Transfer thread for 2016-17 season

I think that they're both learning and one has a lot more experience of football.
Villas-Boas may have attempted to replicate Mourinho's cult of personality, but he simply doesn't have the charisma.
Time will tell if he can do it on his own terms and develop his game.

 

Mourinho's last stint at Chelsea and current one at United would suggest that he also doesn't have the charisma

 

Somebody needs a little tickle !!

CK, chill your boots man. I didn't mean it in an offensive way !

 

I must admit, I'm enjoying his time as The Special Once.

 

Yeah that kind of isn't clear when you're reading text on a screen.

 

Sulky sulky sulk sulk.

 

Fixed it for you, PNP

 

Does Bentaleb deserve a greater shot than Harry Winks, who may follow instruction more and not go around with an attitude? Or Josh Onomah? Clinton N'Jie didn't do anything wrong, that I know, but he didn't add to the collective sufficiently. So, he's gone too. Dele Alli has issues that came to the fore with him hitting Yacob. He gets another chance because he is a game changer, a player that any team would love to have. If we sold him all the big teams would be in the queue. Andros went to a team that got themselves relegated. Schalke are struggling as they had to rebuild their midfield significantly. Even then, they only took him on loan. If he was the real deal and there were no issues, the question of a loan wouldn't arise, I'm sure.

Mauricio Pochettino knows you have to have discipline and also, that there needs to be leeway to **** up and be redeemed. Some things are one side of the line, some fall on the other. If Bentaleb and/or Andros were performing like Dele Alli and had his desire and application to follow instruction, work hard for the team and win, they'd still be here. They didn't and they've gone elsewhere allowing the next generation of youth players their shot. It's a brutal business sometimes. If we let the next KDB or Pogba go, then MP will struggle to live it down. So far, I think he'll be okay.

 

Has your account been hacked by Pixie?

 

Im just in a daft mood tbh

 

Going back to Bentaleb and touching on what I think CK mentioned in regards to being lenient on him due to his age, I don't really buy that. While in football terms he is a young player, he's nearly 22 years old and thus a fully grown adult in my eyes. His comments are petty and those of a spoilt child. While his ending may have been unfortunate, he was given an incredible platform by this club to make something of his career, prior to joining us it was probably looking bleak for him having been released by a number of sides. He gained a solid reputation in England, got international recognition, a bumper new contract and the chance to grow with a young squad with a manager that gives chances to anyone that impresses, he though chose to jump ship the moment he lost his place in the XI and that speaks a lot of his character, the fact he's now slated the club it shows what a petulant little **** he is who has no respect to the club that essentially made him. The remarks on poor support is probably the worst thing a player can say about a club - especially one he's still technically contracted too! - a club is nothing without it's fans and it's us who help pay his wages and us who help build reputations through our support, to say he never got support from the fans is a joke and after those comments, he definitely won't have my support nor my respect.

 

I largely agree with this. All I will say in response is that we well know that a 22 year old professional footballer probably has the emotional maturity of a 16 year old in the 'real world'. And whilst we can rightly condemn and criticise, bottom line is it isn't their fault that the game has become almost a reality TV show, complete with all the scandal and celebrity culture that you'd expect from some channel 4 sleaze.

The main thrust of my argument is that he, unlike others, did very little wrong on the pitch. I therefore have far greater sympathy for him than I do for perennial underperformers like Townsend.

 

I think it's dangerous to make such strong statements about individuals based on media reports. Comments can be taken out of context or abbreviated resulting in a 'story' that bears little resemblance to the truth. We have a culture of 'opinions' and many of those 'opinions' are based purely on media reports.
Unless you know people personally, making public comments about people characters is too easy and should carry little weight IMO.
And before any one comes back at me, my critics of Redknapp were based on his behavior in the public domain, not reports of his behavior.

 

I think that's a bit of a cheap excuse to be fair mate, footballer or not, at nearly 22 you should have the maturity and general knowledge to know what's right and wrong when speaking to the press. Granted the comments may be untrue or just misinterpreted but Bentaleb's attitude has been questioned before and the fact Poch openly said that Nabs requested to leave the club suggests to me he has no love or respect for the team that essentially made him nor did he have the desire to fight for a place.

His brief performances last season were actually way below par, costing us the game against Utd on the first day and then making no impact in his further sporadic appearances either side of his injury.
It seems as though that when losing his place, his first instinct wasn't to fight but to jump ship and then upon leaving has a dig at the club and it's fans. Slating supporters is the worst thing a player can do, it shuts the door on any possible return from his loan and it also doesn't put him in the best of light in general.

