I don’t want Spurs to sign Traore but if Levy is already vetoing Paratici choices then that doesn’t bode well for the future.
https://www.spurscommunity.co.uk/in...-end-to-the-window-levy-strikes-again.147107/ ^^^ This is where the Levy stepping in rumour came from, some may have then rehashed it into their own terms elsewhere but frankly none of the guys on SC anymore are reliable, all the good ones left/ no longer post. It’s only good nowadays to read the bollocks they spout and have a laugh about it, trust me, @Roo and I have perfected our skills over the years of knowing who chats **** and who’s legit.
Even if this story does has weight to it, and quite frankly it's making an ameoba's fart look like a lead balloon, the obvious question is whether Traore would be an obvious upgrade on what we have in place first, and whether the price was reasonable second In terms of the first, the likes of Federico Chiesa or Angel Correa would be significant upgrades on Lucas/Bergwijn so worth pushing the boat out for as since they have the end product to back up their billings plus have both performed not just in top leagues but also in the Champions League and are regulars for their countries - none of which can be said for Traore In terms of the second, the fact we bid £40m, Wolves upped the price to £50m and we decided otherwise indicates that we didn't think it was a worthwhile price considering we were willing to offer a higher fee for Lautaro Martinez and Dusan Vlahovic a couple of weeks before (and did sign off on a higher fee for Cristian Romero, for that matter) - especially since we'd have had to move on either Lucas or Bergwijn or have three RWs, and this is before considering we were expecting to move on Ndombele to offset the fee we were willing to pay for Traore If there's reasons to believe that our summer window was a B-grade it's not because we didn't sign Traore, but because we didn't add one or possibly two of Palinha, Nandez or Aouar to our central midfield - although, again, that does also have Ndombele being moved on as part of balancing the squad
There isn’t an abundance of top wingers/ wide forwards at the moment, especially not available to us at present circumstances (only ECL to offer) so I don’t want Spurs spending crazy amounts on a position that we’re ok in - not perfect, but ok, especially when the amount won’t reflect the quality we’re getting, or lack of I should say. The only upgrade Traore would bring is pace, and whilst pace can be devastating it also needs to be used correctly and Traore doesn’t do that. Lucas and Bergwijn have better work rates defensively whilst despite end product of all three being poor, it’s pointless bringing in another player who’ll only add to that poor productivity. We’ve all been rightly pissed at fatty and Lo Celso, I’m almost certain Traore would’ve been another to add to the big money flop pile. I wouldn’t be surprised if we make a move in January for him though, he’ll only have 18 months on his deal by then and Wolves will have to consider cashing in while they can. A huge shame Zidane quit when he did, I think Bale would’ve came back for a second year had Zidane remained at Real… Spursy!
One teeny tiny question: if Traore had a £50m pricetag, while Jeremy Doku was reportedly available for around £30m, why isn't Doku the better option? He's younger so has time to improve, he's a regular in the Belgium side so there's a baseline of quality there (even if his end product clearly needs work, as he got twice as many assists in 7 games for Anderlecht last season as he did in 37 games once moving to Rennes), and by complete coincidence it would also remove the possibility of him tearing us a new one when we face Rennes in the ECL if we had him on our bench Obviously he isn't an improvement on Lucas/Bergwijn, but on the other hand he could be in a year or two
Here is a thought, maybe the professional football people at the club identified Traore as a player that would improve our team, I am sure they know way more about football than Levy or anybody on here. Traore has PL experience and is somewhat proven in this league, albeit he would need to improve, but that may come playing with better players. I would rather pay more for a player that will almost certainly be able to perform over a player who may or may not, the club has regularly made the mistake of taking the cheaper option punts over proven quality and been bitten on the aris. Janssen, Njie, Nkoudou etc. The answer to your previous question, I would drop Bergwjin, his attacking output is virtually non existent and Traore would have been an upgrade.
