Transfer thread for 2016-17 season

I've been thinking about this. Yes I would continue to pay them, purely because it was the manager's strong wish to work with this individual as they have a prior positive relationship, and the manager has been of sound judgement so far, proving himself an asset to the club. In Pochettino I trust.

 

The Daily Record reports that Dominic Ball has agreed a move to Rotherham - which has irked Rangers fans, giving he's signed for a club managed by an ex-Celtic player who was in charge of Hibs last season.

 

Probably had a word with Grant Ward, who spent last season there.
Got him a permanent move to a decent Championship team and I think Ball would be happy with that.

 

Rumours that we are looking for £20m for Nacer Chadli. Add that potential sum to the £8m (maximum) we got for Alex Pritchard and "Hey Presto!" it equals our expenditure on Vincent Janssen and Victor Wanyama. Now that's magic!

Expect the recently widowed Debbie Magee to be sniffing round the millionaire Daniel Levy any day now.

 

Jamie O'hara signs for Gillingham, bringing his total number of clubs to 8 in an 11-year career. May well become the next Paul Stewart at this rate

 

UPDATE: Sonupe has joined Northampton on a free

UPDATE 2: Musa Yahaya, FC Proto B (via Portimonense) for £650k
http://www.fcporto.pt/en/futebol/fc-porto-b/Pages/FC-Porto-B.aspx#Attackers

 

Nah, Paul Stewart features in match threads because he signed for teams that we actually play against.

 

Another youth player moved on. Good luck to him. Hope he gets games and works his way back up.

 

In one way it is a bit of a surprise to see Dom Ball go this summer. However, it is completely in line with our manager's philosophy that you have to be ready to take your chance. We have a stream of talented youngsters coming through. Alex Pritchard and Dom Ball have been replaced by younger prospects in CCV and Marcus Edwards. Nabil Bentaleb is replaced by Harry Winks who is more likely to follow instructions or he will be gone for the next candidate.

This puts the potential Clinton/Georges-Kevin swap into clearer perspective. Either you impress the management that you are going to make a difference to the first team and improve or we will get someone in who we think can be better than you. It's not quite Mourinho's 10 minutes to assess potential. It is a sign of strong management and it sends out a clear message. We are going forward. Impress the manager or the door is over there!

 

I have updated the OP but not sure if it's completely up to date ... feel free to take a look and let me know if I need to further update it

 

It looks up to date to me.

 

One change certainly needs to be made: Yahaya signed for FC Porto B
*kicks keyboard*

 

I thought the fact that I have never heard of FC Proto B was just another example of my complete lack of knowledge of European football

 

I don't like it. Put it this way, if Poch had been manager in 2012-13, Lamela would've been sold for tuppence the following summer. As it currently stands in 2016, I doubt you'd find a Spurs fan alive who would sell him. It has taken him 3 years to resemble a £28m player. Sometimes players blossom late, many times young players - especially foreign - need longer to adapt than players who 'grew up' in the system.

The one complaint I have about Poch is that he generally seems to headstrong. Cross him once and you're out (Townsend, Bentaleb), fail to impress immediately and you're out (Pritchard, Njie), we won't sign anyone unless they're absolutely perfect for the system and balance of the squad, we don't make substitutions until absolutely necessary, we rely heavily on a superb plan A without having anything close to a plan B...

It all adds up, as does his personality, to a very capable, intelligent and skilled coach who is at the same time quite intense, dogmatic and stubborn. One medium term injury to Kane last season and we wouldn't have finished in the top 6 let alone top 4. Why? Because our manager is a perfectionist.

I worry that at the same time as gaining a deserved reputation for having some of the best academy facilities in the world and being a club that 'gives the youth a chance', we're actually stifling that same reputation with everything that happens on the other side of the coin. If I was a young, talented and foreign player (I am none of those except for 'young' ), I would actually be quite nervous about signing for Spurs. There would be a constant fear at the back of my mind of this 'one strike and you're out' approach that one word out of line to a coach or one badly timed injury and I'm basically f***ed.

It doesn't sit well with me at all Brian. The way we treated Lennon, the way in which Pritchard and Bentaleb were publicly highlighted in a press conference as having to find a new club, the way in which we relied on single players last season and drove them into the ditch just because Mr Perfect wasn't available on the market, the way in which we seem to shun the idea of taking on experienced players who can actually help these youngsters develop. Poch has a brilliant approach - but it runs the risk of cutting off the nose to spite the face.

 

I can see your point, but I'm not sure that it is a one strike and you're out approach.
Pochettino appears to be trying to change the established attitude in the dressing room and has a few lines that can't be crossed.
Playing poorly is something that you can get away with in the short-term, but insubordination or a poor attitude isn't.
I think that Ferguson used similar tactics and it gets everyone on the same page.

