...no, I won't be mentioning that winger shortlist that SpursWeb put out, given it's just churnalising something GiveMeSport shat out
Loic Tanzi says that Lens need to raise €44m in January and will have to offload one of Abdukodir Khusanov or Kevin Danso, though do not want to lose both - though their commitment to this doesn't seem to be very firm given they've got Jorge Mendes on call for Danso Lucky that we're reportedly looking at Khusanov then...
Ange: Moving forward, we probably need to err on the side of getting a little bit more experience into the squad, just to help the group, because we’ve got very few at that kind of sweet spot in terms of ages. And we want to give the guys in their teens or early twenties the opportunity to keep growing. We need to make sure we put quality around them, so how we allocate the next resources may shift a little bit. ———————————— Experience and quality = music to my ears, love it, Ange. I knew it since the summer and I think more fans have joined me on the dark side too, so with Ange now also mentioning the need for it, it puts the ball into the hierarchy’s court to deliver. Three would be a real statement but two quality additions could make the world of difference to a side that is extremely inconsistent. Look at the impacts of Kulu and Bentancur under Conte, or even better - van Dijk at Liverpool - to see what a quality January addition can do for your team. Over to you, Johan and Daniel.
I don't disagree, but one of the most glaring issues is that the players who are in that supposed 'sweet spot' have been among our most inconsistent or disappointing performers all season. Bissouma is still capable of the most ridiculous brain farts and too many games pass him buy, Bentancur doesn't seem at all suited to the system, Maddison has blown hot and cold, my opinions on Son are well published, Solanke isn't converting enough of the crucial half chances, Werner is shocking, Romero has been a huge let down this season, and Richarlison must have won a raffle to become a professional footballer. It isn't so much that I would have expected all of the above to be superstars under Ange, but by the same token not a single one of them has improved under his tutelage and none of them strike me as being in their peak years. They are consistently outshone by younger players like Micky, Kulu and Sarr. That, imo, is a serious rebuttal of Ange's argument.
I don't think that it's about experience, but about roles and balance. We don't have any holding midfielders and all of ours would work better with one. We only have three useable fullbacks.
The lack of an out-and-out DM continues to confound, because having an ankle-seeking missile on the bench is the exact sort of player we needed when we were 2-0 up against Brighton a couple of months ago
DM is definitely the one spot we lack a specialist in, I think Gray is seen as that for the future but until he actually plays some games there we’ll never be sure. We have 4 useable FBs, the manager’s just dealt with it horrifically by overplaying two and barely playing the others. As for experience and quality, I think the squad’s really lacking some headline acts. We’ve got quite a lot of decent players but few great ones, plus a couple absolute rotters. There a few with potential to be great but we’re looking at 2-3 years before we can even realise that. This January we need a couple of genuinely big players, the types who not only deliver consistently good performances but also have the capability of elevating the performances of players around them.
My worry is the club does what it does last winter and signs an experienced and quality player like they did Jan 2024.
Hope so. His wages are huge for what he brings to the table. Got Richarlison (if he’s ever fit again), Mikey Moore and Yang so wouldn’t miss him.
The probability that Spurs have 1-2 MF signings in mind that could have a Kulu 2022 effect, is IMHO quite low.
