It might be more telling to count those that didn't. Anyone...? I wonder when he'll be joining Assou-Ekotto for some light training?
Wouldn't have guessed Adebayor either. Vertonghen seems plausible. Let's see: Chiriches? My experience of, hmmm, I guess I'm about to say something that will sound anti-somebody, so never mind. Well, it's too bad. I think most athletes would do well to give sports psychologists a try. It's so important to be at the top of your mental game and so difficult to do. A good sports psychologist should be able to help a little.
Just give them a copy of Matthew Syed's "Bounce". Makes the point very well that hard work is needed for success more than talent. Motivation above inspiration.
Couple of snippets from the 'ever reliable' Twittersphere. Firstly, Il Tempo (an Italian Newspaper) reports that Adrien Rabiot, a 19 yr old French defensive midfielder and youth international currently at PSG, has agreed a fee to join us in January, choosing Spurs over Roma. Secondly, and continuing the French theme, Stambouli has been singing the praises of Lloris as a player and leader, calling him a hero in goal, a calm leader, a good person, and saying he is on course to become a legend in France. I'm going to hazard a guess that Pochettino has figured that the rest of the squad have more respect for Lloris than they do Adebayor and Kaboul, and that this change in captaincy will be a long-term one.
We were linked with Rabiot in the summer, mostly by L'Equipe. If we have agreed a deal for him, and "if" is the important word in that sentence, it could be a very smart signing: back in the summer he was compared to a hybrid of Capoue, Dembele and Carroll which makes him sound quite similar to Carrick when he played for us, with PSG often using him as a deeper playmaker to thread through balls forward; he can slot into the team while Bentaleb is on ACoN duty so we won't be light in that area; most importantly, it signals we may be moving on some midfield deadwood - Paulinho and Dembele have both been linked with moves away in January, so if they leave and Rabiot comes in we trim some of the fat from the squad and the wage bill.
Bentley was worse. I reckon he must've cost us £25-30mill by the end. At least with Paulinho we won't have him seeing out his contract and never playing.
Barren Dent for me: £16.5m on a player we didn't need, whose style of play didn't fit the team we had, and to play him meant messing around with a strike partnership that was the best in the Premier League at that point. Comolli should've been fired when that deal went through, frankly.
Matthew Etherington has announced his retirement from the game at the age of 33. Decent player when his mind was on the game and he wasn't engulfed in gambling problems. Had a shot at a contract at Millwall at the start of the season, but didn't go through with it, for some reason. Maybe he realised he was done?
I always liked him. Came into the team fairly young down the left at Spurs and impressed. Then he got injured, i think, and never kicked on or regained top form. Was he the makeweight for Davies or vice-versa like Dawson was makeweight for Reid?