From the Traore pursuit, there's a pretty good indication that Levy's not as distanced from footballing matters as some might want to believe. He was never going to hand over any degree of real autonomous power to a new employee after 20 years of doing as he sees fit. Paratici is like every other employee, subject to being overruled by Daniel...so, basically it's business as usual. As long as Mr Micawber is calling the shots, we will continue to come up short on the pitch not in the books ...of that I'm certain
I don’t think Traore is worth 40m, let alone the 50 that Wolves reportedly wanted. The whole story about Levy putting the kibosh on the move seems to be from SCITK, the more likely scenario is that we simply wouldn’t meet the Wolves valuation, just as City wouldn’t meet ours for Kane. When a player offers, at best, a marginal improvement on the squad, there is absolutely no point spending that money on him. Paratici and Hitchin will have valuation models for players that are (likely and hopefully) far more sophisticated than the guesswork that goes on on social media, and while it’s worth breaking them for a true game changer, Traore ain’t that. Managers and DoFs need their visions backed for sure but spending 50m on a player that doesn’t improve us in any meaningful way and takes us out of HG balance would have been madness IMO. Traore is massively hyped because he’s fast, strong, good on FIFA, and the whole being ripped and using baby oil makes him a meme on Twitter. He is not a 50m player.
to be fair, even I got caught out as recently as last summer. There are some convincing bastards out there. what I realised this year, is that there’s now a ****load of our fan base who are at the extreme end of “levy out”. (There’s also some who are “moderate” and will make their opinions known, and that’s their opinion which of course they are entitled to. I for one am first to admit I am not his biggest fan.) But ever since the situations surrounding the furlough fiasco and ESL as 2 examples, this new breed of “Levy out” fans has emerged. Not only do they make their opinions known, but they are attention seeking twats who bend the truth (make **** up) to suit their narrative and agenda. And because they have this previous “reputation” of being ITK (very debatable) they use this to their advantage on social media. They are fun to follow and laugh at, but nothing more. as @Dier Hard has said in the past, there’s literally a handful of “ITK’s. - they all happen to be journalists and are very respectable, IMO.
I've no idea what happened within the club. What happened externally is all you need to know. Yet again, we pursued a player until TDD....and came up short. When the deal was there to be done, there was a problem and we slunk away. Wolves were never going to sell the bloke on the cheap. He's a critical part of their team I'd like to repeat on record that I'm no great fan of Traore. Frankly, he's another Sissoko in my eyes. The only difference between the two is that Levy wanted Sissoko and bet £30m on him. Given transfer inflation, Traore at £45-50m is a pretty damn similar deal....an overpriced player on TDD. We didn't go ahead despite the footballing hierarchy clearly wanting him. Levy's not changed, nor will he. We will continue to come up short of success irrespective of who we employ whilst he remains in charge and his view prevails over others on everything.
Here's a far more pertinent thought: how many times have you been told this is some Spurs Community poster talking bollocks, something which I can claim is bollocks as the story has not been picked up by the likes of Dan Kilpatrick or Alasdair Gold (let alone David Ornstein or Jack Pitt-Brook, and they post any old bollocks to reach their daily quota of articles), and yet you insist that Levy's meddling in a move that there's no proof that we made nor was there any need to make it? And no, even if the "story" wasn't a big, steaming heap of sweaty hippo bollocks, Traore would not improve our team as he has no end product. That's why I brought up Chiesa or Correa as examples of players who would improve the team as they do have end product, as opposed to Traore who is just Theo Walcott with an exotic-sounding name
I’m not disputing that Nuno (at the very least) wanted Traore, he’s clearly a player he likes. But there’s wanting a player at all costs and just liking the player. There’s a judgement call that always has to be made about whether you push the boat out for a game changing player or you stick to your valuation model. Missing out on Grealish was an example of the former happening quite recently, but I just don’t see this one the same way. Traore isn’t a transformative player, so it’s not worth over-extending ourselves on it. I would assume it’s far more likely that those involved in the decision (I would assume Nuno, Paratici, Hitchin, Levy and maybe Rebecca Caplehorn) disagreed and Nuno and anyone else who wanted Traore got outvoted. The restructure of the football side of the club that included the establishment of the Football Board and concluded with the hiring of Paratici is clearly meant to take Levy out of the limelight when it comes to transfers etc. I have no doubt he still has a say but a lesser one than before, so I think it’s a bit strong to point the finger at Levy on this one based on a post on SCITK that nobody serious is reporting on.
