My worry about the Auriers and Sissokos of the club is that if any concrete interest comes in, it won't be until the last 48 hours of the window and because it is public knowledge that we're desperate to get rid (Nuno hasn't helped matters by not even including them in travelling squads), the fees will be paltry and we won't have enough time or money to bring in further additions. I'm drawing the line at 2 in, 2 out. And tbh given the way this window has gone for pretty much everyone that would be satisfactory for me.
Age has been constantly used to determine the value. In Kane’s case, often with jack grealish as the comparison. There’s so much more to it though, which seems to be forgotten by many who are looking to try and put a value on him. Kane is a prolific striker, with proven premier league pedigree, who will guarantee at least 20 goals a season. There’s also very few players out there who are who are genuine CF’s. The ones that are similar are either unproven or out of our grasp. Not to mention Kane does an incredible job dropping deeper to bring runners into the game, as well as his ability to defend. He cannot be replaced with 1 player who is like for like, or even close to being like for like. Therefore we have to find about 3 players to give us what we would have lost from not having Kane in our squad. Other clubs would know how much money we have, and would have pulled our pants down with the fees. Then there’s an argument that we would have to use that money perfectly, which I personally don’t feel confident we would have. look at Traore for example. £40m for someone who evidence suggests would be better off at the olympics in Paris, rather than a replacement (or 1 of) to one of the best strikers in world football. With everything considered, you almost can’t put a price on Kane due to where we’re currently at as a club. We need to do our best to build a squad around him, especially as he’s now in his peak years. Paratici needs to get it right over the next few days and produce a perfectly balanced group of players to ensure Kane’s opinion changes over the course of the season.
Michael Bridge has been banging on about how paratici lines up potentially 10 players per position as replacements and gets deals “pencilled in”. We have to hope this is the case and we are able to simply pull the trigger if a late deal happens for the likes of sissoko and aurier.
I am surprised Aurier hasn’t an concrete interest (apart from the rumour he was due to go but buying club had issues with his AFCoN involvement). He’s 28, experienced in two different leagues, captain of his country and despite his brainfarts is capable of putting in decent performances - which is more than can be said for Doherty. I’d be surprised if he doesn’t have an offer before deadline. May be a lowball one that we have to accept but nonetheless I think he’ll likely get a move before the window shuts. Sissoko is harder, 32 now, won’t appeal to many good sides in Europe and his wages will be an issue for smaller ones. I think a Middle East/ China/ America move is our best hope, the former has been mentioned, whether anything goes through or not though is anyone’s guess. He’s not gonna play here so I think it’ll be in his interests to accept something.
As for Kane’s age. It’s been comical reading social media posts, even from journalists talking about how he’s not far from 30 and he’s a depreciating asset. This is a guy that at 28 probably just had his best individual season ever. He’s developed his game to be a ruthless finisher as well as someone capable of playmaking. His skill set has never relied on pace or acceleration, he keeps himself in tip top shape and providing he gets no severe injuries, I’m certain he can maintain the current level for roughly at least another 5 years… and I emphasise “at least”.
I never fully understood the Grealish age comparisons given that the latter is only 2 years younger than Kane and by the age of 26 has accomplished almost nothing compared to Kane at the same age. As you say, there aren't many top quality CFs in football anymore. I'd say the real comparisons with Kane are Lewandowski, Haaland and Lukaku. The Belgian is the same age as Kane and was under contract for the same length of time as him. Personally i think the only reason Inter accepted £100m for him is that they are on the brink of bankruptcy. We don't have that problem.
absolutely. And we aren’t getting Haaland or Lewandowski are we? Which leaves us with the unproven ones. Not a risk we can really take at the moment!
Lukaku's a hired gun. He's been there 2 seasons and he won them a title. Harry Kane's one of our own and the best player that this club has had in a very long time. His departure is something very different to this club and its fans. Levy's not so detached as all that. He will have known that losing Kane this summer would cause significant unrest. Unfortunately, he didn't do sufficient in the years 2018-2021 to prevent Kane from wanting to go. Will he now do something to prevent this happening again next year? If we're just holding onto him to prevent fans from gunning for Levy and ENIC, I'm tempted to as "what's the point?". Paratici has set up potential deals. We know that Winks, Sissoko, and Ndombele aren't wanted by the manager...and that we need midfielders who are capable of adding something to the squad. Those players have to leave and be replaced...no matter what we do or don't get for them. If Nuno has to be picking from those three to replace Skippy, Hojbjerg and Dele, nothing's changed...and nothing's going to change.
****ing hell, Sky are STILL going on about Kane’s statement, and interviewing people about it. - David James is the latest currently giving his thoughts, with question after question fired at him for over 9 minutes so far! WHO ****ING CARES, and more precisely, WHO THE **** CARES WHAT DAVID JAMES THINKS?
Sissoko keeps being linked with Italian clubs: currently there's whispers of interest from both Juve and Milan, and back in January there was talk of interest from Inter. There's also been interest from the Middle East, although he reportedly rejected it because he knows that the second he signs on the dotted line the likelihood is he won't be picked for France ever again (although that does ignore Andre-Pierre Gignac was getting into the France squad while playing in Liga MX, but I doubt Sissoko will be scorig 20+ in any league...) Considering the scuttlebutt doing the rounds at the moment is we'll sign Tomiyasu the second Aurier is out the door, because we're trying to get our Non-HG number down as we only have one spot available and are trying to get that up to two or three, this is why the lack of interest in Aurier is dispiriting as once he goes the dominos start to fall
Kessie Watch Looks like he's trying to engineer a nice little signing bonus for himself next summer judging by what the Corriere della Sera are claiming, as whenever Milan offer him a new contract he always comes back demanding a larger figure, with both us and PSG being heavily linked with him (I mean, we've been heavily linked with him for four years, but that's not important right now...) £10m + Sissoko, perhaps?
The media can't cope with being so publicly proved wrong. They pump out tons of bollocks but are rarely proved so wrong. They were adamant that Levy would sell and City would get Kane. So much so that the Sun ran a front page world exclusive that a deal had been done for £160m. They blamed Levy for "being unreasonable" and for "backtracking on a Gentleman's agreement" and claimed Spurs fans supported Kane's decision. But once it became clear that spurs fans were annoyed at Kane they had to change track and the last few weeks have seen a lot of "Kane is going about this the wrong way" and "Kane's brother agent is a moron" and "City are trying to get Kane on the cheap so don't blame Levy" stories. But they were still insisting that Kane would leave. They even got Shearer and Le Tissier saying that they'd go if they were Kane cos when you retire you "want to show your children and grand children your trophies"...even though Le Tissier stayed at Southampton and won nothing even though big clubs went in for him and Shearer turned down United at least twice to stay at toon, where he won 2 runners up medals. They were shocked that spurs fans didn't burn shirts (Gerrard at Liverpool in 2005) or send bullets in the post (Rooney in 2012). I was on the angry with Kane end of the spectrum and the worst we said was we wouldn't sing his name They couldn't grasp the reaction of the spurs fans on Sunday. Now they have all been made to look like mugs they are desperately scrabbling around for excuses. But at no point will they stumble across the truth... footballing journalism is a joke of a professional most of the time.
In your last sentence the word 'football' could be omitted without changing the accuracy of the sentence.
McKennie Watch Pretty likely that we're trying to get Sissoko out the door so that McKennie or Kessie can be a like-for-like replacement Also we're about to have another ITK fight...