It's clear that the manager wants to create a togetherness and a fighting spirit at the club.
Everything that he does seems designed to push hard work, persistence and a unified front to the world.
You can't do that if people are creating internal issues, slacking off or taking the piss.
I have some sympathy for Townsend, but he broke one very important rule and undermined a coach.

He made some interesting comments today, actually:
"At Tottenham when I was playing, I wasn't playing well enough."
"I'm not one that cries 'I wasn't given the game time, I wasn't given the chances."
"I was given the game time - I just wasn't playing well enough."
"It made me realise when I went to Newcastle and started playing well, just how bad I was playing for Spurs."
"Maybe it is just a change of scenery I needed. I went to Newcastle and started flourishing again."

 

L'Equipe are reporting that Nkoudou may still be headed our way, albeit on loan with an option to buy. What's noticeable about this deal is that N'Jie is not involved in this deal in any way, which combined with OM loaning in Florian Thauvin for the season indicates that N'Jie may well have a future at Spurs.

In other news, wildfires have spread to the outskirts of Marseilles. I have an alibi.

 

I look at our managers over the last 30years and I don't see a winner until Mauricio Pochettino; not someone who'd tear apart a team because they'd never come first, even if it could be guaranteed they'd never come below fourth. I don't want a latter day Wenger who isn't grasping for the stars anymore. Sure, we may be in the transfer gutter compared to the Banks of Manchester but our manager is looking at infinity and beyond.

It was very interesting that Fergie went out of his way to meet and be associated with Mauricio Pochettino last season. Fergie likes to be associated with winners. Fergie cleared out players when he wanted them gone - Kanchelskis, Stam, Ince, Sharpe went because Fergie thought it was time. Andros knows the score and Aaron's time was up (I loved him despite the fact that his partying kept him from being the player he could have been). There's a reason Dom Ball is going and CCV isn't. Mauricio wants to win and so do I. After 47 years, I think I could put up with a few more seasons like last with one ending with us winning something big and shiny - and I don't mean my head!

 

I understand and indeed enjoy the comparison to Ferguson. But his ruthlessness was bankrolled by BSkyB and global sponsors - he could afford to discard players at the drop of a hat and purchase a fabulously expensive replacement; we cannot. I'll use Lamela as an example again. Signed for £28m. Had Poch been at the helm in his first season, he probably would've been sold for £10m that summer and we would've been back to square one. By biding our time and exercising patience, we've ended up with a player who is now easily worth the money we paid for him, and to replace him in the current market climate would probably cost us north of £35m - something we simply cannot afford to do.

There are only so many Allis, Diers and Wimmers out there. Other clubs are also superb at spotting them - look at Kante and Mahrez at Leicester - so there aren't that many to go around. To axe someone like Bentaleb because he threw a wobbly seems pathetic to my mind as we're talking about a player who is: a) the only member of the squad who comes close to sharing Dembele's strengths and b) could well be worth over £20m in a year or two.

Your point about Arsenal is also well made. They have a large collection of youngsters who aren't actually youngsters anymore, are all on long term contracts with massive wages, and they've been waiting 3-4 years for them to fulfil the potential they once had. You're right - we cannot afford to become like that. But by the same token, we cannot afford the ruthlessness of a club with United's clout. A happy medium is needed, and if a player such as Bentaleb has performed consistently well for an entire season in a makeshift midfield, any and all problems he had last season should be put down to immaturity and injuries and forgiven.

 

You're missing the point in regards to the players getting moved on: Poch isn't keeping them around based on form (because, as the old adage goes, form is temporary) - the players who get moved on are either those who were temporary measures in the first place (i.e. Fazio, Stambouli) or those who are square pegs in the system.

Case in point: Townsend. Let's be honest, most of us on Not606 had long since lost patience with him before the start of last season because of how many promising moves he threw away by cutting inside and then taking aim at Row Q - and given the possession-based game Poch plays, of course there's going to be problems with a player who is so wasteful when we're on the ball. In comparison, even though Lamela was clearly still trying to get settled at the club it was clear even in Poch's first season that he was a good fit for the system we use, which has proven to be the case in the last year.

Dembele's another example: a couple of seasons ago he looked likely to lose his place to Bentaleb - but in the last year he grew into a key component of our system, indeed his absence was a major part of why we stuffed up the last couple of matches so badly.

 

I think that's right HBIC even when Lamella looked quite poor and we were all scratching our heads as to how he cost so many millions, even then we could see his work ethic was beyond reproach, his value tracking back was apparent long before we saw his abilities going forward.