Summer Transfers

Adebayor, Capoue and Kaboul have been more or less completely useless for us this year, and should be sold.

Townsend is maddening at times, but still the best option we have on the right. I wouldn't move him unless/until we have someone better. At the beginning of the year I thought our problem was that we had no good options on the right, and I still do.

 

Jenas was at one point the player who frustrated fans the most, that's going back a few years and while Jenas was frustrating, he would play like a world beater against teams in the bottom half while scoring against the goons and helped us win the carling cup.

Townsend is frustrating for different reasons as he is inferior to Lennon in every aspect apart from dribbling and penalties. His impact was limited to 15 games when he made that breakthrough (before his injury) while he returned 1 goal! He is simply here for his predicted level of potential, not for his immediate qualities and he can't live off the potential tag for much longer.

But agree, Capoue is useless, as is Kaboul now due to Injury and Adebayor is finished unless Poch is sacked next season which would result in us having a better manager while Adebayor would remind us for half a season of how great a player he can be.

 

I think we need to bring in three players of starting XI quality, and then a few to maybe fill out the squad. The starters would be a right-sided CB to partner Vertonghen and school Dier, a CM in the Schniederlin mould to partner Bentaleb, and a winger. Perhaps even two of them to make 4. If we ship Kaboul, Chrirches, Dembele, Paulinho, Capoue, Ade and maybe even Lennon out of the squad and fill the spaces with a few of the youngsters who perhaps deserve a chance and sign another striker as backup, then I don't think thats an unreasonable expectation for the transfer window.

 

If we are looking at bringing in Alderweireld this summer, he would certainly fit the criteria of the right sided centre back.

 

Schniederlin I know is high on the list of most fans, can't say I rate that highly as some of you but as we attempted to sign him last year (and failed) are we going to return as saints will be in a position to rightly demand a higher fee due to his performances this season.

 

It's a gamble, as always. Schneiderlin appears to be the player we should have gotten this year. That doesn't mean he'll be the one we need next. Bentaleb and Mason should improve to some degree, and may improve a lot, if we don't bench one or both of them. I would say the need for an RM is clearer, but I wonder if Yedlin is being groomed for that role. Rose was a decent LM. Another question is what roles (if any) Pritchard and Carroll will play.

 

I agree with all that has been said about Mason and his current limitations. However i think it would be a big kick in the balls and a disincentive to other academy players if we spent big to replace him in the starting XI for next season.
Yeah, he's 23ish so not exactly a teenager but we should also not forget that this season was his breakthrough season and we could/should expect further improvement for next.

 

Can't decide if Marsh is trying to help us out or on a massive WUM. Either way he's done a **** job at whichever he's attempting:
http://metro.co.uk/2015/03/31/harry...-100m-transfer-fee-says-rodney-marsh-5128395/

 

Mason and Bentaleb’s performances, especially the last few games, have been consistent with them being designated as deep-lying playmaker and box to box midfielder (with, in other words, neither one being a DM). How much of their failing to shield the back four is their fault, and how much is Pochettino’s? It may be that the main thing that needs to happen is not a change of players, but a refinement of the system Pochettino has been playing. Also, watching Eriksen send in pinpoint passes over the top with Denmark, I wonder if he and Mason (whose background is as a CAM) should switch roles at least occasionally. Not to say Eriksen’s likelier to shield the back four more effectively.

With Kane, as with Bale, speculating about all the inevitable tapping up rumors doesn’t do me any good and it doesn’t make me happy, so for the most part I’ll just ignore them. I will point out that this is looking more and more like two of the last three years we’ve had the best player in the league. I’ll be pleased if we can keep that run going.

 

Marsh has never had a clue about being a pundit,he should go back to the states, and leave it to people who can do it better

 

I'd say Mason is both box to box and playmaker. Bentaleb's more solid and generally plays things a bit safer, Mason loses the ball more but sets the tempo and gets things going forward more quickly.

I agree they both need to contribute much more defensively and Mason in particular needs to learn that there's more about defending than just rushing into tackles all the time. They all need to learn to defend as a unit too, it's all abit hectic and on the edge which is why we're conceding so many chances.

