Saw this interesting interview with Pochettino : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGzCLX7grpo He makes a telling comment at the end about the mindset of the current squad.
Our new 24 man squad. I make it 17 overseas, 5 home grown and 2 U21. Dier is U21 and I assume Ceballos, can't see any others. Squad member Position Played Goals YC Y RC R Status 1. Hugo Lloris Goalkeeper 67 0 2 0 2. Kyle Walker Defender 102 3 14 0 HG 3. Danny Rose Defender 41 2 5 2 HG 4. Younes Kaboul Defender 102 6 8 4 5. Jan Vertonghen Defender 59 4 11 0 6. Vlad Chiriches Defender 17 1 1 0 7. Aaron Lennon Midfielder 258 26 8 0 HG 8. Paulinho Midfielder 30 6 4 1 9. Roberto Soldado Forward 29 6 6 0 10. Emmanuel Adebayor Forward 82 34 6 1 13. Michel Vorm Goalkeeper 0 0 0 0 15. Eric Dier Defender 3 2 0 0 16. Kyle Naughton Defender 38 0 6 1 HG 17. Andros Townsend Midfielder 32 1 2 0 HG 19. Mousa Dembélé Midfielder 60 2 9 0 22. Nacer Chadli Midfielder 26 3 1 0 24. Brad Friedel Goalkeeper 50 0 0 0 29. Etienne Capoue Midfielder 15 1 1 0 32. Benoit Assou-Ekotto Defender 155 4 21 2 38. Ryan Mason Midfielder 0 0 0 0 44. Cristian Ceballos Midfielder 0 0 0 0 - Benjamin Stambouli Midfielder 0 0 0 0 - Bongani Khumalo Defender 0 0 0 0 - Federico Fazio Defender 0 0 0 0
So if everyone's fit: Lloris; Walker, Kaboul, Vertonghen, Rose; Capoue, Bentaleb; Lamela, Eriksen, Chadli; Adebayor. Vorm; Dier, Chiriches, Fazio, Davies; Stambouli, Dembele; Lennon, Paulinho, Townsend; Soldado. Friedel, Veljkovic, Khumalo, Naughton, Ceballos, Mason, plus various youth players. Khumalo's still recovering from an injury and his contract's running out. I'd assume that Mason will be looking for a loan with a view to a permanent move. Reasonably well balanced otherwise, if a little overloaded at the back and light at the front. Need to work on a system that uses Lennon and Townsend on the correct flanks, though.
Just a copy from Premier League site. I will pass your observations on. Edit: http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/clubs/profile.squads.html/spurs
I don't have a crystal ball. I can't tell you if Lamela or Bentaleb or Paulinho will work out for us, or even if Eriksen will, despite a strong last half of last year. But many players and most coaches, even the best ones, require some patience. Bale was Jonah at one point, then he had no business as a midfielder, then he needed to stay on the left, instead of being used in a free role. Rodgers looked like a pretty crap manager for a while. 22 year olds tend to get much better, and 19 year olds improve even more. None of the 7 players we bought had enough of a regular run to have deserved a definitive thumbs down verdict. The one who came the closest IMO was Paulinho, who I think will never be a good player as one of the "2". But he might just work as an attacking mid for Pochettino. He scores goals and presses, at least. So he, along with the rest of the team and the coach, need patience, if we aren't going to have a team of Gylfis: players "not good enough" who really never had a long enough run of games for us to find out if they were good enough or not.
Updated squad numbers 1- Hugo Lloris 2- Kyle Walker 3- Danny Rose 4- Younes Kaboul 5- Jan Vertonghen 6- Vlad Chiriches 7- Aaron Lennon 8- Paulino 9- Roberto Soldado 10- Emmanuel Adebayor 11- Erik Lamela 13- Michel Vorm 15- Eric Dier 16- Kyle Naughton 17- Andros Townsend 18- Harry Kane 19- Mousa Dembele 21- Benjamin Stambouli 22- Nacer Chadli 23- Christian Eriksen 24- Brad Friedel 25- Federico Fazio 29- Etienne Capoue 32- Benoit Assou-Ekotto 33- Ben Davies 38- Ryan Mason 42- Nabil Bentaleb
One version is that Stambouli wanted the 22 shirt he normally wears, but when told Chadli has it he went for 21 - and since that was a placeholder as Fazio wanted either 2 or 6 (his Sevilla and Argentina numbers, held by Walker and Chiriches respectively), Fazio went for 25. Why not 26, don't ask. Of course, nobody seems to have noticed that Khumalo doesn't have a squad number this season. Or that Khumalo exists...
Rumour has it that the only reason Spurs haven't retired that is due to the very rare possibility of Ledley's son ever playing for Spurs and therefore choosing to follow in his old man's footsteps. Who's this Khumalo you speak of? Wouldn't surprise me if he goes back to Supersport soon.
Khumalo's still recovering from a bad injury that he picked up towards the end of last season when he was on loan. His contract expires in the summer, I believe, so he'll probably recover here til he's fully fit, maybe getting the odd game with the U21s, then loan out and leave permanently.
