Never mind the quality of our squad, what about the quality of our posters! Two great posts which outline our position at the start of this season better than anything I have read in the papers.
The Torygraph have run this : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...layers-in-desperate-attempt-to-cut-squad.html Make of it what you will. I reckon there are at most two players Pochettino really wants to sign this summer. And even if he did get them, it would only require a like-for-like player sale and not a wholesale squad purge.
This is less ridiculous than it sounds. The claim is actually that we're looking to sell around 5 and that there are around 11 players who we would be willing to sell were the right offer to come in. Or, if you like, we want to sell Assou-Ekotto, we're looking for a replacement for Naughton, we're happy to offload one of Dawson/Chiriches, we're willing to let go one or two of Capoue/Sandro/Dembele (presumably we'd only sell two if we brought one more in) and one of Lennon/Townsend/Chadli. We're also willing to listen to offers for Soldado if we can get a replacement in. That could amount to five players leaving from the list of 11 and doesn't seem so implausible. They might not have got absolutely right who's on the "offload/listen to offers" list and who's on the "keep in all circumstances" list, but again, it's not absurdly off the mark
I believe the Pochettino '25 squad max' stuff. Simply because if he is putting more faith in the kids, then there will be less game time for fringe over 21 squad members. Needing to purge the squad for wage reasons is just laughable. Levy has kept the wage bill at the 90m baseline three seasons running. Regardless of who has been on the squad roster in those seasons.
The other day they were running a story saying Poch wanted the squad reduced to 25...without specifying if that meant 25 players over 21, or 25 in total. Frankly, that story just sounds like they copied and pasted a few of the transfer rumours of the summer together and called it news - it's likely Dawson, Chadli and BAE will be sold if we find a buyer and/or they stop digging their heels in, and it's possible Chiriches might go to Roma to free up some money after bringing in Musaccio, but Naughton won't be leaving anytime soon with Walker out until mid-September and and deal for Yedlin having him remain with Seattle until the end of the MLS season, and the Schneiderlin trail seems to have gone cold so that's yet another good reason to keep hold of The Beast.
Apparently we've offered £9.5 mill for Guarin but Milan want Soldado too which I hope doesn't go through. Guarin yes but with Bobby.......no.
""I’ve been back for just over one week and I feel good,” said Paulinho, who has been enjoying a well-earned rest after a near two year playing stint that started with his final season at Corinthians before taking in last summer’s Confederations Cup, a gruelling first campaign here at Spurs and then the recent World Cup finals." Taken from the OS. This was something I mentioned quite a few times as to reasons why Paulinho wasn't at his best. Here's hoping the rest has done him good and we can see the real Paulinho.
Exactly. It's a reasonable sounding claim because the list is one that pretty much every fan could have drawn up as well(give or take a couple of names) and with a new manger it's understandable that much of a squad that has recently performed poorly would have a price. It's a bit of a cheap dig in the article to suggest we might be desperate, though. Kagawa, Nani, Young, Zaha, Hernandez, Welbeck, Cleverley and Varela. See there's a list of 8 players United are likely open to offers for, does that make them desperate too?
We had a pretty similar problem with Pav in his first season: when we signed him he'd played half a Russian Premier League season (which starts in March), a couple of UEFA Cup games in February, a Russian Cup match in August - and several games of a European Championship in the middle of all that. Similar can be said for Sandro, given when he'd arrived he'd played one full Brazilian season (May to December), a run to the Copa Libertadores final (February to August) and half of another Brazilian season (May to August) before he arrived.
Pav was such of an enigma. The guy was one of the best strikers of a ball with both feet I've seen yet had a horrendous first touch and was often inconsistent. If he could've performed on a more consistent basis (and worked on that first touch!) then he genuinely could've been a top, top striker. Sandro took a while to settle, often considered a back up to Parker or competition for Palacios/ Jenas/ Huddlestone, then came into his own at the end of the 11/12 season and then started 12/13 superbly before getting the injury.
Inconsistency amongst our strikers has been a feature for some years now. We missed out on Arshavin and had Pav as a second choice but was Arshavin any better? Oh for a Clive Allen.
