Holtby's Hamburg SV have stayed in the Bundesliga via the playoff they have there. VDV played too. What bearing that has on his future with us I cannot say.
The papers seem to be convinced that our summer business is entwined with Palace's: yesterday the Wail reported that Palace were looking to sign Adebayor, today The Sun is reporting we'll offer cash + Townsend for Bolasie. Give it a day or two before The Mirror reports that we're going to be loaning them Fredericks next season...
Well, we are in desperate need of an LM. Only Eriksen, Chadli, Lamela, Townsend, Rose, Kane, Paulinho and Dembele are better there or in the middle.
...but apparently we've got room for one more, as Foot Mercato are saying we're in talks to bring in Andre Ayew on a free transfer. I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only one who'll say that, while Chadli can be a passenger at times and rarely helps out on the defensive side of things, his position is one we don't need to upgrade this summer - unlike central defence, the defensive side of the central midfield pivot, plus actual cover for Kane and Eriksen.
Agreed hbic. Now we've signed a CB we need a RW, cover for Eriksen, a backup striker assuming Ade leaves and Soldado stays and a CM to play in the '2' in that order. In terms of outgoings we'll probably lose Kaboul, Chiriches and maybe even one more CB (Fazio?), Paulinho, Capoue, Lennon, Holtby, and if Trippier comes in then Walker permanently or Yedlin on loan. I would sell Dembele too if a good bid came in but I know others will disagree.
For me Dembele would be high up the list of players to sell for the simple reason that we now know, without doubt, what we have on our hands in him in a way that, to be honest, we still do not with the likes of Paulinho, Capoue. He just simply is not effective enough in any way. He doesn't add enough defensive strength, he doesn't offer nearly enough going forward. We'd probably get alright money too since he's, er, proven in the Premiership (proven to be what I'm not too sure but proven for sure). I know that we all know that if we could get our X-Box controllers out and be his brains for him then he would easily cruise through from midfield to attack causing all kinds of problems. But he just doesn't and just won't (apparently). He's been here long enough that I think we can conclude that it's just not going to click for him. Only argument against selling him would be that there are so many players worse/even less likely to play than him who we should sell first and we could do without another mass overhaul this summer.
I agree for the most part on what we need. I probably wouldn’t change the front four. They’re young, they scored at a good clip. There’s a good case for giving them a chance to improve. I think we need a really pacey player on the right, except, perhaps, if Yedlin can step in next year, which I think is unrealistic. Lennon would be a stopgap, but considerably better than nothing, I think. A pacey striker would be great if available. There’s some reason to hope that Lloris, Rose, Vertonghen, Dier, Bentaleb, perhaps, Chadli, Erikson, Lamela perhaps and Kane could soon become or already are genuinely good players. The big question is how many players we’ll shift. I still have hopes Dembele could be the answer at DM, as might Stambouli. I’m pretty sure Capoue, Ade, Paulinho, Soldado, Fazio and Kaboul would be better sold than kept. We probably want to give Carroll, Pritchard, and other young players priority on squad player spots. Could Pritchard or Carroll spell Eriksen? We certainly need cover for him and Kane instead of running them down again.
Berbatov's been released by Monaco, so how long before somebody reports he'll be Kane's understudy next season?
Belgium up to #2 in the FIFA rankings, due entirely to Spurs’ gracious willingness to let three key members of the squad train together here. What does that have to do with the thread? Sign Alderweireld! Keep Dembele!
Pirlo has just agreed to go there too. How I would have loved to have him, even just for one season. But I suppose the lure of working for the Yankee dollar is very strong!
The papers are going wild with speculation because Bentaleb's contract talks are somehow still ongoing. Mercifully there's plenty of speculation about Fallout 4 doing the rounds today, so I've been reading that instead.
I saw a "story" yesterday saying that, though Poch wants to keep him, offers in the region of 30m for Lamela would be accepted by Levy. In other news it is believed that offers of 2m for my mangy cat would be accepted and Popes very possibly **** in the woods (or something). Anyway - why is the transfer window not open til July? Has it been this way for a while but World Cups and general apathy and/or forgetfulness masked it? Surely not.
The Polish media are reporting we signed Lech Pozlan central midfielder Karol Linetty for €4m A bit of poking around on Google says he's versatile, being able to play as a central midfielder, holding midfielder, or as an attacking midfielder, and there's comparisons with both Sneijder and Modric.
Thats our alleged new man scoring a handy goal against Legia Warsaw, I think. We'll have to see if this actually comes to anything.
If we have signed him (and I said IF...) he could understudy both Eriksen and Bentaleb, so he'd get games in both roles during the season - although my main hope is that he won't be shoving Carroll down the pecking order. In other words, I expect to see a Karol/Carroll pivot at some point next season.
I'm only surprised we didn't see it earlier. Maybe because it would obviously be a bad move for Kane, Man U and especially for Spurs. With the PL rocketing into funny money profits, it might not escape Daniel Levy's understanding that Bale was sold for much less than he turned out to be worth. Of course there's a risk Kane will turn out to be a one season wonder. But if he can continue to develop he eventually will be worth a sum which would seem mind boggling to everyone at the moment, including me. Not to mention all the harmful things which would happen to Spurs by selling a very young player to a PL rival. So he's half Modric, half Schneider for 4 million. Okay. I don't really get our latest, relatively cheap buys. I'd be against them, except the one hit, Dier, has been worth all the misses. Wimmer makes sense since Vertonghen needs a decent backup. But why would we get another central squad player when we're swimming in them already? I'm coming to the conclusion the problem with last year's team was the Bentaleb Mason pair. Neither one was really a DM. Wouldn't we be better off with a real DM (Stambouli or arguably Dembele) plus a real deep lying playmaker (Carroll or arguably Mason)?
