Transfer Rumours transfer thread fact and fiction

You are putting words into my mouth that I have not said. I DO NOT think we are paupers I have tried to make the case that it's not JUST about money. Of the 5 clubs above us in terms of finance, two of them are within reach now once the benefits of the new stadium kick in properly. This has been delayed by the pandemic but will make a difference, in fact already is. I doubt we would have convinced Conte to come without the new infrastructure. BUT in a fight with City, Chelsea, Liverpool and United for a player, money will still be a factor but more than that will be perception of where the club is success wise. It's chicken and egg but it depends who owns the chicken. Our business model is the one that should be followed by all clubs ie we are working on a profit and loss basis and living within real time financial constraints. The proof of all of this is what happens in the transfer market and it's simplistic, to say the least, to just blame Levy. We are now in a stronger position than we have been in all my 50+ years of following Spurs. As we move up the pecking order it get's harder not easier to land appropriate players. Just take the case of Barcelona, because they are short of money (in relative terms) they are moving more into the same pond as us and that does not help.

 

That's the transfer market and that's why if goes to the wire.

 

Imho, if we don't make significant purchases this window and then miss out on 4th, Conte will walk.

 

Stacked up against the clubs we aspire to rub shoulders with, I'm afraid it is slightly. Sensibly too.

But the £42m record fee paid for Sanchez was only broken 3 years later and only by £11m. These aren't eye-watering increases.

The business model I am proposing is in essence to continue doing what we're doing - spending within our limits and offering competitive but not ridiculous wages, just in my model we GET A BLOODY MOVE ON WITH IT

 

I think we all fear that because we are all aware that in Conte we have moved up a level in terms of managers. The question is can the club move itself with him.

 

25% increase in 3 years is an eye watering increase in my world.

 

Serie A Rando Watch
Calcio Hellas claim that we're interested in Hellas Verona CM Antonin Barak

While he sounds underwhelming due to sounding uncannily like somebody you've never heard of, it does have to be said that his scoring record is impressive this season, with 8 goals and 4 assists in 19 games - and, more importantly, is hardly a blip as he got 7 goals and 2 assists on loan there last season, 7 goals and 4 assists in his first season at Udinese (in 2017-18, we'll get to this shortly...), while at international level he has 8 goals and 2 assists in 29 appearances for the Czech national team

So on paper there's a goalscoring CM who has an aerial threat and is very solid in everything he does, who is drawing comparisons with Tomas Soucek (albeit better going forward but not as good defensively) and with eighteen months on his Hellas contract he's somebody we can bring in reasonably cheaply and, worst case scenario, flip him in 12-18 months for a tidy sum of money, so where's the catch?

Well, remember when I pointed out that he had a good start to his Udinese career in 2017-18? The problem was the 2018-19 season, where he missed over a month of the early season with lumbago, came back into the team, and then promptly missed the entire second half of the season when his lumbago came back with a vengeance, and was then a bit-part player for the first half of 2019-20 before being loaned to Lecce

Of course, there's also the option of him being one of the various plates that Paratici spins in order to see which club blinks first, so it's just as likely that we sign Barak as it is we sign Matthias Svanberg or Nahitian Nandez - or we land the whale in Kessie

 

I don't think that we can be criticised for Traore wishing to return to Barca.
Nobody on here wanted him anyway. We've also no idea where he was supposed to fit in.

Failing to sign anyone with only a few days left in the window? That's different.
Not remotely a surprise, though. Expect a flurry of late activity and very little over the line.

 

It's not about putting words in your mouth, you're trying to make excuses for us failing to get a bog standard player and acting as if it's so hard to get a deal done because other clubs have more money than us, despite the fact we ourselves have enough money for these such deals.

And in this particular case, it IS about the money, that's why Traore isn't a Spurs player right now. Personal terms were said to be agreed but we were seemingly wasting time haggling over a few £m of the fee. A fee that for a club of our stature is easily coverable.

Comparing us with the other four or five in the Prem is pointless in this particular moment and we're also not/ weren't in a fight with any of them for Traore. We were trying to sign a mid-table player from a mid-table club but we ourselves acted like a a fellow mid-table club when trying to sign him, so much so we've wasted so long that another side has jumped the queue after one of their own players looks set to leave after refusing a new contract.

 

I think your second paragraph is where mine and other's gripes are coming from.

Not signing Traore isn't the issue, wasting over three weeks of the window on a player that is now likely set to join someone else on short notice is.

Longari's linked us with Genoa's RWB, Cambiaso, so there could be something in that now going forward but whether we can get him in on four days notice is another question, assuming there is genuine interest and Doherty departs I presume.

 

Is it too early for me to once again bring up proposing a Doherty for KWP swap with Southampton yet?

 

We heard so much in the summer about how Paratici lines multiple deals up and is always speaking to agents. This was widely reported on when he moved here from Juventus. It would make more sense to me that Traore was an option and there are others like Cambiaso that we’ve just heard less about.

 

Traore was being extensively linked to us more or less every day by journos though, not forgetting he was on our radar in the summer too. That seemed more than a casual irons in the fire link like this Cambiaso lad is. Traore seemed like one Paratici and Conte really wanted to get done (**** knows why, lol) but as we've seen before, dallying about has cost us.

 

https://www.skysports.com/share/12526541

Sounding like Traore was never keen on being used as a WB. Why have the club spent so long chasing him if that’s the case?

I won’t shed any tears on him not joining but again it makes Spurs look inept

 

I'd be surprised if that bit were true, three weeks of trying to convince a guy to play WB for us seems a little extreme... Though what the **** do I know, football gets madder stories by the week, lol.

 

We know Paratici likes him because he tried for him at Juve and wanted him in the summer pre-Conte. How strongly Antonio felt, we don’t know. If he was ambivalent and we had other irons in the fire then it might go some way to explain why we didn’t complete the deal days ago.

 

Has anyone seen him play, as transfermarkt have him down as playing at LWB more often?
Having said that, he seems pretty versatile, two-footed and has played on both sides in multiple systems.

 

Four days to find out.

 

Indeed, and it’ll be damning on the club if we don’t get reinforcements. I don’t think Conte walks until the summer in any case, he has said he understands January is a difficult window and I think the summer is the true tell. But if we’re not moving in the right direction at the end of the season then I think he’ll tell Levy and Fabio to jog on, and who can blame him.

 

Any more news on Dele, Lo Celso and Ndombele leaving?