Transfer thread for 2016-17 season

In the early '80's Stevie P was irreplaceably captain. Graham Roberts was a leader. From my experience that's innate in some people. They hate losing and just take up the reins and do it. I don't see that in Dier, yet, although he's still young.

 

How about Lamela? Not sure how good his English is now, but looks like the sort to refuse to accept defeat.

 

I agree. Like Spurlock, I'm expecting big things from him this season.

 

Dier strikes me as too laid back to wear the armband. It is worrying how few options we appear to have, but what became abundantly clear last season is that Hugo's captaincy has been to the detriment of the squad. Watching France against Portugal only reinforced this - the French were well on top but steadily ran out of ideas and impetus, and were crying out for someone other than the goalkeeper to grab the game by the scruff of the neck and eek out a victory.

I'd say Kane or Toby have the best credentials for the job. Neither of them are particularly vocal but both play by example and usually give 100% throughout a game.

Lamela is an interesting shout; he won a lot of respect from his performance against Newcastle; he was essentially the only player on the pitch who'd bothered turning up and despite his shortcomings his attitude and application have been utterly exemplary for a supposedly 'luxury' player. I don't think his English is quite good enough.

 

I'd give it to Alderweireld and I think he'd embrace it. He's had a year to bed in and did wonders for our defence.
Most of the other players are too young, too quiet or both.
Kane's an exception, but he's got enough on his plate and I don't like strikers as captains.
They don't get the same view of the game as a defender and can often be away from the action when a captain's influence is needed.

Totally agree about Lamela. He seems to have embraced the style of his countryman completely.
I worry occasionally about him making rash tackles, but he leads the pressing very well and we miss him badly when he's not in the side.
Defenders don't get a minute to themselves when they're up against him now.

 

Again, I believe that the on-pitch captain must be back four or MF, as
they are the only positions who interact with + are in proximity to all team-mates
during 90 mins (GK and forwards don't generally have that) .

 

I just don't agree. Who is this mythical leader going to replace? I repeat we've just had our best league position for 50 years when you acknowledge we lack such a leader. How are you sure breaking the team up to add one will make things better?

 

1. Does this mythical leader have to play 90 mins of every PL/CL game, or be available as an
option for starting / being a sub for certain games ??

2. 26 years (1989-90)

 

1989-90 we were third but miles off second and with a worse record. Last year was better than that

 

I am not advocating ripping anything apart, nor am I suggesting we try and sign Zeus or Poseidon but adding and hopefully, improving our current set-up with a natural leader who will see that we don't finish third in a two horse race again. I am with Woody Allen on this:

"A [football team], I think, is like a shark. It has to constantly move forward or it dies."

Even when the Mousers won everything they would buy at least one player each summer. United the same under Fergie. We won the double. Bill went out and bought Jimmy Greaves. The old football manager's cliche still holds water - "Go out there lads and give it your all so that I can buy some better players for next season."

If someone with great leadership qualities is out there and potentially available then I want Spurs moving heaven and earth to get him.

 

Then I would cite 1984-5.
Either way there are seasons starting from 1980 that IMHO were better / as good as 2015-16.

 

Bill rarely signed more than one player a season and it was almost always someone who would make a big difference like Greaves or Peters who we played world record fees for. Players like that cost £50m these days. If we can get one of those I'm all for it but it needs to be someone a lot better than Defoe or Carrick and a lot younger than them or Pirlo

 

Carrick would've played in the three games Dembele was suspended for, for a start...

 

1. Barely ever
2. No-one except in extenuating cases (see 1)
3. Because we have a notoriously intense, demanding manager and what I saw in the Chelsea game was a group of young post-pubescent lads who had apparently spent the entire previous week screaming into their pillows in between drinking red bull and snorting cocaine off laminated posters of John Terry. I have never, ever seen a Spurs side so boiled up in my life and not only was it exceptionally unpleasant and shameful to watch, it also meant we gave up the title chase and probably sealed our fate to finish below Arsenal in one fell swoop. I have nothing but admiration for Poch and gratitude for all that he has accomplished. But by the same token, judging by what I have seen from him over the years as a player and manager I would say that he probably isn't very good at calming nerves or settling anxious minds. Harry by contrast seemed superb at this, as did BMJ. Watching Poch kneeling on the floor and pounding the ground in frustration at a missed chance in our game against Stoke made me proud to see someone who cares for his work so much, but at the same time it did fill me with a sense of dread: this is the intensity that our collection of kids have to deal with day in, day out. I see the Chelsea game as our breaking point, and Poch himself all but confirmed this when he spoke after the awful performance against Soton and said that 'something had given way' against Chelsea.

