There's two major factors that count against Baldini... i.) His approach to signing players seemed to be more a case of "Who I can sign?" rather than "Which players will fit into the team?" Paulinho is the perfect example of this as he lacked the strength and positioning to play in central midfield, yet also lacked the passing and intelligence to play in the attacking trio - but we signed him for £19m ii.) His approach in the transfer market that summer went against the club's usual transfer strategy, as we paid over the odds for Soldado, Lamela and Paulinho - Comolli made a similar mistake in 2008, and by "similar" were merely paid over the odds for Pavluychenko and Bentley Another way to look at it is the centre backs Baldini bought, and how they fit in with the transfer ethos: £8.5m for Chiriches, even though we should've been aware of his propensity to derp £8m for Fazio - although this was more due to Moreno picking up a long-term injury while Musaccio's price ballooned due to third-party shenanigans £4m for Dier, who is the only centre back who fits in with our usual transfer strategy When the reigns were handed over to Mitchell, and we needed to replace Kaboul and Chiriches, the signings were very different: £11.5m for Alderweireld, who has slotted in beautifully £4.3m for Wimmer, who has looked like a smart signing thus far Similar can be said in other positions: Alli was signed for £5m yet already looks more valuable to the team than Paulinho or Capoue ever did, and though we paid big for Son the money seems to have been well spent as he has slotted into the team almost immediately.
Despite what you read on here we've got quite a good record in the transfer market. Transfermarkt value our squad at more than we paid for it and we've broken even on sales and purchases for many years. I don't think this is true for many clubs.
Turns out Modric's transfer involved some shady dealings: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/real-madri...agreb-corruption-2008-move-tottenham-1521666?
There's always been those who believe Levy's faith in the DoF system has more to do with putting an additional buffer zone between himself and things that happen on the pitch. The manner in which both Comolli and Baldini were disposed of does little to dispel this belief.
There's been ongoing accusations about corruption in Croatian football deals for years. Lyon's 7-1 with over Dinamo in 2011 was the most bent game I've ever seen, too. UEFA refused to investigate it, despite one of the defenders laughing it up with his opponents during the game. Obviously this has nothing to do with the story and definitely didn't influence the result, but Mark Clattenburg was the ref that day... Our friends at Ajax were the team that got stiffed and their game against Real was notable for some very dodgy calls by the officials. Vertoghen and Eriksen were in the team, as they had two perfectly good goals chalked off with the score at 1-0 to Real.
He treats Spurs like a normal company and wants capital spending of £m with someone accountable. There are almost no 'managers' in football who can be trusted with that.
Jason Burt made a similar point about Baldini. He assumes Baldini was in charge of our transfer activity(I'm not convinced) and points out that when we arrived he were 5th, we finished 5th last season and are currently 5th(well we were at the time) which is what you'd expect considering we've made no net transfer spend whilst he's been here. I'm not excusing some of the buys, or saying that essentially breaking even should be our goal in the transfer market but the spending has been nowhere near as bad as pundits like Jamie Redknapp like to pretend. Now we just need to sign a ****ing striker
If the stars be read correctly and this is the year Lamela remembers that he is first and foremost a professional footballer, not a stunt double in 'Aladdin', we'd essentially hit 3 successes out of the Magnificent 7, which I think many of us were realistically prepared to accept. What still riles many fans (myself included) is the fact that 2 of the 5 flops were record breaking fees at time of signing. For that kind of money you expect instant results and for that reason, the fact that it's taken Lamela so long to find his feet leads me to argue that he'd better have one heck of a season this year to make up for it.
http://www.skysports.com/football/n...ash-with-monaco-and-sidelined-for-a-few-weeks "maybe a few weeks" Pochettino says. It was a muscle injury in his foot sustained during a challenge, seems to be the gist of it. Small muscle tear, maybe? I certainly hope he’ll be back soon.
Really bad news. Spurs are always a little vague with regards to injuries and how long players will be out for, watching the interview with pochettino it made me feel like it could be worse than there saying. I remember dembele getting injured no more than 10 foot away from me in the Everton game and he was clearly in alot of pain, Poch said he might be back for the next match and he's still not ready. Then there was the 3 months Danny rose to get over his stubbed toe.
I'm still not impressed with Soldado even though Villareal are up at the top of the Spanish League.Some of those lower Spanish teams would have trouble playing same of our Sunday morning league teams! By the way,do you think Bayern Munich will play their reserves against Arsenal.....like Spurs did?
I'd prefer Njie to start games rather than Chadli. I know starting from the left probably isn't his strongest position but from the little I've seen of him thus far, there's quite an exciting player in there. His control and assist for Lamela at the weekend had something of Bale circa 2010-11 about it: awareness, pace, power and an inch perfect cross at speed. Having Chadli coming off the bench is a good option. While we're on the subject of mystery injuries...where on earth is Pritchard?!
He picked up an injury with the U21s at the Euros and hasn't fully recovered yet I think, seems to be one of those ones that takes a while to properly go away.
I remember when the first word on Sandro’s injury was that he would be back in a week or two. That was the one which ended his career as a top player. Spurs and everyone else, it seems, never give fans any idea what the real injury news is. It’s very annoying. The thing is I could have told you Dembélé was probably out for months just based on his reaction. The strange thing is that Son never looked hurt in the slightest. Dier looked more injured against Arsenal than Son did against City. Of course, while you can fairly safely say when someone is badly hurt, you can’t necessarily say that someone doesn’t have a significant injury because they don’t react.
Dembele being out for months is a blessing in disguise for the team even if its a major problem for him. I wouldn't want him anywhere near the starting XI right now.
