A player needs to be an awful lot better than Rose to justify buying him and leaving Rose out of the picture completely while still playing him. That's the downside with long term contracts.
Giroud's not coming to Spurs. Chelsea aren't going to sell him to us and he wants more regular football. As soon as Kane's fit, he's benched other than the odd cup appearance (if Boro don't do for us). We already have a potential, long term Kane substitute in Parrott...but we've given him <5 minutes of senior football and not let him go out on loan, so he's not been progressing and almost certainly won't be ready. Do we spend big on another striker and watch him leave next season? Also, as much as we might want another striker, we need a defensive midfielder and full backs more. If we could defend to a proper level, we probably have enough firepower to win most PL games and make the EL...However, currently we can't defend worth a damn and are totally ****ed, unless Mourinho is prepared to adjust his current 3-2-5 line-ups and work properly on defending as a team.
I was not talking about a Kane substitute but an alternative type of play. You're probably right that Chelsea wont' sell to us although Arsenal & Chelsea seem to have little trouble doing business and Spurs have a history of doing business with Chelsea so I don't see it as beyond belief. I hear your anger but the way young players are introduced is always contentious. I am lead to believe that the modern game is beyond the average 16/17 year old in purely physical terms. In the last 15 years or so the game has upped fitness levels and gone for high pressing and 'total immersion' football. Do you not think that is a factor with Parrot?
I wonder what the total sum we have wasted on inferior players over the last couple of seasons? They could have handed me a million quid as a fan for longevity.....and saved the bloody rest!!!!
Meant to answer your first question. He has invested close to a billion on the Stadium and the Training facilities. He would only do that if his intention was to be close to ever-presents in the CL because as others have pointed out, not being in the CL will undermine the whole economic model. Another few hundred million on the squad to ensure that would be sanctioned in a heartbeat if spenfing that guaranteed the success.
We have a core of players who know ehat it takes to get top 4. They are light years ahead of the 2008 team. A defensive midfielder and a replacement for Aurier would give us s fighting chance of top 4.
A right flank of Foyth/Lo Celso would give us a better chance than the disaster dominoes pairing of Aurier/Lucas
Not giving Parrott game time has proved to be s mistake imho...virtually all of us wanted him to play in Germany but ...
Parrott looks like a man compared to others of his intake on the Academy. Rooney, Michael Owen, Fabregas, Milner and a number of others were playing PL football at his age Its not the norm but he's got the build to do it.
Couldn't really do that, because we haven't outplayed anyone this season. We're not very good, we know it, but we have an in form striker and a defence that's finally starting to gel a bit. Spurs fans are by far the most over-entitled, Billy Big Bollocks bunch of visitors to St Mary's, and have been for some time. At least Chelsea's gobby yobbos have a bit of humour about them, you lot are basically Millwall with more cash but even less class.
It’s been a problem for us ever since Kane established himself. Neither Poch or Jose (so far) have adequately given the second striker enough game time and the effects of overplaying Kane have ran him into the ground resulting in him getting more fragile by the season. Last season we saw how effective a secondary striker can be, because Nando scored some really important goals in Kane’s absence(s) but for some reason the moment Kane became half fit, Poch threw him straight back into the side. I get that a manager will wanna play someone like Harry as much as they can but sometimes common sense needs to prevail.
We've played Harry Kane when he's not fully recovered from injury to be properly match fit. As we all know too well, that's coincided with pretty decent form and results coming to an end. We've also kept him on the pitch in games when we're 4-0 or 5-0 up. That's pretty poor management of the team, our most valuable player and the alternative options. For all Mauricio Pochettino's talents, he didn't play Janssen and Llorente anywhere near enough and I'm not sure that we're going to get anything too different out of this version of Mourinho, either. He seems to be all about established senior pros and doesn't seem to be taking them out of the team for poor form or fitness and he seems to have a very set way of playing. That's going to be very Kane-centric. He's been overplayed for us and England this season. Hopefully, Kane's injury will lead Mourinho to explore some alternatives, kick some arses and sort the ****ing "defensive process" out a bit more. We're likely to have to blood Parrott, hopefully off the bench to start with. I'm hopeful that he's got enough to add something but if he'd been coming off the bench earlier this season, we'd have a much better idea