These two paragraphs hit the nail on the head. I think a lot would agree that Levy’s lost a lot of support from fans over recent years as he’s made a ridiculous amount of **** ups but there’s now seemingly lies spreading as “facts” amongst a portion of the fanbase just to try and gain support for their agenda. Though I would also say that despite them being the loudest on social media, these types of fans are actually in a very small minority and I think that was perfectly demonstrated at the “Levy Out” protest a few months or so back. Only about 200-ish turned up for that and it ended up just being piss up with people going to get cans and bottles from the offy. 200, let’s even say 300 tops, from a fanbase of millions (and probably in the 100,000s in England alone) is a ridiculously low representation. As for the Journo ITKs I think that’s bang on and it could also be why these ITK sites/ accounts are becoming less and less respected/ believed. With guys like Ally Gold, Dan KP and Mike McGrath, there’s a very good number of English/ British journalists who are generally the first to report on any inside info with very high accuracy. Then the more well known international ones like Romano will also get their exclusives (like we saw with Gil), it makes the ITKs now redundant, they never get anything before these types of journalists and so anyone who likes getting info just needs to follow these guys and not some mong on Twitter with ITK/ Insider/ Source in their name, nor those at SCITK, who I wonder now if they’re just pushing their current “ITKs” to ensure they continue to gain traffic to the site, even if those people have zero inside knowledge, because let’s be honest, the SCITK page is one of the biggest/ most popular non-official Spurs pages on Spurs social media.
Nuno wanted Traore. The recruitment team agree a maximum figure. We approach Wolves. They value Traore based on his worth to them (as we did with Kane). We wouldn't pay their asking price. Really do not see the Levy problem in this one. And that's coming from someone who is beyond disappointed with Levy's decisions over the past 2 or 3 years. This summer he seems to have been way more realistic in his valuations of players going out (Hart £1m, CCV on loan then buy option, sissoko £5m), releasing people such as Aurier...hopefully that is a sign he is listening to others.
Traore improves the team because he brings more menace to our 90minute game than Bergwijn, people talking like Bergwijn has got a heap of assists to his name. His only advantage is he’s younger…means nothing to me tbh…I want quality for the next game. The critical moment in a game of turning the ball over…Traore does that to a better degree than Bergwijn…therefore an aspect of our 90 minute game improves. I’m not bothered about wether Levy has to pay £10 mill more than what everyone thinks the player is worth. Many back Levy when he holds out for the 10 mill when we know players aren’t worth it…I’d sell Ndombele for 25…that’s his worth…but it won’t be happening and most understand Levy not shifting from something similar to what he paid but when has Ndombele shown 60 mill worth of talent consistently? He hasn’t…therefore worth 25 mill(or less)…about right for a lazy player lacking motivation in his career. Plus if we can waste 10 mill on Jack Clarke’s of the world then why not pay that £10 mill and improve the team game for now, for the next game, for this season.
Also, didn't Levy pull the plug on the Stuart Downing transfer many moons ago? It's like he has previous in pulling the plug on expensive deals for wingers who won't improve our team in the slightest...
He doesn’t though, that’s been the more or less the whole point of why people don’t want him. He doesn’t offer anything more other than pace. There’s next to zero end product from the guy. If you even go back to the game against Wolves, for all of Traore’s running, can you honestly remember him teeing up a genuine chance for a Wolves player? Yet in that very game, Bergwijn should’ve had an assist for Kane but Kane fluffed the chance. Wolves in fact are like Arsenal right now, they haven’t even scored a league goal this season and yet Adama’s meant to be some £50m player? I think everyone will agree Bergwijn’s end product is shoddy at the moment but paying £50m for a player with an even worse end product just makes no sense to me. I’d rather we tried paying that £50m to re-sign a 32 year old Bale who can guarantee an upgrade on what we have than spend it on an another bang average player, most of us are bemoaning paying what we did for the likes of Ndombele and Lo Celso so I don’t see why we should pay a similar amount on a player that will end up just being another one of them - a big money flop with little to no end product.
The only problem with your logic is that we don't have an endless supply of money and if we spend 40 million on Trarore that prevents us spending that amount on a player that might have an end product. Sissoko could look menacing as well but it's clearly not enough to improve our team. This was my complaint about Sterling playing for England his passing was crap and it makes you wonder how many chances were not being created if there was someone else there. The last game with Grealish starting for England showed the difference a productive player makes. I have to say that Sterling looked better as well, producing more decent passes coming in from the right, which again shows how the right mix of players can make a team and improve the individuals in it. Hojbjerg for Denmark?
