Transfer Rumours transfer thread fact and fiction

I think he's been asked to play on the left of the midfield, though.
If he can find space out there and pick out passes to Son, Kane and Reguilon, who should be the players around him, then he can be influential.
There's also the possibility of him shifting over to the right and Lo Celso playing where he did last night.
That may make more sense, especially if we can sort out the right-back role and Moura keeps up his current creativity.

 

For starters Pjanic is better and he's free.you just got bryan gil who looks a damn sight better for less than 50m.

I'm sure there are plenty of midfielders who you can get for less than 50m who are better

 

I think the old Dele was fine counter attacking. I think you boys were one of the best at it during 2016 - 2018. The players all knew each others movement, the play between the front 3/4 and dele worked hard going forward and back and was on the end/assisting plenty. Somethings happened and i haven't seen him to much but it sounds like he just doesn't have the work rate or intensity anymore. Agree he didn't fit mourinhos style, firstly he wasn't playing that far forward and secondly, mourinho drops his midfield/wingers really deep which doesnt suit dele at all who prefers starting further up

 

The period you've described we were as far removed from a counter attacking side as can be imagined, save for games against absolute top quality opposition where we very sensibly changed our approach (e.g. in the CL v Real Madrid).

Our defence pushed a high line, usually advancing to the centre circle as quickly as possible. When we lost possession our high press won it back again and if that failed, Dembele and Wanyama stepped in. We averaged 70% possession in almost every game. Rose and Walker stretched teams wide while Son and Kane occupied defenders and Eriksen conducted the orchestra. Dele's role was to take advantage of the havoc caused by all of the above, which he did superbly. But he rarely created the havoc.

And now that you've led me to describe the best spurs team I have ever seen, I'm off for a little cry in the corner thanks very much.

 

It just sounds like square pegs in proverbials to me. Sorry. Similar approach to Harry playing Modric at left wing or Sven doing the same with Scholes. It's essentially asking for sub-standard perfomances.

To my mind, if Nuno is sticking to 433 we'd be best off adjusting it slightly and play a midfield 'foundation' of 2 (Skipp and Hojbjerg) with one of Lo Celso or Ndombele 'sitting' just in front of them in more of a free role. This bridges the gap between midfield and the front three that we currently lack the long-range passer to do otherwise.

I just can't see Dele fitting in anywhere and tbh I worry that there might have been 'words from above' to play him in one final desperate attempt to salvage what at one point looked like a £100m asset.

In my lifetime, I have only ever seen two players adapt fully to a completely new role in the team: Bale in his final season, and Kane in what hopefully wasn't his. And they are once in a generation talents.
(Obviously Gary Doherty's conversion from CB to ST goes without saying).

 

If that's the plan then we need to sell at least one of Dele, Ndombele and Lo Celso and buy another DM to back up Skipp and Hojbjerg. But the formation we used yesterday is more like Man City, with one DM sitting deep, two wingers and the other three fluid. In which case, we need all three of our attacking midfielders and possibly one more unless John is already good enough.

 

A 4-2-3-1 with very little creativity. One of the midfield two would have to be a playmaker or ball carrier for it to work, in my opinion.
It makes us too negative otherwise and we're reacting to the opposition constantly and struggle to get out.

I don't think that we should be relying on Skipp to start every week, either.
It's a little too early for him and he should be backup and competition for Hojbjerg, so the Dane doesn't have to play every minute of every game.

 

At the risk of sounding like damning with faint praise, Skipp and John have certainly taken their opportunities this pre-season to give Hojbjerg a few games off

Of course, if SIssoko's tabbed for the exit, it's likely that Hojbjerg will move further up the pitch and play as a box-to-box which he did at the Euros and for a few games at the end of last season when Lo Celso picked up a(nother) knock while Ndombele was benched and he was knitting our play together very well

...although there's an obvious issue there, because for games where Skipp is rested for whichever reasons, Hojbjerg is the obvious player to drop back and replace him, and that means we'll once again be running down the minutes in his legs PDQ

 

I have severe reservations about 433 as a system in general as I think it can inadvertently neuter the midfield and attack in one fell swoop.

It'd be useful to analyse how City and Pool have used the system to achieve success. If we don't have the same tools at our disposal as them, it makes little sense to persevere with it.

There is little sense comparing like for like with City as we don't have anyone nearly as good as KDB and tbh B Silva too.

Pool's midfield is closer to our own in terms of overall quality and cost. Fabinho is a superior DM than anyone we can put forward but the other 2 spots divvied up among Henderson, Wijnaldum, Keita, Thiago and Milner suggests that Klopp compensates for a lack of truly class creators with workmanlike graft, instead relying far more than City on his FBs to create chances. Last season exposed Pool's midfield because both FBs suffered injuries and loss of form, plus couldn't get forward as often as he'd have liked them to due to all their CBs being crippled, and the end result was suddenly their famed front 3 looked bang average for much of the season.

