Worst accurate ITK ever? http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/33238538 Hey, it was true, but who cares?! In other Don't Care News, Tomislav Gomelt is having a trial with Rubin Kazan with a view to a free move. Cheltenham Town have signed two former Spurs players, Jack Munns and Jack Barthram. DeAndre Yedlin has called the rumours about him crazy, so he might not be going out on loan. Either that or nobody's told him. Edit: More ex-Spurs rumours, as Nathan Byrne has joined the list of academy lads linked with QPR. Swindon are apparently asking for £1m for the League One Team of the Year right-back. Levy did a Levy and stuck a 50% sell-on clause in the deal, so they need an inflated price.
If somebody didn't find football journalists to be needlessly contrary fist magnets, here's two stories posted on the same day by people employed by the same corporation... Sunday Times - Toby Alderweireld tells friends he is close to joining Spurs Some Sky Sports bod - Toby Alderweireld tells Atletico he wants to join Southampton All we need is The Sun to report he told his hairdresser that he'll be joining Chelsea and we'll have the full set.
Watford are getting linked to a few of our cast-offs: Kaboul and Capoue on permanent deals, plus Paulinho on loan. Let that be a lesson to all Championship clubs: if you sign one of our cast-offs on a free, if you get promoted the papers will expect you to pay for a few more!
More twitter gossip: an agent called Muzzi Ozcan is tweeting about good news for Spurs coming up shortly. Given the previous content of his tweets its either going to be about Konoplyanka coming in (a transfer that I was at one time very much in favour of, especially considering its on a free, but have now gone off it quite a bit) or outgoings to the Turkish league or West Ham. Could be nothing, could be something. Who knows.
We've been strongly linked with Hoffenheim's 22-year old striker Kevin Volland, who scored eight goals in the Bundesliga last season and has so far scored two in the Euro U21s, and he certainly looks like a good fit for Poch's system as he can play up front or on the right and has been compared to Xherdan Shaquiri ...just kidding, I'm waiting to see how long before this shows up on NewsNow!
Nope. It's actually Guangzhou Evergrande. I think somebody's spellcheck created the other name! They've already got a number of Brazilians on their books, including the exotically named Alan. They're captained by ex-Charlton and Celtic midfielder Zheng Zhi, who was particularly good in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Rush Hour 2. Kevin Wimmer's decided to get the supporters on his side by posting this: Seems sensible enough. He's in Ibiza though, judging by the posting information, so let's hope that he doesn't do a Grealish.
I've heard some quite remarkably creative accounting for this being viable: in 2013 you would get three real to the pound, but now it's more like five real to the pound, so based on that we'd be breaking even - but that only works if we agreed a fee of R$52m and we were paying that in installments, and I'm sure that's just too much of a stretch even with Levy's financial witchcraft.
I dunno -aren't all transfer fees paid in installments, pretty much? Very occasionally the press decide to emphasise it for random transfers but AFAIK that's the standard way of doing things.
I don't get the comparison, apart from them both being left footed. I'd be delighted if we got Volland though, he's a player I've rated for awhile.
Twitter claiming the following: We've given up on Schneiderlin as Saints want 24m for him (this is a rumour as Man Utd have stepped in - ITKs claim we're still interested) Konoplyanka is apparently on his way to London for a medical with us (free agent now) I could think of many worse wingers we could sign and spend money on - Kono is free so I'm not too unhappy if this is true
I've heard that The Goons are still interested, despite having Coqulin. It seems we're out of it as no C.L. Some say Utd are favourites, others saying Whinger will swing it his way. Looks like we won't get him, so I don't really give a toss.
Is this the level of excitement we have to live with now? How much more would we be looking forward if we made a VDV level signing
I’m not excited about Konopyl... either, but if he’s right sided, as I believe, and fairly pacy, it checks a couple of boxes. I’d like to see Townsend on the left, where he seems to be much better. So far we have two under the radar types who have in common being defenders, and being young and eager. Pochettino does need those types to make his system work, so it makes sense. As to marquee signings, we shall see. Are they really helpful? It seems to me that both ourselves and LIverpool have had scads of them lately, and they haven’t helped. We need another striker, and all sorts of names have been thrown around. I have to admit I’d love to get Berahino. But how about a proven goal scorer in the PL, a big presence, with an eye for a pass who can hold the ball up well? Or is Ade on his way to Galatasaray? A Schneiderlin would seem just what the doctor ordered for our midfield. But is he so good, or is much of his quality the quality of a team which has developed with him as its linchpin? Marquee signings and giving our young players a chance are at odds with each other, with Alderweireld vs. Dier a case in point. I’d love to see Alli and Pritchard get runs. Carroll too. Any of them might just be too good not to play. I would like Alderweireld if we could get him, mostly because we’d instantly have the veteran CB pairing good teams need, rather than relying on one developing between Dier and Vertonghen. We need another striker/pacy, right sided player, I think, and Pochettino seems to want another DM. We’ll have to see how high profile they are.
