Rather than ratings........ Must Keep: Bale Verts Kaboul Sandro Lloris Dembele - but he must progress to the level we all believe him capable. Should Keep: Walker BAE Sigs Holtby Townsend Caulker Smith Dawson Carroll Lennon Meh!!: Friedel Adebayor Defoe Rose Parker (almost in the final category - why wait for the last game of the year to play!!) Dempsey Livermore Get Rid: Hudd Naughton Gallas Gomes and any other 'permanent loans'.... Not seen enough of the other younger players to make an assessment. A major overhaul is neither needed nor desirable. There are enough decent players to form the core of the squad for next year - as long as the additions are all of immediate and proven higher calibre or youth of sufficient prospect (Shaw for example). And get the business done ASAP!!
I agree mostly with that, you take the conditions you get, but part of me does think you should always make an effort with the new manager to spend and if you have to let players go, make sure they are replaced on top of any new signings. Levy's generally been pretty good with letting new managers spend, he let Comolli spend when Ramos came in and Redknapp was then afforded the freedom to get in the players he wanted too. It's more difficult now to spend because of our much higher wages but it still surprised me that how there didn't seem to be much urgency in trying to bring in important players that AVB wanted. We agreed to pay Wigan about £16mill for Palacios in 'Arry's first transfer window, yet we faffed around trying to sign Oscar, then Willian, then Moutinho, even when we got Holtby it took Sandro getting injured to convince Levy pay £1.5mill for Holtby and that got dragged out too. I like Levy and think he's done very well for us but looking back at it that January window, in particular, was an opportunity badly missed.
Player I want us to keep (roughly in order): Bale Sandro Vertonghen Lloris Kaboul Dembele Caulker Townsend Lennon Holtby Rose Carroll Sigurdsson Dempsey Smith Players willing to sell: Kane Defoe Adebayor Dawson Benny Parker Walker Hudd Livermore Need to get rid: Gallas Gomes Friedel Bentley
Has looked pretty dodgy at times this season, wouldn't get in our first team if all fit and in my opinion his selection is hindering the progress of Caulker.
I am going to stick up for Dawson. I think after an uncertain start, he has been on top of his game for most of he time. When you concede from set pieces on a regular basis, it is not really one persons fault, there are others as well. Vertonghen as his regular partner is also culpable particularly as he isn't that dominant in the air. Lloris must also share some of the blame as his form definitely took a dip a short while ago. I don!'t entirely agree Dawson is holding Caulker back. It was Harry's intention to send him out on loan again this season as he didn't feel he was ready to perform at the top of the PL level every week. Given some of Caulker"s indifferent displays this season, I am inclined to think Harry may have been right in his assessment. Overall I think Dawson is well worth his place at the moment.
I agree Harry and Ramos were given money to spend, and I believe AVB will be too, but the situation remains relative, when HR and JR were given dosh, they still weren't given enough to compete for the top players that were available for sale at the time. Oscar and Willian were tentative initial enquries immediately quashed when the figures involved were made known, never serious contenders imo, Moutinho apparently had 3rd party issues outside the control of either club. We're a club with a budget and thats not changing any time soon, unless Levy comes up with an unprecedented new stadium financial package. As I've been hearing about Arsenal in recent days, who've been in the Emirates how long?, are only now near the end of repaying it. The scraps left by the clubs with money is the best we can hope for. I think the downside for Harry and AVB was the profligate spending of Comolli, with Levy vowing to never to waste money again, so instead of people moaning the likes of Falcao and Lewandowski are going elsewhere (never realistic in the first place), the search for the next Berbatov must continue.
I wouldn't moan about missing out on the likes of Falcao and Lewandowski, anoyone with half a brain can see they're well out of our league. However I would moan about why were we never in for the likes of Michu, Benteke or Ba last summer? Three players who would have cost next to nothing and provided the quality to easily secure us a top 4 place.
I'd like to see all three of them have one or two more good seasons before deciding that they have the right quality. There have been plenty of one season wonder strikers.
Good points. With Oscar and Willian I was going on how long the rumours went on, I guess. Sounds silly but there's often not much else we can go on at times.
A lot of you are very harsh on Parker. He is not a dynamic, game changing player like Bale, but he does a lot of thankless work in midfield, closing players down, harrying them and winning the ball for the more creative players. Every team needs a player like this and he's been one of the best at it over the past few years, even if he hasn't been at his best consistently due to injury and (perhaps) age this season. When you analyse Dawson's strengths and weaknesses, you note his lack of pace, but alongside a quality player like Vertonghen it hasn't been an issue. The two complement each other well. Spurs' Achilles heel defensively at times has been in the full back positions. The papers are going to talk up a Bale transfer all summer. If Bale has aspirations to win PL and CL titles, his resolve will be tested. He will be 24 by the start of the season and probably the biggest star in the PL. The pressure this time will be wholly different to what it has been in the past. I can't see him moving abroad, but I can see the top three PL clubs all being active in trying to sign him. 12 months ago, I wouldn't have thought there was a chance of him going to Utd, but if the reports of a £100M transfer kitty are true, he would be a perfect signing to boost Moyes. He might remain loyal to Spurs, but I wouldn't take it for granted. It will be interesting...
Parker was a top player in his position, but has not been this season...... Until arguably yesterday when he was excellent. Injuries have taken their toll and I am not sure that he will feature next season. He certainly won't be first choice DM.
Notso, I completely see where you're coming from. However, you've said that the time to judge him is when he's got his own players so we can't hide behind this "hands are tied" excuse. The problem, is that if we don't get that extra bit of quality and we continue to sign "average" or "hope for the best" types of players which aren't a patch on our rivals, no manager will be able to improve much on our current situation. We all know that we can't sign players that cost fortunes, but we can stop selling our best players. we can also actually spend a bit( just that little bit extra), rather than only investing a % of the money from sales of our best players, into new players. - We're always missing a piece of the puzzle. If we can't do that as the finances are just too tight, then fine. But top 4 will continue to be extremely difficult and we will continue to struggle to break it, with it being no fault of the manager. - who ever is in charge. Will the club change transfer policy by breaking the wage structure for example? It might take a bit of a risk to get that £30mill that we keep missing out on.
More or less how I see it. We got the most points we've ever had in the PL with a team that fundamentally didn't make sense. With our best attribute being speedy, dangerous forwards, we needed someone who could get them the ball quickly and accurately. Dembele has been the key to our fortunes this year, but conventional playmaker he is not. The missing piece to the puzzle was Moutinho. Think about Sandro, Moutinho and Dembele, then Bale Lennon and Defoe/Ade in a 4-3-3. Levy's sticker shock on Moutinho sent everything spiralling into chaos, and we ended up with a team that didn't make any sense and only showed up two weeks after the season started. So: lots of credit to AVB for figuring out how to get points with it. And as for Levy--as furious as I was at him for not getting Moutinho, he's been a very good judge of talent overall.
Whilst I will give Levy some slack in regards to Moutinho as it was a third party issue, two things rankle about it: i.) If negotiations opened earlier, this would have been identified ii.) There was no back-up plan in case the Moutinho deal fell through If we were negotiating for Moutinho even two weeks earlier and discovered this problem it could have been sorted, or even a different player signed (for the sake of argument, let's say Eriksen) but Levy's game of transfer window chicken was always going to be dangerous as we'd lost three creative midfielders (Modric, VDV, Kranjcar) and were in the market for one.
