We have a lot of players who look very good in our system. Verts was good before this season but Toby has bought the best of him back out, similarly Toby looked good at Southampton but a class apart in this Spurs team. Dembele was immensely frustrating and an awful lot of us wanted him sold, in this team he is a key cog in a machine and we've found a way of playing recently that minimises the frustrating parts of his game while maximising his effectiveness. Our fullbacks are all suited to playing how we want. Kane is ideal for how we play though I think he'd look good in any side in this form. Now some of these players would be good in almost any team, but ultimately we set up in a way that makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts, even when some of those parts hold significant value in themselves. If we finish top 4 this season you'd be mad to leave Spurs if you had any ambition other than to earn mad money. Moving elsewhere would be a massive career risk for most of our players, as the majority of them are not quite good enough to start for one of the big 5 (Barca, Real, Athletico, Bayern, Juve). The only ones I think we stand to lose for professional reasons are Lloris and Toby. Maybe Dier in a year or two as it is known he is a United fan. The rest either hugely benefit from the way we play (disproportionate to their talent in any other system) or seem to have a deeper personal connection to the club that might keep them. Poch staying is huge too but I'm confident he won't jump ship unless we give him reason to, which we'd be mad to at this point. World Class is a silly label to be chucking around though by my definition. Lloris is the only one who is close to that.
He has all the technical attributes of a world class player. He's lacked a fundamental aspect to his game however - consistency. I haven't forgotten the frustrations of previous seasons and you could argue that at 28, this aspect has always held him back.
There's only a handful of clubs that could realistically afford and tempt our lads away in my opinion - Barca, Real, Atleti, Bayern, Dortmund, PSG and Juve. We won't sell to domestic rivals anymore, think the last guy was Berbatov wasn't it? Which was what, 7 or 8 years ago now? So I think we can rule out the Manchester clubs and Chelsea. There are other great European teams out there who may be attractive for our players - Porto, Benfica, Roma, Napoli, AC, Inter, Sevilla, Wolfsburg, Schalke and maybe one or two others I've missed but they wouldn't be able to pay the prices we'd demand for our key players such as Hugo, Toby, Jan, Dier, Alli, Eriksen and Kane, all these guys would command fees of £25m upwards. I feel pretty safe in the thought that for the time being, our lads are here to stay unless the club decides they're no longer needed.
Everyone has a price, if $iteh were to pay for our new stadium, give us half a billion in cash, Augero and pay his salary for 5 years, I recon Levy might be tempted to part with Kane.
Harry Kane has just become the 5th Englishman ever to score 20 goals in consecutive seasons in the Premiership. And that's in his second full season. Literally the quickest it's possible to join the likes of Shearer, Fowler, Ferdinand and Cole. He's done that *immediately*, at the first time of asking. It'll have sod all to do with what stadium we end up playing in for a year but I think that if Harry has a good Euros then every major club in Europe will want him. Which is not to say he'll go but just that we have the best English striker who is breaking records for fun and proving himself deadly at every level. There's gonna be a hell of a lot of interest.
Then I guess we should be thankful that Hodgson will be pressured into starting Rooney in every game, regardless of how many knees he actually has at this point.
I would genuinely be thankful for that happening. I don't know whether it's age or whether it's just that there's been something about the last 15 or so years but I just could not give a monkey's about England and see the whole thing as a potential problem for Spurs. If Roy starts Rooney for England then that's utter madness but I'll be pretty happy with it. Of course I'll watch England's games and hope they win but nowadays there's a big part of me that prefers watching other nations' teams that I can choose to get interested/excited in rather than being forced to watch the drivel that England offer up every tournament. I wouldn't mind us being **** if we were a tiny nation with bugger all money or players hitting above our weight but most of the time we're a Goliath making hard work of some third-world countries in the group stages and then getting put on our arses the second we play any half-decent team.
yep you find yourself watching out of a sense of duty rather than any sense of excitement/enjoyment but hey hopefully Roy will pick Kane instead of Sturridge
Honestly not sure with Spurs. You were the team best placed when Liverpool were crippled by Hicks & Gillett. Best placed when United lost Fergie to break into the CL places... But since 2008 when the PL became open only one CL qualification is a bit average. United will certainly only get better, as will Chelsea and City. Arsenal are always there with Wenger. Liverpool there's a huge uncertainty as we have an an A list manager and a C list team. You have a good team but really it says more about the PL's quality right now. If the league gets back to the standard we expect, it'll be very hard for either of us to go above fifth.
Spurs look like they are now doing that one season in three. So not as difficult for Spurs as for other teams.
Just saying that there's nothing to suggest staying power if (when) United, Chelsea and City get their act together.
And there is no guarantee they'll do that, or that Klopp will improve Liverpool significantly over the summer as I wouldn't say he has done so far, or that Arsenal will survive Wenger leaving if and when it happens, as gets more likely every year. Teams come and go. Nobody has a right to be up there other than that granted by their results on the pitch, regardless of history, recent or distant.
"Nobody has a right to be up there other than that granted by their results on the pitch, regardless of history, recent or distant." Mousers no comprendo. Next year is their year!
Recent years suggest that when a number of the usual suspects have a poor season (by their aspirations) , not all of them simultaneously "get their act together" the next season. The managerial churn/pressure for said teams has never been greater, nor the squad rebuilding required, than this season. This may come to be the true window of opportunity that those clubs cannot close by spending the cash (as they have before) .
I haven't really been following this thread (clear from the length of time it has taken me to reply to this ), but I remember having a top debate on here back in the summer about what actually constitutes 'world class'. Judging by Spurcat's comments, I would assume that he and I are pretty much on the same conservative page. 'World class' is a title that I reserve for very few players. I also refer to them as 'elite' players - those who you give 5* to all the while wishing that there was a 6th star to award. As far as I see it, a 'world class' player is one who is so good in their position that they could improve any team in the world should they choose to play there. Obviously, when it comes to goalkeepers you have to be a bit more flexible as there's only one on the pitch at a time, so in this sense I would categorise Hugo as 'world class'. Beyond him, we have a plethora of players who are extremely good, but not quite good enough imho to improve any team out there. There are only a handful of such players like this - and most of them aren't to be found in the Premier league. I would say Aguero is another, Kompany too when fully fit. De Gea is also a close call. Beyond them? Hard to say, especially since the implosion at Chelsea. After Hugo, we have a number of players who certainly have the potential to one day reach this level. Kane, Alli, Toby, Dier, Eriksen - all of them still have their best years ahead of them so who knows? It's certainly a mark of our upward trajectory that in recent years I feel we've seen 4 players in a Spurs shirt who were genuinely elite in their field: Ledley, Bale, Modric and Hugo.
Agree with those 4 (although Hugo is not without faults - distribution and near post coming to mind....). In the PL era I think we could also add Ginola and Berbatov to the Elite list, but it's hardly a long list for 20 years of top flight football.