Introduce a Gallas, a Pirlo, or even a Defoe into the training ground that week before the battle of Stamford Bridge, and suddenly you have a player who has the respect and attention of every member of the squad, walking calmly from youngster to youngster, putting an arm around their shoulder and saying, "Listen, I've been in this situation many a time before. They're going to get in your face from the word go. They'll try every trick in the book to make you see red. Don't fall for it. You're better than them. Now go show the world that I'm right."

It changes the chemistry completely, and does so without compromising player development whatsoever.

 

We're being linked with 2 players right now, forgetting about Georges-Kevin (what the hell is it with the French and the name Kevin?)

1. Yunus Malli - if we don't sign this bloke then I'm going to write a strong letter to someone. He is a very good player in a similar league who can run with the ball, spot a pass and score goals. He's a more physical Eriksen or a more astute attacking Dembele as it were.

2. Wissam Bin Yedder - this is the player we should have signed when we got Clinton. He's as fast as the wind and a real goal scorer. A bit small but a bit 'young Michael Owen'.

I've been advocating these 2 players for a year. They're both very hard working and would fit in really well with Mauricio Pochettino's style. If we can pick them up within our budget then we should do it. Both are 25 and we'd not lose on sell-on value if things weren't a huge success but I think they'd be great for us and would give us a great squad.

 

In the Chelsea match we played really well until half-time and then lost it when things went against us. We played our normak game up to then and were not out of control in any way. If Pochettino and the rest of our coaching team can't do the things in your last paragraph then he needs to hire someone who can, not waste a valuable squad place for such meagre returns.

 

You must've been watching a different game then PS because the game I was watching had tackles flying in from the word go. We played 10 minutes of good football in the first half and scored twice in that time. True, the second half was worse but the only real difference between the two was that someone reminded Clattenburg at half time that he had nice colourful cards in his pocket and can he please use them - but he'd lost control of the game well before that.

I'm still struggling to understand why you consider the return 'meagre' when the benefits of having Gallas despite him being well past his best were plain for all to see. Add to this Spurcat's description of how much impact Defoe would have on every level of the club and I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. Part of me thinks that you are Pochettino himself

If a squad has room for Fazio, it certainly has room for some real experience.

Anyway, I think we've exhausted this particular avenue of debate - it has been very enjoyable

 

Ben Yedder was linked with us back in January and I was all for him signing then (not least because he was A Striker...) and at the time he certainly seemed to tick a lot of boxes: he's proven he can score, he can play in a variety of positions (up front, on the right, or behind the main striker), and in theory there's less chance of Toulouse doing a Marseilles as he's only got a year on his contract.

The only issue I have no compared to six months ago is that, with Janssen now at the club, where would Ben Yedder fit in?

 

In a press conference earlier today in Oz (ESPN), Mauricio Pochettino said:

"I expect some signings in the next few weeks - we'll see what happens. We expect some activity - yes."

Asked about centre backs he replied;

"We have enough players in that position."

Apparently, Jan is further advanced than we might have thought. He said Dier and Wanyama can play there and that we have CCV and Dom Ball.

I'm very pleased. I know not all will share this view but this is the time to buy. We are in the CL and are retaining our best talent. The new ground is progressing. We have a manager who makes good players improve. We are an attractive proposition and we need to exploit it. The market is only going up at the moment, so it's a good time to buy in and keep those that progress and move on those that don't or can't. We will lose very little, if anything financially (it's most likely we'll make a profit) and we need a really deep, talented squad. We'll obviously buy young talent and try to improve it. That's fine but in doing so we need a breadth of options to take account of time to settle for some (not everyone is capable of Dele Alli-like acclimatisation).

 

Gallas got us from being perennially fifth to being challengers for fourth. Defoe might be a great guy but he wasn't a winner. Poch has achieved more without players like that than any recent manager has achieved with them.
Happy to agree to disagree - a few years back I was accused of being Levy and I regard it as a compliment to be compared to him or Poch.