Lloris being linked again with a move to France, this time with Nice which is the club he started out with. Mike Maignan’s name also cropped up again as a potential replacement, @humanbeingincroydon, I know you mentioned him the other day about being linked in the past.
Yep. I really like our academy setup too and I wish we'd tapped into it more in recent years, lost some very promising players, got to try avoiding that going forward and making sure they feel they have a path into the first team with the right work ethic.
I think that we need a better U23 coach, as well as the obvious DoF to sort out our loans. Get Martin Jol in and start streaming the games on Youtube.
I don't understand why so many of you are convinced that Kane will leave this Summer. I said it before, but I honestly believe he Zaha'd himself with signing that new deal last Summer (or was it the one before?). In any case, he still has 3 years left on his contract. So, unless there's some sort of clause in that deal, Levy holds all the cards. Most of the top foreign clubs appear to be skint, whereas Ornstein reported that Levy would be reluctant to let him go to a domestic rival. So he'd have to force a transfer through to leave by refusing to play or train. And that would damage his image dramatically. I do also think he's got an affinity to Spurs, and he wouldn't want to ruin that, so this isn't likely. I'll be stunned if he leaves this Summer.
I've said it a few times, some Spurs fans are as obsessed with the idea of us selling Harry Kane as Skyte Sports pundits are The fact that, in the summer of 2018, I got into it on Twitter with a member of the Lunatic Fringe who was spouting off that Anton Walkes leaving was the first step before we sold him (because selling our fourth-choice RB is obviously going to lead to us selling our first-choice striker that same window...) sums up just how long some of them have become fixated on this
The best way of getting young players to improve is to pick them, I think and then support them when they have bad patches. I suspect if one of Parrott and Scarlett played 20 matches next season we would find out for sure if they were likely to make it. Much less risky than spending 20m on Vinicius.
About 5-6 years ago there used to be a way to watch U23 games, my mind has gone to pot a bit and I can't remember if it was via official streams or a more "back door" way but I used to watch a lot of their games. Would be great if they could stream them on YouTube, I'd love to start watching them again.
The biggest issue with our loans is some of them look poorly thought-out. For example, who signed off on Ryan Mason's loan to Lorient where he didn't play, and why do I have the sneaking suspicion it was Dim Sherwood? Every season we have one or two players who go out on loan and we wonder why we bothered, with Josh Oluwayemi's loan to Maidenhead being the most obvious example this season because he learned less sitting on the bench in the National League than he would have playing for our U23s, and the less said about the flusterfuck that was Jack Clarke's loan back to Leeds last season the better
I definitely agree that game time is pivotal and significant game time at that too, not a five minute cameo off the bench. Jose has said Scarlett will be in the first team squad next season so it'll be interesting to see. Though we shouldn't be putting too much pressure on him or Parrott to be the main understudy to arguably the best striker in world football at the moment. So I'd like to sign Vinicius if the price was right, I think he's proven a very decent understudy in the chances he's had. 10 goals and 3 assists in 21 appearances is a very solid return for a second choice striker, he's only started 9 or 10 games too I think. If we could secure another loan or get him for around £15m-£20m I think it'd be good business.
I think we should keep an eye on Dembele's loan at Atletico if we can't come to an agreement on Vinicius. It doesn't appear to be going well and he's a decent age, fits the bill and counts as homegrown. We could even play him with Kane against some opposition.
Let me just Google who that is quickly. Nah hard to say to be honest. Wouldn't be surprised if he goes across the pond to the MLS, not sure he'd appeal to many top flight sides in any of Europe's top 5 leagues nowadays. Definitely don't see Milan offering him a contract
Bologna director, Walter Sabatini, has said he’s looking at the chance to see if he can sign Lamela from us in the summer. Apparently he was the guy that signed Lamela for Roma.
Might make sense, having had a quick browse. Their right-winger is Riccardo Orsolini, who they signed from Juventus in the summer of 2019. He's progressed well, there's some suggestion he's going back and he'll only have a year left on his contract at the end of the season. They've got a couple of youngsters in that position, so it might be sensible to bring in someone experienced in the meantime.
the only thing is, it's bologna. Last year they spent 3m total and there max signing was 1.8m according to transfermarkt Saying that they did spend 60m the year before covid hit with 13.5m being the biggest outlay. 28m the year before (8m) and 11m (3m) in 17/18 Anyway i think you get the picture, you'll have to pay the air fare for lamela to join bologna during covid 2nd year
They'll presumably have some cash from the sale of Orsolini, but we wouldn't get that much for Lamela, anyway. He's 29, he'll have a year left on his contract and he's got a poor injury history.
