Transfer thread for 2016-17 season

Several media outlets are linking us to Lacazette again, suggesting that he is keen on a move to us. Lyon turned down £31m from West Ham, as they are hoping for another £6m apparently. - some sources say that he was partially responsible for that move breaking down as he wants CL football.

Personally I'll be amazed if we spend that sort of money. Every summer we're discussing big moves, yet the final result is almost always a zero net spend.

Hopefully this window will be different, so we'll have to wait and see. Unfortunately, the going rate for a striker of the quality we need is going to be extremely pricey.

Will be interesting to see why Levy does.

 

Completely out of the blue we've been linked with...bear with me for a second...Henrikh Mkhitaryan, which has nothing to do with him trying to strong-arm a new contract out of Dortmund as his contract expires next year. That being said, his wages at Dortmund are £55k p/w, which means he'd fit into our wage structure much better than Ibrahimovic would.

Wet Spam continue their policy of copying our crib notes, as they've now decided they want to sign Samuel Umtiti. So for those keeping score, that's now Batshuayi, Lacazette, Calleri and Umtiti. Methinks it's time the club started acting underhandedly and planted stories about how we want Payet this summer...

 

Or we tell them we want Torres for £30m? That'll screw em.

 

We've been linked with a different striker every day so far.

Sunday was Zlatan.
Monday was Batshuayi.
Tuesday was Embolo.
Today it's Lacazette and Troy Deeney.

Who's tomorrow's? Wilson? Llorente? Damiao?

 

Lloris has apparently rejected a five-year contract extension, and within seconds a whole bunch of "rivals on alert" stories have been vomited forth - somehow all missing the fact that Lloris is contracted until 2019, rather than 2017. Rough translation, the papers are no doubt going to assume he'll be replacing De Gea - yet we have no reason to sell, and as the history that so many hacks conveniently forget has told us, unless Lloris goes on strike or gets kidnapped, that deal won't be happening. Ever.

 

Nothing would surprise me with Lloris. He is a very ambitious guy and is determined to win things before he retires.
I understand this is most likely lazy journalism, but he was so determined to leave us two summers ago that he was saying his farewells on the last day of that season. No disrespect to the guy, but if an attractive move was offered to him, my money would be on him taking it.

 

Maybe that's what he was thinking about during the Southampton game.

 

If selling Hugo is what it takes to get a captain who actually imposes his authority on the game and actively assists the coaching staff in game management on the pitch, so be it. Goalkeepers are without question the easiest player on the pitch to replace, we now have a very solid defensive line, and we'd make enough money from his sale to comfortably bring in a quality replacement. I love Hugo to bits and have nothing but respect for how long he has stuck with Spurs, despite the debacle of the AVB and Sherwood eras... but our lack of a true leader on the pitch easily costs us 8-10 stupid points every season. He is also not without pretty obvious weaknesses...his distribution is sunday league standard whilst his inability to protect his near post is sometimes baffling for a keeper of his quality.

Butland, ter Stegen, Leno, Perin are all young, extremely talented keepers who wouldn't break the bank and could probably be tempted to the Lane (with MA ter Stegen possibly the exception to that assumption).

 

Totally agree with CK. Lioris is replaceable. Certainly not a captain and has an obvious Achilles heel in his game with how he concedes goals at the near post which happens on a regular basis. Not to mention annoying clangers at crucial times. That West Ham goal is still ****ing me off.

I understand he's not Superman but there is a consistency in his poor play which is exclusive to him but the positive play in him can be found in others also.

 

Gomes ?

 

If we are in the market for a new keeper, and the important word in that sentence is IF considering Lloris is still under contract until 2019, the most obvious choices are to activate Bernd Leno's £12.5m release clause or bring in Steve Mandanda as he's yet another Marseilles player who is out of contract at the end of this month - although plenty of Spurs fans on Twitter have been singling out Jack Butland.

 

So what have I missed for May ??

The Fail etc selling key Spurs players, Pritchard may be gone , loadsa agents
linking their clients to Spurs to get more money, and no definite incomings.

That it ??

 

Oh, and my Croatia contacts tell me Coric is technically sound, but nowhere near PL ready.
So any business there I guess would be a "land grab" and immediate loan back to his current club
for a while.

 

Not that I think for one minute that Hugo will go but should we need to replace him, Butland would also be my preferred choice. Think he's a superb young keeper.

 

He also ticks all the Levy boxes on age, sell value if it comes to that etc.

 

Yeah definitely and he's English which is always a nice bonus, would fit in easily with the likes of Dier, Alli and Kane etc.

 

I agree with HBIC. Bernd Leno would get my shout. Phenomenal talent who is only relatively unknown because Neuer is even more phenomenal. Has been first choice keeper at Leverkusen since the age of 17 which is ridiculous considering they are one of the stronger sides in a very strong league. Perhaps Son could have a word in his former teammate's ear for us. I like Butland too but he'll probably cost over £20m and tbh Leno is just as young but vastly more experienced.

 

I get the thought that Lloris is replaceable, but how important is his style of play to how Pochettino puts the team together? I'm thinking of the why he comes off his line so quickly, compared to Friedel, for example. Pochettino seems to be as single-minded about how he wants to play as AVB was, which is great when it works, but also seems to explain why there's no Plan B and why we didn't sign another striker last summer (he wants the right player for his system) ...

 

The odd thing with the original Lloris story in the Mirror is they says that Lloris has rejected a new contract, yet in the same article they say we haven't entered into formal contract negotiations yet. From that standpoint, the story appears to be Levy made an opening offer of £x per week but Lloris would rather have £y per week.

In terms of what Lloris is expecting, this is where things get murky: he's currently on £67k per week, and at least one site is claiming (emphasis on "claiming" given their complete lack of sources for that quote...) he wants wages on a par with the world's best - but what does that even mean? Here's a few top goalkeeper's salaries to compare with...
David de Gea - £200k p/w
Thibault Courtois - £120k p/w
Manuel Neuer - £115k p/w
Joe Hart - £110k p/w
Petr Cech - £100k p/w
Bernd Leno - £64k p/w
Gianluigi Buffon - £60k p/w
Marc-Andre ter Stegen - £55k p/w
Keylor Navas - £55k p/w
Jack Butland - £50k p/w

Apart from realising that Buffon's agent is really bad at his job, given Buffon is paid five grand a week less than Simon Mignolet, that list says that we're paying Lloris a competitive salary compared to most clubs - but we'd need to give him a significant wage bump if he wants parity with the likes of Hart, Cech and Neuer.

 

Cech and above have been in teams that have won / competed at the highest level
(if you assume that as GKs they were key in their clubs doing so) .
So arguably they have then warranted such wages.

If Lloris wants more money than a lot more of those near post attacks are going to have
to be kept out of the net by him.

[ With CL here again, Levy is going to have another fight to plateau the wage ramp as he did in 2011. ]