bassong whinging about not getting played

He's effectively 3rd/4th choice as one of King, Gallas and Dawson is always going to be injured/rested, and most likely two.

As I say I think he'll look back and say he did the right thing, he's played for a better team and made more money, what's not to like? Would he have got CL experience with Toon, unlikely.

He's played something like 11/12 games this season including internationals in the first 9/10 weeks of the season. He's hardly been under-used and tomorrow will be his third game in 8 days. He's played in a wide variety of competitions including Europe, could Toon offer him European football this season, even if he'd stayed, unlikely.

Plus, according to the Toon fans on here, he'd only be 3rd choice for you anyway, so it seems pretty clear he's made the right decision.

 

Fair enough, didnt realise he was used so much when I was reading last season he wanted out. Do you think he'll leave in January? (QPR?)

 

Hi Smudger, fair comments. As I've already said, and you will surely know this as a football fan, the media like to make up/distort stories about players. The stuff written about VDV and Harry, for example, is absolutely laughable at times.

He may leave in January, but where? Let's be honest he's not that good that clubs bigger/more successful than Spurs are going to want him, eg none of the 'Big 4' or City would buy him, IMO. So it's probably a step down, maybe less wages, now that's when players really start to whinge

While Harry sees a role for him, I think he'll stay, but IF we buy a CB such as Cahill, then maybe Seb will swallow his pride and take a downward move. so much depends on the fitness of King and Gallas and our cup runs. While we're in the EL and FA Cup as well as chasing a top 4 spot we'll need four fit CBs at any one time, it's that simple. ATM we only have two, Cahill would make 3, still plenty of room at the Lane in that scenario.

 

Carroll demanding a wage hike before scarpering to a better-paying club at the earliest opportunity halfway through a Premeir League season. You'd have to be a Mail journalist to think Bassong leaving was anywhere near that, let alone worse.

As for his standing at Spurs, some of it can be put down to outside factors - Kaboul was brought back not just because he's a top defender, but also because we could knock a chunk off the asking fee because Portsmouth had stiffed us out of a large chunk of change from when they'd bought Defoe, Sean Davis, Pedro Mendes and Noe Pamarot from us (a similar agreement was used when signing Defoe, Crouch and Kranjcar - as well as the prospective move for Begovic), whilst Gallas was brought in for his Champion's league experience and was on a free transfer, as well as willing to take a pay cut.

Nominally that would make him third choice, behind whichever of King or Gallas were fit and Dawson, but Gallas remained fit most of last season, and Kaboul improved to a point he was moving up the pecking order. On the other hand, though, we seemed reluctant to rotate our squad last season, which also saw Kranjcar and Dos Santos complain about lack of opportunities, and (single appearances from Caulker, Livermore and Townsend aside) we didn't give our youngsters a run-out.

 

Yeah, our lack of sensible squad rotation was the massive low from last season for me, Croydon.
We ran out of steam towards the end of the season because of it and Redknapp alienated some good players, rather than resting some of our first XI before and/or after CL games.

We can only hope that he's learned from those mistakes, though it's too early to tell this season and the Europa League encourages rotation anyway.