I never have. Liverpool and Man City have not played anyone as a traditional striker all season and have outscored everyone else.
Having numbers in midfield isn’t the same as having quality. Those names above all lack creativity. So if Kane gets injured then who plays in his position? Bergwijn or Son? Son playing up top then weakens the left side and Bergwijn doesn’t convince me as a striker.
One's already ended up at Villa and the other is about to join Brentford. We could've easily paid for both of them, let alone one. At Chelsea he did play with attacking midfielders, he had Hazard, then he had Pedro and Willian seemingly rotating as one of the two that joined Hazard behind Costa. At Inter he played more with box to box midfielders/ deeper lying creators, he had Barella as well as long time Spurs target, Brozovic, plus Vidal and Eriksen (who played CM) to call on. To put into perspective, Barella and Brozovic managed 15 assists between them last season in the league, between our five mids last season they managed 7 assists. This season, Barella is already up to 8 assists on his own, our five this season (with Skipp replacing Sissoko) have 3 assists. Conte doesn't have either an attacking playmaker or a deeper one/ box to box to work with and it's been telling because all season both Kane and Son have been starved of genuine service.
If we sign Kessie then I think the hope is that he does the Kante role and Skipp or Sarr the Matic one.
Liverpool have Salah, Mane, Jota and Firmino along with others. Man City have an unlimited budget and will eventually sign a striker (Haaland in the summer) I don’t think you can compare Spurs to them. Plus they have quality central midfielders which Spurs don’t.
There is no doubt they have better players than us but that doesn't mean that we need to play with a striker. Three out of Lucas, Son, Bergwijn and Gil would make a better strike force than two of them plus any plausible striker we could sign.
Considering that Fiorentina have bullishly said Vlahovic isn't leaving this window, and a few weeks ago Vlahovic himself said he wanted to stay to get Fiorentina into Europe (although a slump in December has dented that) Juve offering £60m isn't cut and dried - just as Arsenal offering £70m wasn't, as Vlahovic's agent flat ignored their approach
Basically we should be saving our money to spend on the best players we can afford not wasting it signing backups who won't play. I think if we were playing 4231 then Coutinho would have been a good signing. Not so sure in Conte's system as I don't see how he fits.
He'd fit in the two behind Kane, as Hazard plus Willian/ Pedro behind Costa did under Conte at Chelsea. Coutinho and Son would play off of Kane with Lucas, Bergwijn and Gil providing the options from the bench.
On Amrabat, I can’t say I watch enough Serie A to pass a definitive judgement, so obviously I have watched the obligatory YouTube highlights video and will now pass expert judgement. He’s 6ft tall and while he doesn’t have a big build, he looks strong in the tackle, which will be important. I like that he looks like he has a good touch and seems comfortable recieving and retaining the ball under pressure, which is vital for a PL footballer because of the pace of the game and the lack of space. On the ball he seems to look for a quick pass up the pitch when he recovers the ball and can also play those pings out to the wide areas, which will be useful for us getting the WBs in space. Overall he looks useful. He’s not the creative 8/10 we feel we need, but I think as a deeper player he can offer a combination of physicality, press resistance and ability on the ball that none of our current options have. Especially if 2 or 3 of Dele, Tanguy and Gio are off (or at least might have fallen out with Conte) this window, it’s important to have another option in midfield and it’s good to have one that might offer a combination of attributes that doesn’t currently exist. It’s worth saying that Romano said we had a list of options and Amrabat was only one of them. So it’s likely we’re looking at others anyway. I’d be simultaneously pleased we got a potentially useful player and annoyed we’ve not done business sooner and in other, equally if not more pressing areas.
Football BSider claim we've made a cash + Lo Celso offer for Diego Carlos Keep this on the backburner, given the source
Romano says Amrabat is our main target to replace Ndombele. I guess it means we're looking for a guy who'll barely get in our squad. Kind of like how Nkoudou replaced N'jie. Nico Schira also reckons that the deal for Amrabat will be a loan with option to buy for Є15m. There's also a report from some random source that we're gonna be paying Traore £120k a week... L-O-L.
Replacing a lazy player with lots of talent with a a work horse with very little talent. I trust Conte but this signing is uninspiring to say the least.
Amrabat looks bang average on Youtube, a cross between Hojbjerg and Sissoko... ie: not very good. That does not bode well when Youtube compilations usually only show the best of a player.
I'm amazed any team will consider loaning us players given our recent track record caused Benfica to completely restructure the club's transfer policy
At least it's just a loan. It's extremely likely that he'll keep Gollini company on the end of season flight back to Italy. If we were parting with cold hard cash, I'd be further sharpening my pitchfork. It's been suggested for some time that there's no cash to buy anyone this TW, let alone anyone really good. Levy's kicked the can further down the road (again). One can only hope that it's with the genuine intention of delivering the rumoured additional funding for the first day of this summer's TW and that Conte gets the backing he was promised. It seems very likely that we really wanted Kessie and McKennie but couldn't get them. Our next 3 games are at home. Let's hope that we get the necessary results, because patience is in REAL short supply...
It's also worth noting that, a couple of seasons ago, Conte reportedly wanted him at Inter Coincidentally, this article is from a couple of years ago when he wound up going to Fiorentina instead https://www.violanation.com/platfor...las-notes-from-verona-transfer-crazy-faithful The interesting part of the article is this section: "In fact, with just one assist, you may well question his overall contribution. But those stats only paint a partial picture. If you take a step back, you will find a crucial Amrabat contribution in the buildup to many of our goals this season." So while his stats don't paint him as a goal or assist machine, that ignores how the player who got the assist received the ball from him