I can't see any midfield 3 we can put out being able to match City for creativity and balance.

I can however see a midfield 3 of Hojbjerg/Skipp/Lo Celso being able to match Pool for graft and effort.

But you're right. Where does the creativity come from? Our FBs currently aren't anywhere close to matching what TAA and Robertson managed 2 seasons ago. The number of assists they racked up between them was insane.

So I come back to my point earlier about Dele.... I think we are turning to him to provide that missing midfield creativity but he just isn't the answer. The hard truth is Ndombele is probably the only player who can provide what we're missing to make a 433 work. But can we get him to work?

That's the £55m question...

 

Looks like Atalanta may be about to sign an Italy U21 international CB by the name of Lovato. Bearing in mind they replaced Gollini before letting him go, this may be a sign that negotiations for Romero are coming to a head.

Or maybe it isn’t. Who knows, at this point.

 

Yeah I think Hojbjerg, Skipp and Ndombele* is our best bet for a complete midfield. Hojbjerg and Skipp, whilst likely being labelled as DMs aren’t the destroyer types like Wanyama who just pretty much just sit back and murder attackers, they’re not as competent defensively as Wanyama but they are more creative and forward thinking meaning that whilst it’s essentially having two DMs in the side, it’s not out and out side pass merchants who just know how to tackle, there’s arguments to be made for Hojbjerg especially that he could be an effective box-to-box midfielder, with Skipp as a defensive deeper lying playmaker. Having two “all action” guys supporting Ndombele, who does have the ability to be very creative, is where I think the best balance lies at the moment of our current CM options.

*If the fat **** actually gets into shape for once and puts some graft in.

But as I’ve said on the other thread, I also wouldn’t be against trialling Lucas in a more central advanced attacking midfield role, with Hojbjerg and Skipp again being the ones supporting him.

 

The athletic are saying that Skipp could be loaned out again, depending on the signings we make.

no matter who we sign, we shouldn’t be loaning out Skipp IMO. he’s one of the only players I’m excited to see in the team next season.

Mind you, “Don Paratici” has only managed to bring in a goalkeeper on loan and a youngster so far, so I’m feeling confident Skippy will be with us!

 

Gianluigi Glongari, who's been following the Romero deal quite closely, is saying we’re set to make a bid of €50m plus €5m in bonuses and say we’re confident of an agreement with this one.

Personally, if that’s not accepted I think we should move on. Atalanta have been seemingly increasing the price tag for a while now, especially once Barca became interested (who are ****ing skint and are offering just a loan with obligation) and we can’t keep upping our offer only for the asking price to keep increasing too. The initial price seemed set at around €40m-€45m and it’s now been raised by about €10m-€15m in recent days/ weeks, any more and we should move on to Milenkovic and or other targets.

As much as Romero looks like he’d be a great signing, we can’t keep playing silly buggers.

 

We've clearly reached the point where both clubs are looking to see how will blink first, with Atalanta sources are chucking Barca's name around while ours have dropped in mention of looking at Milenkovic and Tomiyasu if this doesn't go through

There's another suggestion as Atalanta are obviously going to want to bring in a replacement CB, and given the way they operate they're going to want to do that without being asked "Can I smell €50m burning a hole in your pocket?", although at this point the cat's out of the bag so they're either going to have to eat paying a tad more than they intended or they're going to have Sanchez headed their way as part of the deal (or, if we go Full Levy, we sell them Sanchez a couple of days after announcing Romero)

 

Levy's probably already sent Dier and Sanchez some Learn Italian software packages

 

this is a prime example of a transfer where the difference in valuations isn’t massive, when it’s already costing a fortune in the first place.
Just get on with it and move onto the next one!

 

How will Levy pay for the never to play in a serious game type of player if he spends all his money on a potential game changer type of player?

 

I watched the final of the women's archery today , the TV had a box on screen which showed the competitor's heart rate , in the one arrow shoot off for the gold the South Korean girls rate was 104 bpm the Russian OC was 156 bpm , Korean shot a 10 Russian was 8
This tells me I should no longer read any more old bollocks on MSM about our clubs coming or goings until the window closes

 

I have tried to watch football and news around it in a zen manner. It works for me most of the time but occasionally like Lucas's hattrick in the CL semi final or Bale in the CL it all goes out of the window. But the most emotion I experience is from poor decisions by officials I used to get beside myself when I played and I can be almost as bad watching it. Oh and the commentary's you get now which are mostly awful. So apart from all that I stay calm on the transfer news because so much of the news is complete bullshit. Like my mate @Spurlock I am always calm and measured

 

I try to be the same but having just seen the GB ladies result I can only assume that the Tottenham defensive coaches from last season were somehow involved , how pissed would you be to score a hat trick and still lose , Zen my arse