 

How times have changed YV, In the past you had a dislike for such label, is box-to-box now acceptable?

 

I wouldn't mind seeing Mason pushed further forward and a suitable partner brought in for Bentaleb.
Might even be an idea to give Carroll a shot alongside him in some of the pre-season games.
We could conceivably have a front six of: Carroll, Bentaleb; Townsend, Mason, Pritchard; Kane for some games, which would be a novelty.
Not up to scratch as a starting lineup, unfortunately.

Transfer wise, we should be looking to improve our weakest areas with our biggest investments, then filling out holes in the squad depth.
Shifting on deadwood and finding suitable loan placements will also be extremely important.
We have some real prospects and it's a massive advantage for us now that we've given young players chances.

 

I was just using the descriptions handed to me

I never disliked the terms, I just reserve the right to call Chadli a winger without someone correcting me and saying that he's actually a reverse, false-inside forward, or some nonsense. Likewise with Mason, to me he's a midfielder, you can expand on that as you like. I just think that fans put players in these boxes of what type of player they are for the sake of sounding like they know what they're talking about. *

Funny you mention this as I had Sky Sports HQ on earlier(working hard as always) and they had some Tweet in thing asking what formation England should play. There was a few of the usual saying either 442 or 4231 and then one which stood out which went along the lines of "I think we should play 1233 with a libero, 2 central defenders, 3 midfielders and 3 strikers". I'm sure it was just a mistake in only listing a formation with 9 outfield players but it kind of sums up my point of people not really knowing what they're talking about. Personally, I wouldn't feel confident using those terms for positions, I actually had to Google "libero" to find out that it's basically a sweeper. Sometimes it's just better to stick to the terms that everyone understands.


*This isn't aimed at RWAEB at all, by the way, just my general grumblings

 

"We could conceivably have a front six of: Carroll, Bentaleb; Townsend, Mason, Pritchard; Kane for some games, which
would be"

3-4 of the front six used for much of the U21 class of 2012-13.

<fixed>

 

No offense taken. Actually, you’ve described my thought process pretty well, insofar as I have one...

In this case, I was also trying to make sense of what I was seeing in Spurs games lately: even during protracted spells of possession, we tend to only have four to six players in or very near the penalty box when every other team tends to have 7-9, and that these 4-6 tend not to include either Bentaleb or Mason. The funny thing is, at the very end of games I’ve seen us ratchet up to 10 between the edge of the box and the keeper, which also isn’t good.

 

I think that this has got dramatically worse as certain computer games have embraced the terminology.
It's also bled into some of the analysis from some foreign pundits using their local terms when one already exists.
People pick them up anyway, as they like to sound knowledgeable and exotic.

Trequartista, regista, enganche, raumdeuter, libero and the false nine all seem to have risen to prominence within a short space of time.
The Football Manager series undoubtedly has something to do with it.

 

I think Mason's quite good at getting in the box but we do attack quickly so if he starts it off with a 20 yard pass forward he's probably not going to get there in time. I like that Eriksen's always available to help out the wide player but he could probably do with getting in the box more and gambling on it falling to him. That defensive point is probably to do with us bringing all 11 back for every corner. We've always had a tendency to collapse in ourselves whene we're defending a lead late on too, with the midfield a yard ahead of the defence and forwards not much beyond that. We need another Zokora to go on a mazy run late on and get us out of our own half

Aha, I'd heard Football manager was responsible for trequrtista and stuff like deep lying playmaker but not the others, infact I've never seen the others used apart from Libero earlier today, although I think I've had chicken enganche at a restaurant before.

 

Bobby Robson used to refer to Jenas for his box-to-box ability

He used it in the correct way, as Its more about the qualities a player brings to a team as a manger won't soley say "we need to sign a central midfielder" he will instead discuss the actual qualities needed so using box-to-box is acceptable or if you want to use deep lying midfielder, again thats ok (ignore YV and his grumpiness) but only if you're using these labels because the team needs someone who excels in covering ground or excels at sitting deep.

 

How will the new HG rules being touted affect our business this summer? The thingy on BBC said we need to ship out 6?