You only have to use Son and Lamela as examples of players who went through tough times but after speaking with the gaffer, knuckling down and putting in the work they eventually turned their Spurs careers around. There's no reason Nabs couldn't have gone down a similar path by choosing to stay and fight, especially when considering Dembele missed the first four games and then both he and Dier picked up injuries, leaving just Wanyama and Winks (with Eriksen having to drop deeper).

What will be, will be I suppose, as much as I rated him at the end of the 14/15 campaign, we certainly won't miss him now thanks to the players we have at the club.

 

Football has become a world where "men" in their mid 30's can throw a wobbly over not receiving a piece of birthday cake, and the club actually capitulates to the tantrum.

Granted, Bentaleb was awful against United, but his subsequent appearances were marred by the fact that he was utilised as the Dier or now Wanyama of the team, dropping back into CB whenever (usually) Trippier and Davies pushed on. He was visibly uncomfortable playing in that role, and after seeing it once I was amazed that Poch persisted with it again for the cup tie against Leicester.

I agree with Spurf - I can't see how others are drawing such strong conclusions from a snippet mid way through an interview in a foreign language in a foreign publication written by a journalist who clearly has an agenda against underperforming Schalke's season. Asking the player if he knows what 'hard work' means is both insulting and provocative - he was looking for a catch and Nabil unfortunately took the bait. The context is by contrast worlds apart from Mini Bale's unprovoked twitter rant against the club that came out of nowhere and left him looking like a right pillock.

I'm only speculating, but I suspect that what pushed Bentaleb over the edge was watching Mason produce a series of crap performances in what is definitely the former's strongest position, without being given a similar chance to impress.

 

I agree that this journalist had an agenda. Being asked whether you know what the meaning of 'hard work' is in such a blunt fashion cannot be much fun. I don't know whether there's any truth in the insinuation but he's being directly quoted as saying:

"Even if Tottenham were on top of the league, I would not regret my transfer,they believe in me at Schalke. I made this decision, and a few defeats won't change anything. We worked hard enough, in every match, in every training session. But we've made mistakes, and we need to cut them out. But we fight and I believe that's also the reason that the fans support us. I don't know that from England. If you lose there, nobody supports you in the stadium."

That's just not very smart. No matter what the perceived problem. Eric Dier's take on being asked to change roles was:

"I’m happy to play anywhere. We’ve got good players in every position, there’s so many options for the manager so it’s just up to him. I’ve played in a new position so I’m starting from scratch. Everyone was doubting it at the beginning but I wasn’t too bothered as long as the manager was happy."

The two players are the same age but one has grown up, the other just needs to do the same.

 

Nabs somewhat played the Dier role in 14/15 though, he just wasn't as effective defensively as what Dier is but he put in good performances in his own right as somewhat of a smart(ish) tackling, deep lying playmaker. He was the one that dropped back most times to allow Mason further roam forward, I always saw him as a defensive but stylish midfielder more so than anything advanced. The problem for him was that Dier somehow came from nowhere to play a blinder in a true defensive, tough tackling/ ball winning midfielder role who understood the position perfectly by dropping back as a third CB when required, perhaps when Nabs got his chances to play he felt he needed to be more like Dier which ultimately resulted in his poorer performances as he wasn't as 'qualified' as such when you compare him to Dier's defensive instincts.

I've said already that my comments are based on the interview and quotes being true but what makes me believe them is that Bentaleb has had a reputation of a poor attitude. He got big headed in contract negotiations by supposedly demanding parity with the top earners at the club, having played in his first full season after his break through in the second half of 13/14. Then when he lost his place, he immediately put in a transfer request which Poch accepted and so was then placed in the reserves.

As for the journo, while I agree it's disrespectful to ask that, the pure fact of him asking if Nabs knows what "hard work" means would suggest he isn't pulling his weight which again could be down to an attitude problem, that is surprising though because even when he was poor for us he never looked uninterested on the pitch and always seemed to give his all.

I hope I'm wrong in believing these comments, a single tweet from Nabs denying it all would put it to bed but until there's any form clarification, I can't help but believe the article purely because of his past attitude problems.

 

You expect him to tweet in response to our discussion on here ????

It's a mountain out of a molehill. Some throw away comment to a german journalist at the end of a training session or whatever. It's nothing. A total non story. Imo.

 

No but seeing as a lot of Spurs fans are talking about it on all platforms of social media and all English UK media outlets are publishing the story too, it might be worthwhile for him to clarify the situation if he feels it necessary.

I also wouldn't class it throwaway when he's seemingly criticised us as bad supporters.

 

He can do that if he wants, AFTER he has personally explained to me what
he meant by his comments and whether he has been misquoted.