambers, etc, etc.) had we kept these players together, we would have provided most of the England team. Next season watch our for Matt Targett and Harrison Reed - the latter already drawing comparisons to Paul Scholes and apparently being monitored by Man utd. How many players have Spurs or Arsenal developed? Wouldn't mind arguing that Wenger had probably ruined more English players than he has brought on. Walcott hasn't achieved what most Saints fans would have anticipated when we sold him.
Disagree, I think it helps to have a player or two that have worked with the manager for awhile as they know what he wants and the manager knows what he'll get from them. Schneiderlin wouldn't have been my choice personally, as I'd sooner keep Sandro as a starter, but I think we have to help the new manager in bringing in what he believes is best for his system. I like Rodriguez and think he'd fit in well. We might be quite highly stocked in wide attacking players at the moment but I'm not sure they're capable of scoring 15 goals in a season like Rodriguez. Sounds like Southampton are shutting up their shop for the summer though. I hope this is resolved quickly so we can move on, we really don't need this dragging out all through the transfer window.
I remember us being linked with him when he was maybe 21 and was consistently surprised that nobody went in for him when Southampton were in the lower leagues. Considering their financial situation, he could've been picked up for a very reasonable fee, rather than the inflated on that Liverpool paid for him. Don't get me wrong, he'll be good for them, but I'm struggling to work out what their system's going to be in the coming campaign.
We didn't need to sale when we were ascending the leagues. All the players had bought in to Cortese's vision that we could cement a position for ourselves in the top half of the EPL. The problem for us is that Cortese left and this destroyed the confidence in the club especially as the expenditure required to take us to thee higher level was going to be curtailed. Lallana will probably achieve more than either O-C or Walcott and I would not be surprised if Liverpool struggle to retain him this time next year. He is the most technically brilliant English footballer of his generation.
