Lloris will go at the end of the season and we will probably make a nice tidy profit on him. Don't worry because we have Vorm as his replacement so in the clubs eyes thats good business.
Interesting discussion. I am completely convinced that we (and this applies to all clubs) sign and release far too many players based on the whim of the coach. If our midfield were Huddlestone, Livermore, Bentaleb, Mason and Carroll then we'd be just as good and about £30m better off.
Man haven't you hit the nail on the head.I will give you 101out of 100 for that! But,ain't it the truth though!!!!!!
Quite aside from AVB's merits or lack of them, it's striking how much both he and Pochettino have struggled using similar systems with Spurs that seem to work better every other place they try them. I'm starting to think there's something in Spurs' DNA that wants to play a counterattacking 4-4-2.
But there is hardly any Spurs DNA in the squad....... We do have a longstanding history of signing apparently high quality players who under-achieve in practice. Van der Vaart is an interesting example, one of the best technical players we've ever had but he has never made it properly at a top ten club so perhaps something is lacking. I certainly can't imagine him in a Ferguson or Mourinho squad.
The sort of team-oriented, defend-from-the-front style we’re trying to play ("playing" would be too strong a word to describe what we’re doing. I’m not so sure "trying to play" may not be too strong a phrase, for that matter) depends on everyone working with a will, as a team, with trust in each other to perform their roles properly. A team of players who underachieve in practice is just the sort that won’t do this effectively. We’ve got a team that can’t get themselves ready for kickoffs, for God’s sake. On the other hand, the laid back 4-4-2 Sherwood played suited these rather talented but unfocussed players well. If one or two players weren’t doing what they should have been doing, there were enough back already it was less likely to result in disaster. Mourinho selling Mata was a signal that everyone had to be committed to his system or they wouldn’t play. It’s tempting to say Pochettino needs to do the same thing. I would say that at the least, we aren’t ready for it yet, and should play a system that suits the squad we have. We can’t just go out and buy the players we need to suit the system the way Chelsea did. There is an argument to be made for biting the bullet now to benefit in the future, but I don’t think it’s a good one. It makes more sense to me to play a 4-4-2 for now, score more, win more, sell some, buy some, and work towards a squad that can pull off a higher energy system.
And they'd all have had more game time, all have more experience and understanding of one another's games. I really think the old "bird in the hand..." thing with transfers a lot. If you have a player and you know that they're even only competent at this level then really it needs to be a very good reason to go to the trouble of signing his replacement. A good majority of transfers are basically flops. But those players who, when you look, say, five years down the line, at their contribution/ability together with transfer fee and you think "decent signing" - they're really worth holding on to.
We often lose players before that 5 year period though. The vast majority of our signings are either plucked away after a year or two in the limelight by bigger/richer clubs, or they're flops. We rarely keep a player who performs consistently well for longer than 2 or 3 years.
The departures of Modric and Bale certainly exacerbated this. There was no like for like replacement so we ended up buying about ten players to generally strengthen the squad which left no place for some of the current ones and some of the judgements were bound to go wrong. But we usually have three or four in and three or four out in most windows which is ridiculous. I still hark back to the 60 and 70s where one signing a season was the norm and the same XI played every week. I get why the extra pace means the squad should be larger but two signings a season would be fine with me if we've not lost a world class player.
I agree with this wholeheartedly, but unfortunately we have a recent track record of selling our brightest and best. Yes they go for big money but selling Elvis and buying 'The Beatles' (if only) doesn't appear to be working very well. We're just not in a position to keep the rare World Class players we get a hold of.
Oh yeah, sure. But even those who don't hang around for 5 years you can still make a judgement of whether they were a good purchase or not. I only mention 5 years cos it's good to have that circumspect judgement that you only get with time. It might take a while for us to realise that someone who was only here for one or two seasons was a good purchase overall. Plus I want to say five years so that Khumalo still has a chance of being our best ever signing. Thinking about Bale and King perhaps the kind of player we're after is someone who's clearly excellent but just injured a lot and therefore unable to play - that should keep the bigger clubs away. (I'm thinking about Bale's early career with us). It's when they get on the pitch and show how good they are that we start having problems (again - maybe this explains Khumalo. If he ever got a game Real Madrid would see how good he is and pluck him away from us. Safer to loan him to Doncaster Rovers and the like).
Bear in mind that Bale's stock is dropping and Khumalo's just come off the back of a monster season with Doncaster Rovers. Levy isn't stupid.
