Two separate cases though. Whilst there’s interest in Lo Celso we should be snapping the hands off of any potential buyer. Especially as they’re offering a permanent option. We can deal with Ndombele as and when the opportunities arise, if reports are true thugh he may not even be officially up for sale seeing as some claim Ange wants to make his own assessment, so that could be why we’re not hearing of much interest yet. Ideally he’s gone by the close of window but I won’t hold my breath.
The thing about Ange still assessing Ndombele is that he's (reportedly...) already assessed some players, for example Reguilon reportedly was on the transfer slate by the end of the first week of training The main issue with Lo Celso/Ndombele though is that there's a spot for them in the squad while Bentancur is out, and will likely remain open as he gets back to fitness and match sharpness - and the issue with that is trying to find which player has at least some chance of filling in short-term, and TBH Lo Celso probably is better in that regard because while he does have his injury issues he doesn't have the waddling around at half pace when he doesn't have the ball issues that Ndombele has ...which gets to the second wrinkle, as it's not unreasonable to say that Hojbjerg could do a good job in trad No8 role in our midfield while Bentancur is out, as he's shown in the past season or two he is a surprisingly effective asset going forwards because of his workrate and he's certainly better at passing than people give him credit for, and yet Hojbjerg is seen as a way to get a quick £20m+ in the coffers when he'd arguably be the perfect utility player for Ange's system while Lo Celso and Ndombele have their obvious weaknesses
Looks like Onana to United is almost done, which (hopefully) paves the way for Hugo to move to Inter and a few more dominoes to fall into place. After a bright start to the window we appear to have hit the same invisible road block that halts our progress every year - the inability to move players on in order to sign new players.
While also making it look like Brentford have royally Berahino'd David Raya, since he's gone from having interest from us (and reportedly Man Utd) to staying put
If we had a gun to our heads and had to pick one of them to keep then I’d go with Ndombele… though I’d arguably tell the gunman to pull the trigger so I wouldn't have to see either in a Spurs shirt again. But Ndombele’s shown he can handle the Premier League for about 20-30 minutes a game. Lo Celso simply can’t handle it all and being made of glass just doesn’t help either. When both eventually go, I think despite being our biggest and most monumental flops (Richarlison is sweating though), fans could probably list just over a handful of positive Ndombele moments, I doubt many could reach their middle finger when counting for Lo Celso ones and the fact he’s had mock compilations about his errors sort of tells you just how bad he was/ is for us. As for Hojbjerg, I’ve said before but doing a job is different to being suited. He’s a good player who I’ll personally miss but just not right for what Ange will need for his system to be a success. He’s probably the best player at the club right now we can afford to sell without being left in a state of panic of how to replace them.
Ironically this shows the issue with highlights: yes people can point to a five second clip where Ndombele dribbles past two or yhree players, but the five minutes either side of that he's as mobile as the corner flags - while Lo Celso tends to get hockey assists which are often missed by highlights and only get picked up by stats nerds Obviously the issue there is Lo Celso is effectively playing like Hojbjerg does when paired with Skipp, Winks or Sissoko when he's supposed to be a Dele/Lamela hybrid, but it's also why there's interest in him plus he has a spot in the Argentina squad because at the very least he can operate as a cog in a system while Ndombele is another Dalmat where he looks good in a narrow focus because he has some flicks and tricks, but when you expand that focus you soon see he's slacking when out of possession and he's sucking wind with 30-40 minutes on the clock Conte summed up the issue with both of them, though: playing them from kickoff removed the possibility of a tactical sub, Ndombele because he'd be knackered while Lo Celso as he needed a few games to get match fit due to injury - although TBH I do get the feeling Conte's issue with Lo Celso was more personal given how he seemed to always slag him off to the press, given Richarlison casually mentioned getting yelled at by Conte for a couple of hours during training because he disagreed with him once
Both players will have very limited highlights in a Spurs shirt, it's just that Ndombele will have slightly more. Both also struggle to play 90 minutes which further highlights how awful a signing they've been for the money spent, albeit Ndombele is down to his laziness, Lo Celso is down to blowing over in the wind. So then it comes down to who we can think will impact a game in say 20 minutes, basing on what they've shown in their time here with us, you'd have to go with Ndombele. Statistically he's out done Lo Celso and from a general observation perspective he has the ability to make an impact in the Premier League due to his skill and creativity, whereas Lo Celso has often looked uncomfortable with the pace of it. Conte's issue was probably a mix of personal and ability reasoning for his dislike for the player. As has been said before, Dan KP had already reported Lo Celso isn't liked around the place and then from an ability perspective he'd shown Spurs fans (and Conte) absolutely nothing, the ability part is likely why Richarlison also got the hairdryer treatment, a £60m forward who at the time didn't have a single league goal to his name would've annoyed any manager. For Richarlison's sake, he's going to need a substantially improved second season, otherwise he does the almost impossible and cement himself as an even poorer signing than those two.
Can’t see it myself. Smacks of lazy journalism. We wouldn’t want him for the same reasons ETH is phasing him out of United.
The thing with Conte and Lo Celso is there did seem to be some kind of needle there, as when we loaned him to Villarreal the first time Conte said something along the lines of "He doesn't follow instructions" - yet that rings hollow as there's been no complaints from Unai Emery or Quique Setien, both of whom have been more than happy with him and made him an important cog in their systems (even though he missed half the season under Setien due to his hamstring wanting to tour the rest of his leg) nor for the Argentine side, and the stuff that was put out about him not being liked and teammates finding him odd both felt nasty and also doesn't necessarily ring true given he was at Reggie's Christmas party a couple of years ago and seems to be pretty tight with Cuti and Gil TBH at this point it's probably worth waiting 5-6 years to see if any of our current squad drop a biography, and it's likely that H, Sonny, Hugo and Perisic might do that in that timeframe, just to see what light that sheds on what it was like under Conte the season past - and if there's any difference in the two seasons* he was with us
He's an absolute waste man and I'm sad to see Manchester have found a manager that figured it out and ignored Maguires arse lickers in this country. I'd be amazed if anyone wants him, but there's plenty of jobs for the boys in football.
I think he’s in an environment he’s not suited to. Looked good at Leicester and usually plays well for England where his mobility shortcomings are less exposed and he can use his ability on the ball more. I think he’d have suited us as a central CB in a back 3 under Conte but Ange plays a high line so I can’t see there being anything there.
He would suit those teams who sit deep, play three CBs and rely on physicality at the back. Good header of the ball, strong and carries the ball out from the back well. But not suited to teams who play a high line, push forward and need pace to cover the counter attack. He won’t be joining a top six club.
Would've been a smart pickup when we could've signed him from Hull for relative peanuts Instead we decided that instead of signing Maguire for £12m that summer, instead we should pay £42m for Davinson Sanchez...
I don't particularly rate him but Ten Hag's system definitely exposed him. High line with a goalkeeper who didn't like coming off his line and was awful with the ball at his feet is the opposite set up to one Maguire would thrive in. International football suits him as the pace of the game tends to be slower while Waistcoat insists on us dropping deep as soon as we score, so his deficiencies aren't as exposed.
As above, Sanchez made much more sense for the system we played under Poch than Maguire. The only crazy thing about the deal was the amount we spent on him, and how long we have subsequently held onto him for.
Realistically, given Poch was playing 3ATB in the latter half of the 2016-17 season, Maguire certainly would've slotted into that system considering Poch played Dier as the RCB of the three, which in turn would've freed up Dier to play as either a CB or DM when required
