Sky said yesterday that The bid for Son was 18m Reports regarding Saido have suggested that WBA want £30m. (Will probably end up settling for slightly less) Seriously... **** that. He just isn't worth it. Like you guys have said, west brom can deny it as much as they like, but they have to sell. Surely they can't afford to keep 5 strikers on their books? And like boss says, they could do with the berahino funds to get their own targets. I read last night that levy has agents working tirelessly at the moment and we're really pushing for deals.
I know getting ones hopes up with Levy in a transfer window is a bad idea, but we still have a few days to sort things. One thing I've come to realise with Levy is that we will sell enough, (so we're not out of pocket) before we buy. - And to be fair, we've done a good job of that this window. There's only 2 or 3 left and we've cleared about £350-400k off the wage bill. In the past he's not done a good enough job of sorting any of the deadwood fast enough, or he's demanded too much money. But in this window we've taken a loss on several players, which could be an indication that he's had to bite the bullet. If the Son transfer is well underway, deals for our other targets aren't that difficult, even if we leave it till deadline day. We've been asked to keep informed over Austin apparently. - He can easily be completed on deadline day, should we decide to go for him. He's round the corner and wont have to travel far to complete a transfer/medical Same goes for Wanyama if he kicks up enough of a fuss and Southampton decide to sell. - he's only on the south coast. But what we need to be seeing NOW is the likes of Fazio, Lennon and Ade gone to free up some more cash and wages. If they're all still here on deadline day, I feel 5 bits of business (2 in 3 out) will be too much, and will end in disappointment.
Agree about clearing out the deadwood. There is, of course, another argument about how and why we seem to always end up with so much deadwood! My concern is that, as usual, everything has been left until the very last minute meaning that we're effectively starting the season 5-6 points behind ( could be more after the weekend!). Whereas if we had our targets sorted out early ( earlier) in the window, we'd have a stronger and settled side to begin the new season with, and may well have got off to a far better start. Those missed points could be crucial come the end of the season.
I think that Lennon will be off to Everton after we play them. West Ham are looking desperate for a striker so Adebayor may also go I think Fazio will end up staying cos I can't see were West Brom have left themselves any wriggle room with him regarding personal terms. Lamela looks gone which is good for all Southampton will not sell Wanyama (excuse spelling) after saying no more players will be sold so I don't have a clue if we have a chance of signing a DM.
'Arry boy thinks the Berahino deal will get done - just a matter of the price. Normally, I'd treat this as just another opinion, but I remembered that Harry & Pulis know each other well. http://www.spurs-web.com/spurs-news/saido-berahino-join-spurs-transfer-deadline-redknapp/
completely agree mate. we've been saying that for years now. Please don't quote me on this (or crucify me), as i can't completely remember exactly what it said, but I saw a stat the other day, which i've just looked for and cant find, but it said something like "in the last "x" number of years spurs have missed out on CL football by an average of 5.6 points. Their late business in August/first few games has caused them to drop an average of 6 points". (somebody please feel free to tell me that's wrong). It's not just signing the players now after 3-4 games thats the issue though. It's the fact they need settling in which takes even longer!
If you sign six players a year, four of them won't be successful. It's simple maths really as you have to pay over the odds to get the selling club interested and you are less likely to know their value than the selling club in any case as they have an information advantage over you as they see them in training every day. I agree with your second point but its only part of the story. None of us have a full picture of who we've been trying to buy and what has happened in the window so far. We may have been in for far better players than Berahino and not been successful. Say we'd been negotiating for someone else and it fell through a week ago because he decided to join another club. What you are effectively saying is that it would have been a better plan to pay over the odds to get a worse player early than try for a better player at the start. All the evidence is that Levy knows how to run a football club better than any other chairman, never mind the likes of us. We are the only club who is consistently challenging for the top four despite much lower resources, while also massively improving the youth set up and building a new stadium. And yet people think he is somehow so stupid that he doesn't appreciate the advantages of early signings.
PS, I agree, I think it's unrealistic to think that we'll have our signings completed at the start of July, of course. - We're not Chelsea or City and can't pay whatever for whoever. But do you not think we should have most of our incomings done by the time the season kicks off?
Cheers ... hadn't heard that Kind of feel for Fazio as he has not had a settled run in the side...getting rid of hkm seems a bit premature
I actually think we've now taken a bit of power in the Berahino saga. Prior to our Son bid, WBA knew they pretty much had Levy over the barrel as it seemed as though we were desperate to get Saido with no other options in the pipeline. Now, out of the blue, we've had a bid accepted for Son which, if you believe reports, looks likely to be completed very soon and so it seems we've now added an attack minded player - who may or may not be an alternative to Saido (though Jeremy Peace isn't going to know if he is or isn't) and so now WBA are left with an unhappy player, who's been excluded from the past two squads, has handed in a transfer request and most importantly unfollowed WBA on Twitter (). He may also not be the subject of any further bids from us which could ultimately leave WBA in a bit of a pickle. I think WBA need to sell Saido now, too many bridges have been burnt for him to stay there, their fans will likely boo him if he steps out at The Hawthorns and he himself may not be willing to give 100% to the team. If he isn't sold by Tuesday then I think his price will seriously decrease in further windows and WBA will naturally lose out, especially as there's only 2 years left on his deal. I think if Levy bids the same amount as his second bid, WBA may begrudgingly accept. For what it's worth I sympathise with them, because we know exactly how it feels when your key players become ****ers and throw tantrums (Saido certainly hasn't done himself any favours if I'm honest, though I still want him at Spurs) but there always comes a point where realistically you have to sell when you have this sort of scenario, otherwise you're left with an unhappy player, who can damage squad morale while also decrease in value in months to come.
Firstly, I'd venture to suggest that if four out of every six signings that you make are unsuccessful, you should have a long, hard look at your scouting system! Something is radically wrong with it! On the second point, I'd agree if this was a one off, due to extraordinary circumstances. But, it's not, it's the same old dithering and last minute panic every year. I'd agree that Levy knows how to control finances, and he's a tough negotiator Apart from that, I have serious doubts as to his competence to handle the everyday running of a club. His managerial appointments have been almost universally disastrous, and if he has any understanding of the point about getting settled and off to a better start to the season, it apparently isn't high on his priority list.
The problem for Faz is that he dropped to third choice in the pecking order last season as Dier became Jan's partner at CB towards the tail end. With the additions of Toby and Wimmer, his chances of featuring even in cup competitions would be bleak, so cashing in is pretty much the only option.
That old discussion we've all had on here a million times about him. - Good financially but is he the right man to be making footballing decisions?
I think its an utterly deplorable way to do business but unsettling players is much more pleasant for me than having ours unsettled. I approve........................and disapprove (admittedly i think WBA helped unsettle their own player by making the bids public)
The first half of your statistic is right, we've been exactly 5.6 points off the CL on average over the last few seasons. The second part is completely wrong though. In those seasons we have dropped 24 points in the 14 matches before the window closed, but on average that's only half a point a match worse than our average record (we get about 1.75 points per match on average). Interestingly our record over the first six matches is almost exactly the same as our record over the whole season so the settling in doesn't seem to matter. Taking the seasons individually, I think only in 2012/13 could you make a case that the early matches cost us as we dropped 7 points over three relatively easy matches and missed out by 2 points.
